No One Knows Us Here(68)

“Breakfast.”

“I’m not really hungry—”

A knock on the door. “Here they are.” Still wearing only a towel, Leo opened the door, and I quickly pulled up a sheet to cover my naked body. A man wheeled in a cart cluttered with dishes covered in silver domes and a silver coffee service. He nodded demurely to me as he passed. Leo directed him to the balcony, and the man made quick work setting the table with a white cloth and fine china plates. He left the tray with the covered dishes next to the table.

The man went away, and Leo invited me out to the balcony with a flourish of his arm, like a game show host.

“I wasn’t dressed.”

“Well, put on some clothes!” Leo exclaimed, sailing over my point entirely.

“I said I wasn’t hungry.”

Leo wasn’t listening. He riffled through my suitcase and threw items to me, one at a time. Underwear, sweatpants, T-shirt, hoodie. “You should really unpack your suitcase into the dresser,” he said. “It makes staying in a hotel much more comfortable.”

Leo pulled on his clothes, and we met out on the balcony, wearing our matching outfits.

“It’s freezing out here.”

Leo chuckled as he poured coffee into a cup. I topped it off with cream and took a sip. I must have smiled at that first delicious taste because Leo said, “That’s better.”

After the first cup, I lifted my head and surveyed the view. A weak sun shone out through tattered strips of clouds. In the distance, seagulls circled around fish that had washed up on shore overnight.

Leo lifted the dome off the largest dish. “This looks so good,” he said.

I didn’t turn to look. “I don’t have much of an appetite.”

We sat in silence for several minutes while I tried to block out the sounds of his chewing.

“Rosemary,” Leo said, and I turned to him.

“Open the next one, the one closest to you.”

“I’ll eat something at lunch,” I said. “I promise.” I was trying very hard not to snap at him.

“Just open it.”

Leo was smiling at me, leaning forward in his seat.

My hand hovered over the silver dome.

“Lift it up,” he said, and I did.

Under the dome, resting on the fine bone china, lay a ring. A platinum ring with an oval diamond in an east-west setting.

My eyes went round and terrified as I watched Leo pick up the ring from the plate, push aside the cart, and kneel before me. He took my left hand in his.

“What is this?” My voice came out rushed, panicked.

Leo wore a look of great solemnity. “Rosemary,” he intoned.

“What’s going on?” I tried to stand up to leave, but my hand was still in Leo’s, and he gripped it more firmly, pulling me back down on the wooden chair.

“Don’t ruin it,” Leo muttered, sotto voce.

I relaxed then, understanding. The confessions of love, the proposal, none of it was real. This was just part of it—part of the game Leo and I were playing. Part of what Leo was paying for. He didn’t want the girlfriend experience—he wanted the fiancée experience. I could deliver.

“Oh my god!” I exclaimed, in a high, nervous squeal.

“Rosemary,” Leo began again. “These last few months with you have been . . .” He delivered a whole proposal speech. He said these last few months had opened his eyes to a whole new way of living, that he wanted to keep living just like this, that I made him so happy and he thought he could make me happy, too. He said he’d take care of me, of me and Wendy, that we would never have to worry about anything ever again. We’d tie the knot, have babies, buy a house, grow old together—the whole shebang.

“Wow,” I said at the end of it. “I had no idea you felt this way.” This reaction had the benefit of being 100 percent sincere.

“Since the moment I laid eyes on you—on that picture of you—I knew I had to have you,” he said. “I wanted you to be my wife. Please. Say yes.”

It all sounded so real, I almost had to admire him for it. It seemed crazy, how far he was willing to take this little game of ours. When you had all the money in the world, this was the kind of thing you could do. Hire a young woman to have sex with you, to pretend to love you, to agree to marry you.

I didn’t think about what would happen in seven months, when the contract was supposed to end. I didn’t think of me or my life or my future. I couldn’t envision any sort of normal life for myself. Law school and Sam playing the viola while Wendy and I danced around the apartment. I had lost sight of that the way I had lost sight of why I had entered into the agreement in the first place, for Wendy. Because I promised Wendy. At that point, I was just following along, doing whatever Leo wanted me to do. I had stopped counting down a long time ago.

He slipped the ring on my finger, and I held up my hand to admire it. The diamond was so large that it spanned the width of my finger.

“Is it real?” I joked. It looked weird on my hand. My nails looked beautiful, though, thanks to my whole spa treatment the day before.

“Say yes,” Leo said, and he gathered both of my hands in his and squeezed, as if he feared I’d say no and dash all of his dreams.

“Yes.” I injected the word with as much feeling as I could possibly muster.