Diamonds Are Not Forever

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Juliette

Waking up in a bed that isn't your own is always disorientating.
It had taken a few blinks through sleepy eyes for me to adjust to the muted light that filtered across the room from an expensive looking club floor lamp in the distance, the bedroom came into focus after I had bolted up right from my dream and scrambled for my glasses on the bed side table.
The realisation that my night in Elliot's living room, signing Fake Marriage Agreements and Non-Disclosure Agreements, wasn't a fiction of my imagination – it had been irrevocably true.
When I checked the time on my phone, I let out a sigh of relief, it was 6.57am. I wasn't due in the store until 9am.
'If you decide to live here, this will be your room.'
Would this be my life for the next year? Waking up in that room, heading to work and lying to my friends, being married to a man I barely knew.
Looking around the bedroom for some sort of solace, I found myself overwhelmed with dread.
I hadn't been kidding when I had told Elliot his spare bedroom was bigger than my whole house. I'd lived in that tiny house all my life, and it held so many cherished memories – ones from Milo's first steps in the living room to my dad listening to old school tunes on a Sunday morning in the kitchen as he cooked us breakfast – but there was no denying it was...lacking.
You're doing this for them.
Taking a steadying breath, I quickly jumped out of the king size bed and headed towards the living room in the pursuit of Elliot. When he wasn't there, I wondered further into the apartment. Its sheer size was intimidating.
When I found myself in unexplored territory, I turned the corner next to a set of wide marble stairs that led to the second floor of the apartment.
How big is this place?
That's when I finally discovered him, sat facing me at the very end of a dark stained walnut dining table, nestled in a corner of the furthest point of the apartment. A stereo hummed in the distance as Elliot lounged on one of the high-backed chairs, already showered and changed into a sharp navy suit, a large copy of some high-brow financial newspaper covering most of his face.
It was barely 7am, my mind boggled how well put together he could be at that hour of the morning.
Behind him were more large glass windows that framed the city, the soft autumn morning peaking over the tops of the skyscrapers and casting him in an angelic glow, like the sun rose just for him.
I got a few uninterrupted seconds to bask in his beauty, before he moved to turn the page and caught me staring over the top of his paper.
I swallowed heavily as he carefully folded the paper in half, placed it down on the table-top, and ran his eyes down the length of me.
Looking down at my own appearance, a burning blush crept up my neck and cheeks. I was still wearing the clothes he had lent me to sleep in, a pair of flannel checkered blue bottoms and a tight white vest that had nearly cut me in half when I'd tried to get it on the night before. The fabric clung snugly to my chest; the V neck of the vest must have been pulled low in the night - revealing the top of my cleavage in a way that made it like I had intentionally wanted him to see it.
I self-consciously pulled the material up an inch as his eyes darkened.
"Good morning, Juliette."
Elliot gestured to one of the five empty seats around him for me to sit, his lips parting slightly as his eyes still strayed to my breasts for a fraction longer than they should have done.
Eventually, something washed over him, and his face fell back into the stern and unreadable expression I was more familiar with.
Taking the seat to the right of him, I sheepishly mumbled my greeting and reached for the mug he had left out for me – sat next to a steaming pot of coffee, a jug of milk and other condiments.
I helped myself to a hefty portion of black coffee. Coffee was exactly what I needed; coffee made everything better.
"No milk or sugar?" Elliot scrunched his face up in distaste.
I took a tentative sip of the hot drink, my hands curled around the mug like it was my anchor as I flashed him a too-friendly smile for that time of morning. "Don't need it. I'm sweet enough."
The low throaty noise that came from him in response sent a shiver down my spine. It was just a noise, a clearing of his throat; it shouldn't sound so...primal.
But that sound coming from him, it awakened the tension that had been dormant in my body since our heated moment in the wardrobe. It was the second time I'd thought Elliot was going to kiss me, and the second time he'd not followed through.
But he'd wanted to. I could tell that much. Until the shutters came up and he disappeared before my very eyes.
I was embarrassed how much I'd wanted him to follow through on his nonverbal promise. Because, despite the fucked-up terms of our situation. I was a woman, and I had needs. Needs I knew Elliot could fulfil.
My thoughts drifted to our one-night stand, how capable he'd been with his hands...and his mouth.
My body reacted physically to the memory, the peaks of my breasts hardening and straining against the fabric of Elliot's vest. I quickly moved my arm so it covered my obvious arousal before Elliot could notice, his steady voice dragging me from my daydream.
"We'll go to a place down the street for breakfast when you're ready, its pretty good." He poured himself his own cup of coffee as he spoke.
I shook my head. "No thanks."
It wasn't that I wasn't hungry, it took everything to push down the rumble of my stomach so he couldn't hear it. I just had this thing about eating in front of people. In front of family and close friends it was fine, but not in front of strangers – especially not in front of Elliot Truman.
