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Our driver, Lenny, glances into the rearview.
I have no idea what Lenny knows or doesn’t know, so any words I’ve spoken during this excursion I’ve tried to choose carefully, though maybe I shouldn’t have asked that last question.
“You’re ruining your manicure,” Burke says without looking up from his phone. “And yes.”
Checking my hands, I discover he’s right. I’ve been picking at my nails this entire car ride—an old nervous habit. While the nude-pink paint is still glossy and unchipped, several of my cuticles are noticeably irritated.
“Unfortunately, there are no nail salons on Driftway,” he says, referring to his family’s sixty-five-acre private island off the coast of North Dune, Massachusetts.
I press my palms together and tuck them between my thighs, opting not to tell him I did my nails myself and can easily fix them when we get there. Cuticles aside, I’ve gotten pretty good at this. With my money tighter than it’s ever been, learning how to do a spa-worthy mani-pedi was more of a necessity than a choice, but all that will change two months from now (pending the successful completion of this summer mission).
If his father believes we’re in love after eight weeks, I get a cool million dollars.
If this entire thing explodes in our faces, I get twenty grand for my time and a ride back to the city, where I’ll return to my desk job in the online marketing department of Burke’s global investment firm.
“You’re clearing your throat a lot,” he says, his gaze still locked on his shiny phone screen as he taps out a quick email. “Makes you seem nervous.”
I hadn’t noticed. “Sorry.”
And I am nervous.
As hell.
I’d have to be a sociopath to not care about putting on this kind of charade.
I don’t take what we’re doing lightly, but Burke assures me this is nothing but a way to put his father’s old mind at ease.
I uncap the room temperature bottle of Evian he brought for me and attempt to swallow the lump in my throat—along with any ounce of self-doubt about pulling this whole thing off. I’ve been prepping for a month now, and I’ve probably read his pdf no fewer than twenty-five times. He could quiz me on it at this point, and I’d pass with flying colors.
Up ahead, through lush trees and charming coastal houses, I can already see the rolling blue-gray waves of the Atlantic.
My stomach knots with every traffic light we pass, but I try to focus on the fact that it feels like we’re cruising straight into a storybook town.
A few minutes from now, we’ll be dropped off at a private dock; Lenny will load all our luggage into a waiting boat, and Burke and I will be on our way to spend the next eight weeks on Driftway Island with his family.
I adjust my posture, anxious to get out of this suffocating SUV so I can stretch my legs and breathe air that doesn’t smell like new-car leather and posh cologne. Over the years, I’ve traveled from New York to Massachusetts a couple of times—mostly to catch some Red Sox home games—but today’s trip feels like it’ll never end, like we’ve been driving to another planet light-years away.
Burke puts his phone away for the first time in hours once Lenny pulls into a small parking lot marked with signs that say PRIVATE—ROTHWELL FAMILY ONLY and PERMIT REQUIRED—VIOLATORS WILL BE TOWED. There are a handful of vehicles parked here already, though I’ve no clue if they belong to family members or Driftway staff members.
By the time I step outside, my legs are as unsteady as Jell-O, and my heart is beating so hard the pulses in my ear almost drown out the ruckus a few yards away from a group of seagulls fighting over a sandwich wrapper.
I’ve never been one to let my nerves get the best of me, but I’ve also never done anything like this before. There’s no way to know how this will go, and that’s the thing that’s been stressing me out the most lately.
That, and I hate lying.
Burke said to think of it as acting, not lying.
When I asked him why he didn’t just hire some out-of-work actress, he said, This is real life, Briar, not some cheesy TV movie. I want authenticity. That, and you look like my type.
I wasn’t sure what he meant by the last part.
Audrina comes from money and travels the world with a glam squad and a personal photographer, so she never has a shortage of content for all her social media channels.
I live in a shoebox apartment on the Lower East Side with an NYC-born-and-bred roommate named Maeve, who has never left the continental United States in her twenty-eight years.
Our differences also spill over to the looks department.
Audrina is a platinum blonde with perky C cups, eyes the color of a South Pacific lagoon, and legs up to her neck. I’m five feet four on a good day, average in the cleavage department, and I can only afford to balayage my dishwater-blonde hair twice a year.
