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)
I blow out a breath. “Okay. I just need to put some actual books on the bookshelf, and I think we’re ready. Well, as ready as we’ll ever be.”
“You’re sure your head’s okay?” Colin asks, coming to crouch beside me at the bookcase, helping me move the pile of books from the floor to the bookshelves.
“Positive,” I say, since the pain’s receded almost entirely. “Just a bump.”
He glances down at the book in his hand and turns it around so I can see the cover. The Modern Woman’s Guide to Leadership. “Don’t recall this one being in my collection.”
“Some of the books have to be mine,” I point out. “I’m supposed to live here too, and I can assure you, I wouldn’t be touching your Edgar Allan Poe collection. It’ll be weird if the room is entirely masculine, with only your stuff.”
“Is that why there’s a pink glittery stapler on my desk?”
“Our desk,” I say, patting his knee and standing. “For the rest of the afternoon, it’s our desk. Our office. Our home.” I look him over. “You should change into something more comfortable.”
He lifts his eyebrows.
“Relax. I’m not trying to get in your pants. You look like you just came from the office.”
“I did just come from the office. Something Gordon will likely understand since he set up the meeting for three p.m. on a Thursday.”
“Still, shouldn’t we look a little more … domestic?”
“Which means what? Levis and slippers?”
“If I took the time to make my beastly hair pin straight,” I say, pointing at my head, “the least you can do is ditch the jacket and tie.”
“Fine.”
He heads into the bedroom, and I take one last look at the office. Not bad—I can practically picture Colin behind the antique desk working, maybe the two of us reading side-by-side in the chairs, my legs draped casually over his knees …
I hope Gordon Price can picture it too.
The stack of mail looks a little too neat, so I pick it up and then drop it down again, letting envelopes and catalogs scatter a little, as though one of us tossed it there as an afterthought, the way a normal couple might.
I turn on the lamp and leave the room, going into the bedroom. Our bedroom. Because convincing Gordon Price that we sleep in the same bed is sort of a no-brainer if we want him to think we’re trying to make this marriage work.
Hence the quick transformation of the second bedroom from guest room to office.
I’ve known all week what was coming, but I realize now that the idea of sharing a bedroom with Colin is different from actually seeing it in practice. Or maybe I just haven’t let myself think about how intimate it would be. It’s a little strange to see my water bottle and Kindle on one nightstand and his glasses case and book on the other.
Then there’s my razor in his shower. Our toothbrushes side by side in his bathroom.
“Charlotte?” he calls from the closet.
“Hmm?”
I go to the walk-in closet where he’s standing with his hand on his hips. “What’s all this?”
“My clothes,” I say, pointing out the obvious. “It’d be sort of a giveaway if I had all my clothes in the second bedroom closet.”
“True. But why is it so—”
“Lived in?” I say.
“Messy.”
“Well, believe it or not, some people have a wardrobe containing more than two colors.”
“Don’t you have a system?”
I blink. “A system? For a closet?”
He gestures at the haphazardly hung clothes. “To organize them in some way. Color? Season? Fabric.”
“No, dear. I don’t have a system.”
“Sometimes I don’t know how you get through the day,” he grumbles.
“Ooh, that’s good,” I say. “Be sure and whine about that to Gordon. Classic marriage gripe right there. The uptight neat freak who tries to tame the free spirit.”
“An interesting way to phrase the fact that you’re a bit of a slob.”
“Just because I don’t alphabetize my stuff by brand doesn’t make me a slob,” I argue in exaggeration. “You act like my stuff’s all over the floor. My clothes are hanging up!”
“The hangers don’t even match.”
My eyes go wide then narrow when I see his slight smile. “Oh, that’s really fantastic. You tell jokes now.”
“It’s the only way I can think to cope with the pain of this,” he says, gesturing at my side of the closet, which, I’ll grant, compared to his side does look a little chaotic.
“I’ll tell you what,” I say. “If we pass this test, I’ll let you rearrange my clothes however you want.”
“If we pass this test, I can get your clothes out of my closet.”
I’m glad his back is still to me, because I flinch at the reminder of just how eager he is to be rid of all things Charlotte. “Right.”
I back out of the closet. “Okay, so you sleep on the left side of the bed, me on the right. Or do we sleep in the middle? Do we cuddle?”