Just in Time (23 page)

“A bit harder than we thought, all this,” he said.

“Yes. It is. I’m sorry that I’m not holding up my end of things better. I’m just not…used to, I mean, I haven’t…” She stopped. “I’m not good at pretending.”

“You didn’t even have to tell me that.” He smiled at her, and she smiled back. “I’m good at pretending,” he confessed. “Always have been.”

“And it doesn’t feel a little…” She hesitated. “A little empty?”

“Yeh,” he said, sobered again. “It does, at times.” He shoved himself off the bed. “I’ll go take a shower, eh, get dressed.”

“Good idea. It’s easier for me to pretend when you’re dressed.”

He wasn’t sure what that meant. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. So he went in and took his shower instead.

He was knocking on the door again an hour later, but didn’t get an answer this time, so he opened the door a crack and peered cautiously inside.

Her hands weren’t busy over her laptop this time. They were still on the keys, but she was asleep.

“Faith,” he said softly. “Dinner.”

She didn’t respond. He went to stand beside her, reached out to touch on the shoulder, then changed his mind and lifted his hand again. Instead, he slid the computer out from under her hands, and, when she still didn’t stir, closed the lid and set it on the bedside table.

He considered her clothes, and decided to leave them. If she woke up to find him undressing her…that wasn’t going to go over well. Instead, he went to the closet, found an extra duvet, and covered her with it. She sighed, murmured, rolled over, and snuggled in, and he smiled, gave in to temptation, and bent to kiss her cheek.

“Night, baby,” he said softly, then was startled to hear himself say it. But he needed to practice, didn’t he? He needed to pretend.

Faith woke to another much-too-early morning after another much-too-early night, and how Will managed to fly from one continent, even one hemisphere to the next and play rugby, she couldn’t imagine. She couldn’t even stay awake past six o’clock.

At least this time she’d slept until five-thirty, so who knew? Maybe tonight she’d manage to have dinner with Will’s family before she collapsed. As long as she didn’t go to yoga.

She’d had her phone by the bed this morning, anyway, and had been able to use the flashlight to get out of the bedroom without waking Will up. Of course, that was because she hadn’t had to get dressed. She’d fallen asleep in her clothes, and he’d covered her up, obviously, which was so…so sweet. But then, he
was
sweet. She’d always known that.

Another nagging splinter of guilt stabbed her as she propped herself at the end of yet another leather couch—brown this time, for a little variety—in the expanse of space that was the great room of this comfortable family home. He wouldn’t like it if he knew what she was doing, she thought even as she was opening her laptop. He wouldn’t like it at all.

But it wasn’t up to him, and they weren’t even involved, so what did she have to feel guilty about? Besides, he wouldn’t find out, would he? Her relationship with him wasn’t real, and anyway, she had to do this.

The decision to take her story beyond Calvin’s site, to publish the episodes in serial form on all the online bookstores, had been the scariest one she’d ever made—and the best. For the first time in her life, she was loving her work, and to her astonishment, she was making more money doing it than at all her jobs combined. Her bank account was growing every month. She had to keep going, because this was her future. And anyway, she didn’t have a choice. People wanted to hear the rest of her story. They were writing to her and telling her so. And she wanted to tell it. So she opened her document and started to type.

It was bad enough. And then, when I walked into the office that Monday morning, it got worse.

I was more than half an hour late, because Karen had been sick again. But surely, considering all the extra time I’d put in over the months I’d worked here, that wouldn’t matter. Surely.

I could tell something was wrong as soon as I stepped through the door. The tension in the Publicity department hung in the air like an invisible gray cloud. What could have happened?

“Panic stations,” Nathan muttered as he passed, ostentatiously studying a pile of papers. “It’s you.”

I made it to my cubicle, but had barely rid myself of my coat before Martine was gliding toward me on her stratospheric heels, the soles flashing Manolo Blahnik red, her entire sleek form radiating feminine power.

“I’d like to see you in my office, please,” she said.

I grabbed my laptop case again in the hope that this might be work-related, but then, what else could it be? It couldn’t be anything else. Nobody knew. Did they?

My heart beat out an apprehensive tattoo as I followed my boss’s elegant back. Could I have done something wrong? More wrong than usual?

“Please. Sit,” Martine said as soon as the door closed behind us, and I did my best to breathe—and sat.

“I’ll be frank.” Martine took a graceful seat behind her desk. “I’m concerned about you. I hope that you aren’t letting your personal life get…away from you.”

You have no idea.
“I know I was late today,” I said. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

Martine waved a slim red-nailed hand. “It’s not so much the tardiness,” she said, and I flushed a little. That made it sound like I’d been late constantly, instead of once. “It’s more the…the special arrangements.” Her glance was knowing, as if she were aware of exactly what I’d been doing this weekend, and exactly whom I’d been doing it with.

