Page 6 of The Fake Husband
That earns me another pinch. Nadine is a very physical person. She can't talk to anyone she likes without her touching or pinching or smacking. It's her love language. I have a decade's worth of pinches and smacks to prove it.
The cab ride to the resort takes twenty minutes along a coastal highway. Nadine watches the landscape through the window, occasionally pointing out something worth seeing—a stretch of perfect blue water, a cluster of brightly painted buildings. I watch the road ahead and think about nothing in particular,except the fact that I will now be playing husband to the only one I have ever fallen for.
Tough.
The resort appears around a curve in the road—white plaster walls rising from landscaped grounds, terracotta roof tiles. Beautiful but still pales in comparison to the woman beside me.
Nadine stops just inside the entrance, and my hand finds the small of her back as we approach the check-in desk. No big deal. Just a husband guiding his wife into a resort lobby.
The clerk smiles at us over a polished wood counter. "Name, please?"
"Nadine Jeeves."
"Welcome. I have your reservation right here—king suite, courtyard view."
Nadine's spine straightens. "That's great, thank you."
The room is exactly what you'd expect from a boutique resort trying very hard to look effortless—king bed with white linens, terracotta tile floor, ceiling fan clicking on high. French doors open onto a narrow balcony overlooking a courtyard with bougainvillea climbing the walls. Not the ocean view.
Derek would have booked an ocean view for himself … or maybe not. Maybe he has giant floor-to-ceiling mirrors so he could admire himself from every angle.
"So, the bed," Nadine says.
"I see it."
"I could ask for a cot."
"The cot would be for me, and I'm six-five. My legs would hang off the end, and I'd wake up with my spine rearranged. Not ideal when we're playing convincing married people."
Nadine looks at me for a moment, weighing something, then nods once.
"Window side," I tell her, unzipping my bag. "Don't steal the blanket."
"I don't steal blankets."
"You took the entire blanket at Rachel's New Year's party and left me with a decorative pillow that was smaller than my head."
"That pillow was a normal size."
"It had a tassel on it."
"Some pillows have tassels, River."
"Not the ones you sleep with."
I'm dressed and ready in twelve minutes—dark jeans, black button-down, dress shoes. Nadine is still in the bathroom with the door closed.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I do not look at my phone because Rachel's texts have only increased, and I know what they say, some variation of the same thing she's been telling me since Nadine and Derek broke up.
Did you finally tell her?
Stop being a wussy.
This is your chance. Don't screw it.
You owe me big time for this.
The bathroom door opens, and Nadine steps out in a yellow top with thin straps and a white skirt that hits above the knee. Her hair is down, black waves falling past her shoulders. She's added some kind of gold dust to her eyelids that catches the light when she blinks.
