Page 78 of Wingwoman
She led me down a hallway, passing the back door I’d assumed would take me there. Then, opening a door I would have assumed was another bedroom, she gestured to the gym. “The gym connects to the sauna, steamroom, and the pool. There’s a pool house as well once you get out there, but I don’t foresee you needing to use it too often,” she added with a wink.
Despite the fact I’d slept alone in the guest bedroom, a flush still heated my skin ascending up my neck to my cheeks.
With another cheeky smile, she was gone, shutting the door to the gym behind her.
And that right there was why I wanted to avoid any workers coming into the house. Their assumptions, even though they were assumptions we wanted people to make, made me itchy and uncomfortable. Especially since it was all a big ruse… just another word for a big, fat lie.
And for all my bravado, I sucked at lying. As Jamilla noticed, I turned beet red if I had to lie. Lucky for us, she probably thought I was shy about sex. But what happened when they learned my tell? What happened if she ran to the press and told them I hadn’t once slept in his bed?
NDA or not, I saw people break those all the time. Especially if they get paid enough for a magazine’s cover story or believe they can get away with it.
I walked outside into the oppressive Texas heat, the desert air hot, and the unrelenting sun beating down on the concrete of the pool.
It was nothing like New York.
Even with the harsh, hot sun beating into my pale flesh, it was still more comfortable than New York City. Summer in the city was like walking through a swamp, the air sticky and thick. Very few buildings had central air conditioning, so you were relegated to those awful little boxed window units that hardly worked half the time.
At least here in Texas, there was always an escape from the heat, whether it was indoors with the ice cold air, taking a dip in the pool, or even sitting in the shade. And once that sun went down, the dry air cooled off immediately making the evenings not only comfortable, but downright pleasant.
I shucked off the towel and sarong, then dipped my toe into the pool, sighing at the perfectly cool water temperature.
I waded in, one step at a time, allowing myself to adjust to the temperature before falling into a breaststroke and dropping my head below the surface.
The world fell into a beautifully muffled silence below the water. Peaceful. Serene.
Bubbles flowed from my nose and mouth as I looked at the sky through the rippled, unnaturally blue water.
After a few seconds, the distorted figure of a man peering into the water came into view.
I sputtered and swam back to the surface to find Josh standing at the pool’s edge, looking down at me, his cowboy hat covering one startlingly blue eye.
I swiped the droplets of water from my face. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s my house,” he answered simply.
I rolled my eyes and pushed off the side of the pool, floating on my back. “I know that. But you said you had a lot of work to do today. I assumed you’d be…” I paused and waved my hand flippantly. “Busy. Working.”
“Spending time with my museisworking,” he said and carefully took his cowboy hat off, setting it on top of the tiki bar.
“How sweet,” I gave him a fake smile. “You’re not the first man to claim being with me was work.”
“Self-deprecation isn’t your best look.” He circled behind the bar and started pouring ice into a blender that he seemed to procure out of nowhere. “Can I offer you a little hair of the dog?”
I groaned and shook my head. “Hard pass.”
His grin widened. “How about a virgin piña colada?”
“NowthatI can handle.”
His grin was dazzling. The smile of movie stars. “Handle? Oh, you’re not ready for my cocktails. I learned from the best.”
“Nina?”
He nodded. “You know it. Before my music career took off, I used to bartend for her.”
Working fast, he blended up some ingredients I couldn’t see, then poured the virgin drinks into two coconut cups, bending down to hand me mine first.
I took a sip and holy god, it was heaven in a glass… or rather, a coconut.