Elliot's eyes glazed over as his hand tightened around the handle of his mug, exposing the whites of his knuckles.
"You haven't eaten anything; you didn't have anything to eat last night either." He breathed.
"I'm not hungry." I lied.
He let out a frustrated huff, setting down his mug like he was ready to go to war.
I quickly everted my eyes and spotted my handbag hung over the side of the chair opposite me, he must have brought it from the living room.
"Is there anywhere I can go for a smoke?" I inquired, desperate to change the subject and also to get some distance from the beautiful brooding man sat next to me.
Elliot pointed his long index finger towards the window opposite him, when I followed his direction, I noticed that one of the windows wasn't a window at all – it was a glass door that led to a balcony.
"You can smoke out there, if you must."
I jumped up far too quickly, lunging around the table for my bag.
Pulling the carton of cigarettes out, I held it open towards Elliot, my politeness getting the better of me. "Would you like one?"
Elliot looked at me like I had just asked him to murder a puppy.
"No. I don't smoke."
"You did last night."
He flashed me a grimace as he recalled, picking up his mug again but not drinking from it this time. "That was...a lapse of judgment."
"Not a fan of smoking?"
I don't know why I asked that, his body language told me as much. I knew it was a habit that caused controversy, Ashley hated that I smoked, but it was of the few vices I indulged in that gave me solace.
A reel of memories played in Elliot's ocean blue eyes, clearly very bad ones, the way his jaw tensed and his nostrils flared. I'd touched a nerve I didn't even know existed.
"It's a terrible habit." He said tersely.
"There are worst habits to have..." I refuted, edging closer to the glass door for my escape, a cigarette already free from its packet as I fondled my lighter awkwardly in my hand to distract myself from Elliot's scrutiny.
Ashley had been right, when it came to the Truman's, it was very much 'do as I say and not as I do'.
When he said nothing further on the matter, I slipped out of the room and into the crisp morning air on the balcony. It quickly brushed the cobwebs away as I found the outdoor furniture, perched myself on one of the seats and sparked up my cigarette.
I'd had at least three puffs before I heard the glass door slide open behind me, a less stern looking Elliot striding through it with two coffee cups in hand. He silently approached me, holding out my cup to me like it was a peace offering.
I accepted it appreciatively as he took a seat on the outdoor corner sofa that fit snugly on the balcony.
He seemed so at peace with his own body, it was a marvel to witness. The way he smoothly crossed his ankle over his knee and stretched his free hand across the back of the sofa in one fluid motion.
This handsome man was going to be my husband.
The thought was sobering, as I studied him silently stewing to himself over the brim of his own coffee cup.
After a few beats, I rambled to fill the awkward silence. "I don't get this whole vape and energy drink phase people are going through." I held my lit cigarette and coffee up in each hand, unsure of where I was going with my statement. "I'm a black coffee and cigarette girl, old school."
Elliot scoffed. "You seem like an old soul."
I recalled his reaction to my age when I'd told him in the taxi the night we met, how he'd been shocked at my age and that I was mature. He'd never explained why he was shocked, and I was too busy being offended at being called old to prompt him then.
I took a long drag and blew the excess smoke out towards the edge of the balcony, so it mingled with my visible breath from the cold. "What makes you say that?"
"You seem like you've had more life experience than most 20-year-olds."
Well, that was true.
"21 years old next week." I corrected him, pushing down the emotion that threatened to spill out of me from his words.
Life experience was one way to describe what I'd been through. 
Vivid memories of the night my father died came flooding in.
It was raining. No, that doesn't even cover it.
The water was coming down in sheets.
And we'd been arguing in the car, he only took his eyes off the road for a second...
"What date is your birthday?"
Elliot's simple question sharply drew me out of the horror of my memory, a shiver running down my spine as I took a steady sip of coffee – the smell helped me stay present.
"October 7th, next Saturday."
He nodded, like he had made a mental note of the date. I wanted to ask him when his birthday was, but my mind was somewhere else entirely.
After checking the time on his expensive watch, Elliot drained the last of his drink and set the mug down on the small wicker table before getting to his feet.
"Come. You need to get dressed so we can go for breakfast before work."
I eyed him as he moved towards the sliding glass door back into the apartment. My stomach involuntary growled at me in agreement with Elliot, a feeling of dread washing over me at the thought of having to eat something in front of him.
A flush crept up on my cheeks as I spoke. "I-uh. I don't have any clean clothes to wear." It was a feeble excuse, but I was grasping at straws. 
The corners of Elliot's mouth turned up in a faint smile. "I'm sure I have something that you can wear. It won't be as good as my favourite pair of linen trousers you stole last time, but it will work."