We both glance down, and, sure enough, there is coffee spatter all over her white denim capris.
Laughter tumbles from our lips as she walks toward me. “Come on, I’ll show you out.”
I’m halfway out the door when Jolie delivers another bombshell.
Chapter 34
Lance
I’ve been listening for Vivienne’s return since she left. As soon as I hear the door open, I’m out of my office. She’s covered in what looks like drops of green paint. “I thought Jackson Pollock died almost seventy years ago.”
“Very funny,” she says, whipping by me and jogging up the stairs.
I’ve been working all day, and I’m tired of my own company. And even though it’s obvious Vivienne’s been avoiding me, I’m done making it easy for her.
So I follow her. “What happened to you?”
“Joey doesn’t like spinach,” she answers, “or airplanes.”
“Good to know.”
She makes a noncommittal noise and heads into her bedroom. Since she doesn’t close the door, I stand just at the threshold, catching her shirt when she pulls it over her head and tosses it my way. Her skirt is next. “I hope your money bought you stain-free fabric.”
Clad in barely-there panties and a bra, she pulls out a dresser drawer and rifles through it. My mouth goes dry as I take in the smooth skin of Vivienne’s back bisected by the delicate ladder of her spine, the rounded curves of her ass that taper to slim, shapely thighs. Too soon, she steps into a clean pair of shorts and pulls a tank top over her head, but it’s one of those tiny ones that dips low in the front and clings to her breasts.
I’m still holding her discarded clothes when she grabs them from my hands and brushes past me.
“Did something else happen, some reason why you’re in a bad mood?”
Vivienne stomps down the stairs and into the laundry room, agitation surrounding her like a fine mist. “Why did you bring me to dinner with your friends?”
“Why did I . . .” I repeat the first part of her question, a confused frown pulling at my brows. “You didn’t have a good time?”
She starts the washing machine. “That’s not the point.”
Again, I shake my head. “Then what is?”
This time, when Vivienne tries to walk past me, I extend my arm and grab hold of the doorjamb, blocking her path. She turns her feverish gaze on me. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously. What’s gotten into you?”
I’m expecting her to duck beneath my arm and walk away from me, but instead, she jabs her index finger into my chest. “You. You are what’s gotten into me.”
I don’t say anything. There’s no need to press her for answers. Whatever is upsetting Vivienne is too volatile to stay silent.
“If you were just going to tell Tripp about me, that you’re paying me, that we’re just an act—why did you have to bring me with you the other night? I mean, at some stuffy party, I know what I’m there for, what my role is. But today, I was blindsided. Why did you have to tell him?”
Before I can even attempt to respond, she releases a soggy laugh. “I know I shouldn’t be mad. I told my friend Savannah about us. So maybe you needed to tell someone, too. I just wish I’d known. Going over their house to help Jolie, I just wish—” She breaks off and stares resentfully at me. “Let me out of the laundry room, please.”
My arm falls, and I step aside. Vivienne grabs a vitamin water from the fridge and leans back against the door, uncapping the top and taking a long sip. Her profile could be carved of ivory. Her high, wide forehead, the slope of her slim nose, her perfectly sculpted lips and well-defined chin. Eyelashes that sit like russet-colored smudges over the crest of her cheekbones. Her throat moves as she swallows.
“I should have. You’re right and I’m sorry.”
“It was embarrassing, Lance. Like the time in third grade when I tucked my skirt in my tights and didn’t realize until after I walked back into my classroom.” Her eyes blink rapidly, and her hand is wrapped so tightly around her water that her knuckles are white. “Kids laughed. And even after the teacher shut it down, I knew they’d all seen my underwear.”
Eventually, she turns her head to me, her back still against the refrigerator door. “I know you’re paying me a lot of money. I know that this is a job. But I’m a fraud. I know it, you know it, and now Jolie and Tripp know it, too.”
The naked ache inside her eyes slays me, but when I take a step toward her, she lifts a hand, palm out, so I don’t move any closer.
“I came here this summer to find myself. To reset and focus on my dreams, my goals. Me. But instead, I’m here, living with you, working for you, lying for you. My entire identity is wrapped around you.”
She pauses, her chin quivering. “I need to know if anything between us is real, Lance. Anything at all. Because I thought we had something, or at least the start of something. But the second you put me on your payroll, the second I became your employee, everything changed.”
I take a slow step forward, then another, keeping my eyes locked on Vivienne’s face. I hate that my self-centered plan has caused her any pain at all. It seemed like a simple idea, with no downside.
I was wrong.
I created my own Catch-22. By paying Vivienne to be with me, I’ll never allow myself to be with her. In the back of my mind, I’ll always believe she’s in it for the money.
I didn’t force her to accept my offer. But she did. She chose money over me. And she’s using it as an excuse to sleep in separate bedrooms, to limit our interaction to public performances only.
Nothing gold can stay. And what Vivienne and I once had, was pure gold.
We can never be a real couple, the kind that lasts. Fake is all we’ll ever be.
I steel myself to deliver words that need to be said, for both our sakes. “What’s real is the agreement we made. The money in your bank account. And yeah, the attraction is also real. But real doesn’t mean forever. Nothing lasts forever.”
I’m wrong about that, too. Because the look in her eyes, the hurt on Vivienne’s face . . . I’ll never forget it as long as I live.
Chapter 35
Vivienne
31 DAYS UNTIL LABOR DAY
I don’t succumb to unconsciousness until the sun’s first rays crawl across the horizon, a tender pink band separating sky from sea. My room is bright when I jerk awake, clutching the duvet to my chest and breathing heavily. At first, I don’t know what’s woken me up out of a dead sleep, but then I notice my phone buzzing on the nightstand.
My head feels like it’s stuffed with steel wool, my eyes burning from the sudden intrusion of daylight. I don’t even glance at the screen before answering. “Vivienne—finally!”
“Mom?” I croak, falling back against the pillows.
“Well, who else would it be?” I hear the tap of a teaspoon on porcelain and have an almost visceral yearning for the French press coffee my mother makes every morning. “It’s been ages.”