Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Where’d you put the can opener?
Did you move my phone charger?
Can you please turn off that god-awful music?
The last one is me because Colin apparently likes jazz, which has always sounded like chaos to my ears.
Mostly, we’ve avoided each other. I found a co-working space where I’ve rented a small office. I spend all day there, and then I’ve made it a point to catch up on the Manhattan social scene in the evenings. I’ve caught up with friends I haven’t seen in years, flirted with hot Wall Street guys over martinis, and just generally let myself remember how much I love this city.
I love it with as much enthusiasm as I hate my husband.
I’ve been half hoping for a hurricane. Not the really destructive kind, just … you know, rough enough that my mom will have to cancel this damn party.
But Friday rolls around, and though the day is oppressively humid, there’s zero chance of extreme weather canceling the party. Even if there was, there are stronger forces in this world than hurricanes.
My mother is one of them.
To her credit, she hasn’t nagged me about the party. Not about showing up, what to wear, how to behave. There are no lectures about not embarrassing her or unsubtle reminders to change absolutely everything about my personality.
Instead, it’s as though she merely expects me to be there, expects me to behave.
She’s treating me like an adult.
Which means … I have to act like one.
Given Colin’s and my deliberately misaligned schedules these days, I’m fully expecting to merely meet him there rather than coordinating our arrival. We’ll have to play nice for the evening, but we’re not on the clock until the party officially starts at six. Until then, I imagine we’ll be doing what we’ve been doing: pretending the other doesn’t exist.
Which is why I freeze in the process of putting my earrings in when I see Colin in the kitchen, drinking a glass of water.
“I didn’t hear you come in.”
His only response is a shrug. He’s wearing a navy suit with a white shirt and bright blue tie. The tie matches the color of my cocktail dress almost exactly, and perversely, I want to go change so we don’t match.
I don’t, mainly because the scrappy blue dress is the coolest item in my wardrobe that can satisfy my mom’s “cocktail attire” dress code. And considering it’s an atypically hot September, the fact that the dress has very little fabric, while still looking somewhat formal, means that I’m sticking with it.
Colin’s gaze rakes over me. “Nice nightgown.”
I ignore him, pulling a glass out of the cupboard and pouring myself a glass of water, because even with the AC blasting and the dress being blissfully shy of fabric, it still feels hot in here.
I jump when I feel the brush of fingers against my back and whirl around.
“Easy,” he says, holding up a hand in surrender. “Your zipper’s undone just a bit. I was going to fix it.”
“No. I’ve got it.” The back of the dress is mostly open at the top, with a crisscross pattern running across my shoulder blades. The zipper is near the bottom of the dress, running halfway up my back, and I realize after a moment of flailing that the zipper tab is just out of reach.
Colin’s dark eyebrows lift. “Need a hand?”
“Fine,” I mutter, turning around. “Don’t get frisky.”
“I’ll try to contain myself.”
And contain himself he does. He makes absolutely no effort to linger as his fingers brush against my back, fixing the tag with as little contact as possible before pulling away.
The brevity of the touch does nothing to lessen the impact on my pulse, and I grit my teeth in irritation at my misplaced attraction to a man I don’t like.
I take a gulp of water and turn around to glare at him. He’s glaring right back.
“So. Tonight should be fun.”
He rolls his shoulders. “At least you don’t have to wear a suit in a goddamn heat wave.”
“I didn’t realize robots registered body temperature. That’s some pretty advanced AI.”
“A robot? That’s what you’re going with?”
“It’s the best scenario I can come up with for why you are the way you are.”
“Which is what?”
“Impassive. Unreadable. Incapable of human emotion.”
He carefully sets his glass on the counter. “How do you figure that?”
“You never smile. Or laugh. Even when you get mad, you tamp it back down immediately.”
“I see. So because I don’t show every emotion, I must not have any.”
“Do you?” I ask curiously.
He picks up his glass and puts it in the dishwasher. “Are you ready to go?”
“See, this is exactly what I mean! Whenever I try to talk about anything personal, you shut down.”
“Not all of us are wired to open up to perfect strangers, Charlotte.”
“A stranger,” I repeat. “Seriously. I’m your—”
He steps closer. “You’re what … my wife? No, you’re not. Not in a way that warrants you access into my innermost thoughts. I didn’t know you when I signed the marriage license, and I don’t know you now. And you don’t know me either, so perhaps you’ll want to consider withholding judgment.”