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  I looked over my shoulder at Jacob’s prone body. “What?”

  He shook his head. “You.”

  If only he knew how much I wanted to stay there with him, for that moment, maybe forever.

  Instead, I grinned, then scampered over to the bathroom, where I grabbed a fluffy white robe off a hook and wrapped it around my body.

  “Okay, I’m off,” I said as I reentered the bedroom. Jacob looked disappointed. “Sorry. I’ll stay longer next time.”

  “There’s gonna be a next time?”

  “If you behave… maybe.”

  He licked his lips. “I’ll do my best.”

  I moved to the side of the bed, and planted a chaste kiss on his forehead, but Jacob had other ideas. His large hand moved to my neck and his mouth moved up to meet mine, locking me into a far more passionate, intense kiss. I sighed happily, but broke it off.

  “I gotta go,” I said, begging off further kisses.

  “Fiiiine,” he huffed, and flopped back onto the pillows. “See you soon.”

  With that, I waved him goodbye and cracked open the door to his room, sticking my head into the hallway to look both ways. Coast was clear. Silently, I swung the door further open, just enough to squeeze through the crack, then shut it behind me, keeping my head on a constant swivel.

  I snuck breathlessly back to my room, fording each foot like it was my own personal Rubicon. Soon — as in, two seconds later — I was abandoning all theories of ‘silent and deadly’ and opting to throw open my door, race inside, and shut it as fast as possible.

  “You made it,” I told myself as my back pressed the door shut and I gulped air. More from anxiety than, y’know, actual exertion.

  However, I soon realized that without the anxiety of getting back unnoticed, or the general post-sex haze, I was faced with some hard realities.

  I’d slept with Jacob, that much was for certain. And I wanted to do it again. Everything else… well, everything else was a little more complicated.

  In times like these, there was nothing to do but text Flo — she always had the answers. Like, she’d told me to masturbate, and damn had that led to some interesting outcomes. She’d know what to do.

  I slept with Jacob. Plz respond ASAP.

  The reply came immediately.

  OHHH MY GOOOOD.

  I snorted and threw my phone onto the bed while I waited for Flo’s inevitable barrage of texts. She didn’t so much send messages as missives — each text promised to be a full essay of thoughts, feelings and opinions. All I could do was wait for them to use up my cellular data, and of course, get ready for the day.

  My muscles ached, partly from the quick brush with death, partly from my, er, encounter with Jacob. But there was no time for Epsom salts, so I swallowed an over-the-counter painkiller and hoped for the best.

  The clock next to my bed showed, in neon red letters, that it was almost time for the scheduled breakfast. After last night, a large, indulgent meal was certainly in order. Besides, we were working at the house all day in preparation — finally! — for the big pitch, which meant that there would be time for seconds and thirds. If you could taste the croissants Charles’ kitchen workers baked fresh every day, you’d get my excitement.

  I threw on a simple outfit — a lacy bralette, slubby T-shirt, and high-waisted boyfriend jeans. And no, the jeans were not a conscious decision as I had packed them long before things happened. Was it really only a few days? It seemed like years. Anyway, a belt and tennis shoes made the look. Well, not ‘look,’ maybe — that implies there was some kind of high-fashion business going on. But, at the risk of getting too specific, I did give off the vibe of like, a cinematic newlywed on moving day with her new fiancé, laughing gaily and moving a single brown box while he lifted an entire couch.

  Too much?

  Anyhow, I had just enough time for a swipe of tinted lip gloss before I had to race downstairs. It felt like I was always running to and fro, to and fro from this room. Hell, there hadn’t even been time to appreciate the probably very expensive and collector-worthy art on the walls. Though I’d certainly gotten an extensive tour of the showers…

  But I digress.

  Bounding down the stairs and into the dining room, I saw that most of the company was already seated. I was just feeling the familiar high school anxiety about where to sit begin to descend when Jacob caught my eye. He smiled, winked provocatively, and gestured to the seat next to him. Of course he saved me a chair — we’d been sitting next to each other at the events all weekend. Only now, it felt different. Like, he wasn’t holding my spot because we were expected to play a couple for the Big Boss, but because he wanted to see me, to be near me.

