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My father, on the other hand, has more money than he knows what to do with since my grandparents passed and left their entire farming estate to him, though I wouldn’t mind doing something special for him too. He’s always wanted to go storm chasing, but he’s never had anyone willing to go with him . . . maybe I’ll plan a storm-chasing trip for us. That kind of memory could be priceless.
I’d love to take some time off work and travel the world too.
A year of aimless wandering sounds divine.
And of course, a good chunk will go straight into an investment account because if there’s anything I’ve learned from working at Burke’s firm, it’s that compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world.
This money might be a drop in the bucket for people like the Rothwells, but for me? It’ll be life changing.
It could completely alter the trajectory of my future.
Not to mention, it’ll be a funny story I can tell people someday.
A million years from now, I can look back at this time in my life and laugh about the crazy boss I had who paid me a million bucks to pretend to be his fiancée for eight weeks—and I didn’t even have to sleep with him.
The stories in life that are stranger than fiction are always the best ones.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Burke exhales.
“Just trying to tie up any loose ends with the merger.” He slips his arm onto the seat cushion behind me—a step in the right direction—though nothing about it feels natural.
Yet.
“You left everything in good hands. Jonathan will hold the fort,” I tell him, though I don’t know if that’s true. I’ve only worked for the company for eight months. While Jonathan seems like an intelligent, capable person who knows what he’s doing, I’ve never actually spoken to the man. Not sure I’ve ever even spoken to his assistant either. “There’s Wi-Fi on the island, right?”
“Sort of.” Burke’s lips turn flat. “It’s satellite internet, so it’s spotty and unreliable. And the data is limited. It’s mostly for emergencies.”
Damn.
Maybe this is why he had a whole page in his document dedicated to all the things I could do for fun on the island . . .
I’ve always talked about taking a technology break, but I never thought one would be forced on me without notice.
“Besides, my father has this rule about us not working when we’re here,” he adds. “He’s kind of . . . old school like that.”
I can’t wrap my head around the concept of someone telling Burke what he can and can’t do and Burke accepting it without an ounce of pushback.
Burke is a dictator, not a dictatee.
I’ve seen him make interns cry and watched him fire people on the spot in meetings.
“I’m sure he’d let you take a phone call or send an email if you had to, right?” I ask. I hope for my sake he says yes because Maeve is going to freak out if she can’t reach me for eight weeks. But also . . . same. She’s more than my roommate; Maeve is my person. And because she was around the day he proposed this insane scheme, she’s the only other human I can talk to about it. The nondisclosure agreement Burke had me sign strictly prohibits me from breathing a word about this to anyone else.
He made Maeve sign one as well.
As far as I’m concerned, she’s in this with me.
“I bet he’d make an exception if you asked,” I say with misplaced confidence.
“You don’t know my father.”
I’m about to ask what he means by that when our boat slows, and a tree-lined island comes into view. An expansive shake-sided house peeks out from behind the leafy foliage, looking too perfect to be real—like a scene from a movie or a photo from a coffee-table book.
“Is that Driftway?” I ask.
“It is.”
My heartbeat quickens once again, my anxiety ice cold in my veins, as the reality of all this becomes more tangible by the second.
Without giving it another thought, I slide my hand into his.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Practicing.” I interlace our fingers. His hand is limp and unreceptive. We should’ve been doing this the whole drive here. “Hold mine back.”
He gives me a squeeze, though I might as well be holding hands with my brother.
There’s nothing here, not even the tiniest spark—not that I wanted there to be. It just means we might have to overcompensate for our lack of chemistry.
The contract he gave me had a section on public displays of affection, stating I would be “expected and required to reciprocate any displays of affection, including but not limited to hand holding, hugging, and tongueless kissing, strictly for show and only when in the company of others.”
A few days ago, I spent three hours on YouTube, watching videos on how actors handle love scenes and kissing. Ironically, the most overstated advice was to not practice; that way, it seems authentic when it happens.
