She only has one rule...
[WATTYS SHORTLIST 2022]
A buttoned up bookworm agrees to a fake relationship with a surprisingly literate male model in order to save his career. She only has one condition: No kissing allowed.
***
At age 27, Cora Glass ha...
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Jamie stepped into the shower and let the cold water run down his back. So much for all his resolutions to speak to Cora immediately. Surely, he had sufficient willpower for a quick rinse without getting derailed.
He'd been enjoying his cuddle with Cora in the hammock a bit too much. Something in the way she clung to him, as if holding on for dear life, had stirred him up. He needed a moment alone to clear his head and collect his thoughts.
Only a moment, he promised, as he tilted back his head and allowed the streaming water to needle his face. Then he would face Cora and the coming inquisition. He shivered, imagining the change that would come over her when she found out what he truly was—and more to the point, what he most certainly was not.
Nothing for it but to get it over with. Jamie set his jaw and twisted the shower handle.
He toweled off, but he shunned the white terry cloth robe hanging on the hook. Instead, he slipped back into the same trousers and linen shirt he'd had on before the shower.
Jamie eyed himself in the bathroom mirror. Maybe it wouldn't be as bad as he feared. As long as he set the record straight immediately, and didn't let the lie fester one moment longer than necessary, he had no reason to feel guilty.
He never made the false claims printed on the cards. He found himself in his current predicament through no fault of his own. If he bore any share of the blame, it was only through his own passivity—a lifelong habit of choosing the path of least resistance.
He had lied to Cora about that too, just now. "My greatest talent: Dead weight." No, he was more of a dead leaf if anything, carried wherever the wind may blow it. He'd somehow missed the stage where people developed any sort of heft or substance to their being. Not his fault there either, of course. He'd spent his formative years in front of a camera, and it had stolen away his soul one picture at a time, until the only thing left was a surface, paper thin.
Jamie cast the man in the mirror a mocking salute, then picked up his shoes and socks and padded barefoot from the room. He let one shoe fall with a thud onto the bedroom floor, and he wondered how long he had until the other shoe dropped. No doubt, Cora would follow him in here with her questions any moment now.
He mustn't let himself get distracted. That was key. No matter how tempting it might be to bask awhile in the glow of her misconceptions, it would only dig him a deeper grave. No, he must be strong. Firm boundaries and all that. He wouldn't lay a finger on her until he'd gotten the unpleasantness out of the way.
Jamie tucked in his shirt and buckled his belt. "Stay," he told it pointedly. This buckle would not come undone under any circumstances. Not until he'd unburdened himself.
Before he had a chance to gird his loins with any further layers of defense, a knock sounded, and the door swung open.
"Hello," was all she said, but Cora's outfit did the talking for her. She stood in the threshold in an ensemble that asked no questions, only made demands.