  In any case, I appreciated the gesture. I strode parallel to the long dining table, which was bedecked in resplendent pastries and fruit. Across from it stood another table, this one covered in main dishes, served buffet style — eggs, bacon, potatoes. In the corner of the room, I made out what I reckoned to be an omelet station. I wanted to sneer at the wasteful amount of food, but was too hungry to kick up a fuss. Does that make me a bad millennial?

  Jacob stood up as I arrived at the seat, and gracefully pulled it out for me.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered with a smile.

  “Treating you right.”

  I rolled my eyes, but happily plopped down in the chair. Sometimes it felt good to be treated like a princess. Felt even better when you were in a modern castle.

  We heaped our golden-rimmed plates with delicacies. It was as though we’d both decided, after last night, to give into our hedonistic tendencies, to suck the juice out of life.

  “So,” I said, trying to make appropriate small-talk. “How are you feeling about the big pitch?”

  “Good, good,” he replied mildly, though I could see a wicked smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

  His hand creeped onto my thigh, hidden as it was by a starched tablecloth, as Jacob continued, “But it’d be better if you helped me.”

  “Oh yeah? How could I be of assistance?” Two could play at this game.

  “I have some ideas…”

  His hand moved further up my thigh, closer to my crotch, and I was about to let him do whatever he wanted to me, even in this room full of my coworkers, but we were interrupted by the couple sitting across from us, who wanted to know how I was doing after my accidental swim last night. Guess I should’ve seen that coming. Soon, the entire table wanted to check in on me, and I was fielding questions left and right.

  My standard reply became: “I’m okay, thanks to Jacob.”

  A few of the women — those who didn’t know we were faking the relationship — sighed happily at this, saying ‘How romantic’ and ‘Now that’s a real man.’ I wondered how they would feel if they knew our whole story. Would it be romantic? Or just really fucking complicated?

  Without Jacob’s constant touch, I’m not sure I would’ve been able to politely answer everybody’s inquiries, but with him at my side and on my thigh, I pulled through. By the time they were all finished gushing over us, breakfast was over. I had just enough time to stuff another concha in my mouth before the bell was ringing, indicating that we should all regroup with our individual teams.

  I was annoyed that I hadn’t been able to devour as much food as I would’ve liked, but that was nothing in comparison to the fact that I wouldn’t see Jacob all day — he’d be out, probably on site, with his crew, checking out the area before finalizing their bids, et cetera. Boring stuff. Oh well. No point getting huffy over it, no matter how tempting that may be.

  As we all broke off, I touched Jacob’s hand, just a glancing hit, and whispered, “See you later, babe.”

  He grinned, and replied, “Count on it.”

  Then he was walking across the room, bellowing something to Tom, and much to my surprise, I saw that I was being flagged down by Amy.

  “Hey girl,” I said happily as I crossed the dining area to greet her. “What’s up? Where are the non-Pil
ler people spending the day?”

  “Oh, probably by the pool or something,” she replied quickly. Then she leaned in, with a conspiratorial glint in her eyes, and said, “But I know you’re just trying to distract me from the real issue at hand.”

  “Uh, what?” I asked, confused by the insinuation.

  She slapped my arm. “You and Jacob, duh!”

  I looked around the room — luckily, most of my co-workers had already filtered out and into one of the several drawing rooms we’d all been assigned. No one had heard Amy’s exclamation, thank God.

  “Amy,” I replied, trying to play it cool, “there’s nothing going on between us. Obviously.”

  “Ha, yeah right.”

  As much as I wanted to have serious girl talk about my hookup with Jacob — even Florence’s tome-like messages weren’t as good as quality face-to-face — I couldn’t tell Amy squat. If I did, then I’d have to admit that Jacob and I had been obfuscating our history from Joe and Tom. And then I’d also have to address the fact that the two of us had hooked up on a work trip. And then! Then Joe would call me unprofessional, again, and probably fire me.