“Is there a problem with my work?”
The special arrangements are over,
I didn’t say, because there was one way this situation could get worse. If I cried and told the truth—that would be so much worse.

I wished for the hundredth time that I hadn’t taken this job. Quitting wasn’t an option, though. Not when I so desperately needed the salary, and, even more than that, the health insurance.

Now, Martine frowned, and I fought to keep my breathing under control. I could tell something bad was coming.
Please don’t let me lose my job,
I prayed.
Please, no. Please don’t make me have to crawl to Hemi and beg.

“I’m going to give you a piece of advice,” Martine said, and my panic receded, at least for the moment. “Just because you remind me of myself, not so long ago. Be careful. I know you feel…special, right now. But you’re not.”

I tried to keep my face neutral, but knew I was failing utterly as she went on. “You think that if you follow all his...all the rules, it will last. But it won’t. Nothing you do, nothing you say will matter in the end, because you’re just one in a line that stretches a long, long way back. And one that will stretch a long way into the future, too. So…” She smiled. “Don’t quit your day job.”

She stood up, opened the door, and I scrambled to my feet. “But for now,” she said, “I suppose you’ll do what you have to do, because you don’t really have a choice, do you? You’ll go where you’re taken, and you’ll do what you’re told. You’ll take…advantage of the situation. Who could blame you?”

Her gaze swept over me, lingered on my feet, on the new boots I’d worn today despite everything that had happened, and she didn’t have to say anything else.

I did my best not to stumble over my heels on the way back to my cubicle, fought back the stupid tears that insisted on rising despite all my efforts, and began to go through my assignments all the same, to plan my day.

Everyone might think I was a fraud, but I didn’t have to be one. I would know the truth, even if I were the only one who did. I would keep my self-respect, even if I couldn’t keep anything else. Or anyone else.

This time it wasn’t Will who caught her at it. It was Talia.

“Oh. Hi,” the girl said, hovering on the stairs as if she were about to run back up them.

“Hi.” Faith closed her laptop with what she hoped wasn’t undue haste and set it on the chunky square coffee table that provided a massive centerpiece to the leather couches and chairs around it. “I sure hope you’re about to go into the kitchen for breakfast. And that you can point me to the coffee, because I’m starved and desperate, and I’m not sure what the rules are about what I can eat, or whether I’m supposed to wait.”

Talia smiled, and Faith realized that it was almost the first time she’d seen that expression on her face. The girl came the rest of the way down the stairs in her checked skirt, blue blouse, navy cardigan, and matching knee socks, and Faith stood up and followed her into the modern kitchen. It was stone-floored like the rest of the common spaces, and her stocking-clad feet curled a little against the cold. Maybe she needed to get into the hot tub again. Or maybe not.

“Don’t think we have coffee, actually,” Talia said. “Sorry. We have tea, of course.”

“Of course,” Faith said glumly.

“You can go out for a coffee, though.” Talia filled an electric kettle, set it on its base, and flipped the switch. “Easy as. That’s what people usually do.”

“Oh?” Faith filed that one away for book-reference. “Because back home, we make our own coffee. I mean, regular coffee. Drip coffee.”

“Drip coffee? What’s that?”

“It’s…never mind.” It was much too early in the morning to explain regular coffee, in a regular coffee machine. “Tea’s good.”

“Want eggs, too?” Talia bent to take them out of the fridge, the heavy braid that hung halfway to her hips barely moving. “That’s what I’m doing.”

“Sure. What can I do to help?”

“Toast, if you like.” Talia pulled out the loaf and handed it to Faith.

“You’re up early,” Faith commented. Talia was already pouring boiling water into mugs, she saw with gratitude, because if she didn’t get some caffeine in her fast, she was going to kill somebody, and tea was better than nothing. “I don’t remember being an early riser when I was a teenager. Do you have an early class? And is that a school uniform?”

Talia laughed, which was another first, and shoved the mug across the counter at Faith. “I wouldn’t be wearing it otherwise. Not exactly a fashion statement, is it.”

Faith cast a glance at the skirt. She didn’t miss that Talia hadn’t answered her other question. “Can I ask? Do you roll up the waistband once you’re out of the house? I always heard about girls doing that.”

“Maybe,” Talia admitted, peeping at Faith from under long dark lashes that Faith would have killed for. “Because it’s so
long
, isn’t it.”

“I think they choose the most unflattering length possible,” Faith agreed, “so girls won’t look pretty. Too dangerous. They might forget themselves, or the boys might, as if they wouldn’t anyway.”

She got a little smile for that. “So girls don’t have to wear uniforms in the States?” Talia asked. “Can you wear whatever you like?”

“You can. Of course, that’s got a downside, too. It seems to me, if everybody wears the same uniform, it’s less about who has how much money. If you’re a girl who doesn’t have the right clothes, a uniform could just be the answer to your prayers.”