I blink enough for both of us. “Are you insane?”
“It’s three days.”
“In the Hamptons.”
“You’ll need appropriate clothing.”
I gape at him. “Rowan, I own exactly one pair of shoes that don’t squeak when I walk and a dress from Target I bought for a funeral.”
He nods. “I’ll handle it.”
I laugh, and it’s not a nice sound. “Great. Nothing says female empowerment like being fully sponsored by my least favorite sociopath.
“This is not my scene,” I add, leaning in now, anger finally catching up. “I don’t do networking brunches and curated couple photos and whatever version of law school you live in where I’m supposed to play the supportive girlfriend who knows the firm’s founding values and casually laughs at the partners’ jokes about market trends.”
“You’re overthinking it.”
“No,” I bite, “you’re underestimating what it’s like to be the punchline in every room.”
Something flickers across his face. It’s brief an d almost too fast to catch. But I see it—a crack in the mask, a flash of something that might be regret.
Then it’s gone.
Rowan sighs through his nose like I’m the one complicating things by having an actual emotional response to being pimped out for professional optics.
“I’m not asking you to like it, Tessa.”
“No, you’re not asking anything. You’re ordering. You texted me without context. You showed up at my apartment uninvited. And now you want me to go play dress-up in the Hamptons and pretend this isn’t humiliating.”
“You want to pay me back or not?”
He doesn’t smile.
He simply watches me as if this was always going to happen and I was always going to say yes.
And the worst part?
He’s right.
Because I can’t afford to owe him forever. I can’t keep jumping at shadows, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Not when some traitorous part of me is curious what it would feel like to stand beside him again, even if it’s all pretend.
I swallow hard. “What’s the cover story?”
He picks up his water again, and this time, he smiles.
Chapter Eight
Tessa
Iwake up to screaming.
Not normal screaming. No, this is blood-curdling, horror movie, final-girl-discovering-the-body screaming.
And unfortunately, it’s coming from my side of the room.
“Tessa. Tessa! What the— What is that?”
I sit up so fast I almost pass out. My heart pounds against my ribs. And for a moment, I honestly don’t know what she’s talking about.