  So no, as much as I may have wanted to tell Amy, to unload my story… I was keeping my pretty little lips tightly sealed.

  “You’re imagining things,” I told her. I felt bad lying, and even worse about making a fellow woman think she was crazy, but unfortunately, it was time to cover my own ass. I’d apologize to Amy at some point, right? Still, guilt crept into my chest and took a seat firmly on my sternum.

  She winked at me. “Sure, whatever you say.”

  And by the tone of her voice, I could tell that, lie as I might, my story was starting to wear thin. What would happen when it was torn completely asunder?

  Chapter 17

  Jacob

  AFTER BIDDING a reluctant goodbye to Sierra, I linked up with Tom and some of our crew. Today, while some people got to lounge around the mansion, I was gonna be visiting the future construction site for the retirement village. Ugh. It promised to be sticky, and generally dismal. Although, if we did get the job, which was looking increasingly likely, I’d be on that site for ages. In other words, getting annoyed about it now probably wasn’t a good long-term strategy. Best to make my peace.

  But, in case my hand wasn’t already showing, I was only frustrated because I wanted to spend every minute of the weekend at Sierra’s side. Now that we’d “reconnected” — that’s my kosher word for what happened — it felt like there was so much to explore. Who had we become in the absence of one another? Who was Sierra now, when she wasn’t busy rightfully hating my guts? I’d seen a glimpse last night, but I wanted to take in the whole picture. After all, at the start of this weekend, I hadn’t even known where she worked. What else didn’t I know about her? Two years in your twenties is a miniature lifetime.

  This began to pluck at the more painful question that had lodged itself in my brain. We had reconnected sexually, that was certain. But romantically… well, it’s one thing to have mind-blowing sex with someone, and it’s another thing to build a life with them. I was beginning to sense, much to my confusion, that I wanted the latter from Sierra. And if she was only in this for the physical release — oh, the thought made my heart ache. I mean, I’d happily continue to fuck her senseless, if that’s what she requested, but I’d always yearn for something beyond the physical.

  My mind swam with questions, but there was no time to pick each one apart. I had a job to do. Besides, a construction site isn’t exactly a brilliant place to get confused and depressed. The heat alone can make your already jumbled mind just spin out completely.

  So, back to the matter at hand, the one of framing. Because framing is, at its core, a simple, easy task. Wood, studs, numbers. All problems could be solved with a pencil and paper, or some kind of heavy tool. Issues of the heart have, in my life, proved considerably trickier.

  Our framing crew got ahold of one of Charles’ vans and drove out to the site. As we chatted about our favorite recent reads — what? Construction workers don’t just talk about tits all day — we passed by suburb after suburb, and I wondered just how far out Charles’ village was to be. Was it purposefully isolated to make sure the old people didn’t wander into an unmonitored town? Was he trying to make it hard for everybody’s relatives to visit and overrun the space with nosy children and noisy grandchildren?

  At last, we reached Charles’ plot of land, and I understood that all my speculation had been stupid. He was this far out of town because no developed city had this much empty space.

  You know how I thought the mansion was sizable? Well, go ahead and times that by about ten. The plot was big enough to build an entire town. Which is, now that I say it, I guess the point. The retirement village would have everything — a movie theater, a mall, gyms, everything a normal town had. Plus, it would all be accessible. Of course I’d run the numbers on individuals houses, and had planned for everything before me, but now that I was faced with it, the sheer size was daunting.

  Looking at the plot, I gulped down nerves. I’m a hard worker, and it wasn’t like me to fear an undertaking, but this… this was greater in scope than anything I’d tackled before. Was I equipped to handle this project? Moreover, was I equipped to handle this project in eight months?

  I shook my head, trying to shake out thoughts of self-doubt as we disembarked from the van and strode onto the multi-acre tract. A wire fence surrounded the land holding, but little else in the way of protection. After all, it’s not like you can do much to protect air and earth. We’d have to pick up some empty beer bottles and a few used needles, I reckoned, but there wasn’t much else to vandalize, unless some vengeful neighbor had decided to literally torch the earth.

