Page 20 of The Bride Bet
“Don’t worry about him.”
“I’m not worried.” She smiled at a photographer to her left. “But you should probably put your arm around me. Just for a moment. Give everyone something to look at.”
He slid his arm around her waist, and she leaned into it. Somewhere behind them, Graham was likely watching, and for once Nate found he didn’t care about that particular detail as much as he probably should have.
What he cared about was that Jasmine fit against his side like she’d always been there, and that she smelled like flowers and something warmer underneath, and that she’d just handled Graham Holt in thirty seconds without breaking her smile once. She hadn’t asked who he was or why the air had changed or what the look on Nate’s face had meant. She’d simply read the roomthe way she read every room. Completely, instantly, without appearing to try, and responded accordingly.
He reminded himself that was the deal. He reminded himself that she was very good at her job.
And Nate was feeling an echo of Graham’s statement.I’m an enormous admirer.
CHAPTER 13
JASMINE
It was nearly midnight when they arrived back at Nate’s house, having visited the after-party for a quick drink and some rubbing of shoulders. Jasmine’s feet ached from the heels, and the lights in the venue had made her head hurt.
Was this a fibromyalgia attack?
The thought made her nauseous. She didn’t have time for this, especially not with her physical test coming up in just a couple days.
She needed to be in top shape for that. Which meant she’d hit the sack right away, book a last-minute massage for tomorrow, see if her acupuncturist could get her in. She’d already rescheduled with him twice this week and hoped he wouldn’t make her feel too guilty about it. He was the kind of man who communicated disappointment through long, meaningful silences, which she found both annoying and effective.
“He thinks that we’ll fumble,” Nate was saying.
“Huh?” Jasmine closed the door behind the two of them and looked at him in the foyer. She hadn’t even realized he’d been talking and felt terrible about it.
“I could see it in Graham’s face,” Nate said. “He thinks this is fake.”
“So that’s the man you made the deal with? Hm.” She stepped out of her high heels, the cool tile a relief against her feet. “Well, he knows it’s fake. What are you worried about?”
“He doesn’t know. He suspects it’s fake. I can tell from the look on his face.” Nate loosened his tie, pacing a slow line across the foyer the way she’d noticed he did when something was working on him. “Right now, he’s suspicious. If he finds a thread to pull on, that’s a different problem entirely. We didn’t clarifyhowI could get you to marry me, just that I needed to get you to marry me.”
Jasmine considered that. Her head throbbed dully above her left eye, and she pressed two fingers against it without thinking.
“You okay?”
“Fine.” She dropped her hand. “So what are you saying?”
He stopped pacing. “I think we should move the wedding up.”
She looked at him. “How far up?”
“Two months.”
She opened her mouth and then closed it again, running the numbers without meaning to. Two months. The physical was in two days, and after that she’d know whether the superhero role was really hers. Filming wouldn’t start for months regardless. Two months to plan a wedding that the entire world would bewatching, which would have to look like the most natural thing she’d ever done, with a man she was only just learning how to be in the same room as without wanting to say something cutting.
She picked up her heels by the straps and started toward the hallway. “That’s not a lot of time.”
“I know.” He followed, not too close. He was good at that, she’d noticed, knowing the right distance. “But think about the alternative. Graham circling, poking around, looking for the crack. He could claim that my paying you for this wasn’t part of the deal, and then we’d be in trouble. The longer the engagement runs, the more time he has.”
“And a rushed wedding doesn’t look suspicious to him?”
“A rushed wedding looks like we’re in love and couldn’t wait.” He said it matter-of-factly, no performance in it. “Which is the whole story we’re selling. Besides, the magazine piece just ran. Momentum is our friend right now.”
She stopped at the entrance to her wing and turned to lean against the doorframe, looking at him in the dim light. He had his jacket over one arm and his tie half-undone, and he looked entirely too good for midnight after a long night. It wasn’t fair, really. She could feel her updo coming loose at the back, little tendrils escaping at her neck, and she probably looked exactly as exhausted as she felt. Meanwhile, he looked like a man in a cologne advertisement, which was irritating.
“Two months,” she said again, testing the taste of it.