  Tom turned to our team, and doled out quick instructions. “Bill, Darren, check out the perimeter. Noel, test the soil, the rise, so on and so forth. We gotta finalize all our measurements before the big pitch, gentlemen.” He turned to me. “Jacob, walk with me.”

  The men nodded, and split up. I fell in line with Tom’s step as we strode onto the property. I sniffed at the air, bent down to feel the ground between my fingers. Like I said, I really am a paper and pencil kinda guy, but sometimes I feel like I gotta touch the earth and ask her what she wants, try to uncover whatever little delicious secrets she’s hiding. The thought brought Sierra to mind, so I quickly banished it and tuned into Tom’s patter.

  He was chatting about the pitch tomorrow, as per expected. I tuned back out, and to avoid returning to perilous thoughts of Sierra, I began to do scratchy calculations in my head, thinking about wood options, landscaping — you don’t wanna hear about this, do you? I’ll skip it.

  As we were walking through a rockier section of terrain, Tom stopped suddenly, turning to me with an inscrutable expression and kicking up some loose pebbles in the process.

  “Jacob,” he began, then broke off, as if fumbling for words.

  I drew to a halt, tucking my hands in my pockets and trying to make heads or tails of his tone. Tom rarely, if ever, seemed at a loss for what to say — he was a good time guy, someone who could always make conversation, however light and fluffy. For him to be speechless… let’s just say it wasn’t a great sign.

  “What’s up?” I asked with intentional mildness, hoping to diffuse the strange expression darkening his face. “You worried about the rain they’re predicting for the upcoming season? ‘Cuz I am too, and I’ve already factored it into our timeline—”

  “It’s nothing like that,” he interrupted, cutting me off with the shake of his head. “I just wanted to, to give you a heads up, I guess.”

  One of my eyebrows shot up — the right one, he’s a dodgy devil. “Uh, about what?”

  “Company code of conduct,” he replied, his eyes shifting to the uneven ground, as though afraid to meet my gaze. “Wanted to remind you that it explicitly prohibits fraternizing with coworkers.”

  Uh.

  Shit.

  My thoughts, which
I had been tamping back with framing questions, burst forth, each demanding to be heard.

  Logically, I had known about the code. Of course I had. It’s not like it was an unusual, or even unreasonable, rule. Putting such a blanket clause in place reduced distraction, helped people focus on work when they were at work. Even at breakfast that morning, I hadn’t communicated with my coworkers about the upcoming project, the one we’d all been flown out for, because I was too busy playing with Sierra’s thigh.

  It was unreasonable, but it was unfortunate. And even worse to be hearing it out of Tom’s mouth. All there was to do was play dumb.

  “Yeah, Tom,” I replied, struggling to keep my tone calm and casual. “I know. Why do you mention it?”

  “Come on, kid, don’t play dumb.”

  “How so?”

  “You’re gonna make me say it?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Yeah, I guess so, because I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

  Tom sighed with exasperation, and I could tell I was pushing his buttons. “All right, Jacob, here’s the deal. We’re buddies, you and I. Ain’t that right?”

  I nodded. “Sure is.”

  “So now I’m not talking to you as your boss, but as your friend. I know something’s up with you and Sierra. And really, in fairness, it’s my fault. Well, Joe’s and my’s fault. We asked you to play a couple for the weekend to help us sell a product. And that wasn’t right, wasn’t ethical. But I got a pretty good sense for these things, and I know you two aren’t just acting anymore.”

  He paused, waiting for me to say something. Instead, I looked away, up to the north, where trees lined the border of the property, thin poplars with light wood and leafy branches.

  Tom dropped the silent game, and continued, “Kid, this kind of thing, this, uh, workplace fraternizing… it doesn’t end well. Either you get distracted, become less productive, and get in trouble, or it blows up and Pillers takes the hit. Besides, I know you’re stationed out of different offices, so you’d have to do long distances, and take it from an old man, that don’t end well.”