He’s already asked me that question at least a dozen times in the half hour we’ve been having breakfast, and I once again shake my head. “I’m fine. I have everything I could possibly need and more.”
Seriously. Last night, when I went to shower before bed, I found what was essentially a fully stocked pharmacy under the sink, along with every hair tool and expensive skin care product I could have ever wanted. I didn’t even have to pull out my own silk pillowcases from my bag—there were some already on the bed. I even double-checked that they weren’t mine, peeking in one of my suitcases to see if someone had unpacked my things for me, but no. They’d been graciously supplied by my host.
“I just want to make sure you’re comfortable here,” he says. “This is your home too.”
He’s so earnest, I can’t doubt that he means it. He’s looking out for me in all the ways I haven’t had from a man in…too long.
I hop down from my barstool. “Give me twenty minutes and I’ll be ready to go.”
“No rush. I know you have to go through your selection of evening gowns.”
His banter may be awful, but it still has me snickering as I leave the kitchen, grudgingly thankful for his rich-white-man humor. Never thought I’d see the day.
Closer to a half hour later, I’m in the passenger seat of a boxy SUV that would look more at home in the countrysidethan in the city. Considering that’s where we’re headed, I guess it’s the perfect choice.
The streets are narrow and the car is wide, but he navigates down to the high street with ease. I watch the shops and restaurants and people as we pass by, trying to commit as much of it to memory as possible. Like Thomas keeps saying to me, this is my home now, so I’ll do my best to learn it and make it feel that way.
It isn’t until we’ve been on the motorway for a few minutes with nothing much to look at that the silence starts to feel awkward. Thomas must sense it too because he says, “You can put on some music, if you’d like.”
We said we’d use this journey to talk, but we need an icebreaker first. I hit the button for the radio, letting the station it was already on pour through the speakers. To my delight, it’s tuned to a top pop hits channel, and just as the host stops speaking, one of my favorite songs comes on. This has to be an omen, a sign of good things to come. Or at least I’m taking it as one, because the idea of meeting his family has me nervous as shit and I’m desperate for something to take the edge off.
I’m two notes into humming along when Thomas groans.
“I cannotstandEd Sheeran,” he complains, taking one hand off the wheel to grab his phone from the center console. He tosses it gently in my lap. “Put on one of my playlists. Passcode is seven-zero-four-five.”
The Ed Sheeran slander is a topic we’ll have to address at a different time, because I’m too thrown by him offering up his passcode so easily to dwell on my offense. That’s a sign of trust if I’ve ever seen one. That, or the man has nothing to hide.
I type in the code and the screen unlocks. “Those numbers have any particular meaning?” I ask as I tap on his music app.
Thomas hesitates, hands drifting around the steering wheel,like he’s not sure he wants to admit it to me. “My racing number is seventy,” he finally confesses. “And…Zaid Yousef’s is forty-five.”
My head snaps up, eyes wide in delight. “Oh my God,” I say, laughing as I take in the color creeping up his neck. “Are you afanboy?”
“Can you fault me?” he shoots back, but I have to respect that he’s not denying it. “Man’s a legend. He was winning titles before F1 was even a gleam in my eye. Besides, this has been my passcode since I was a teenager, and I’ve been too lazy to memorize something else.”
“You’re adorable,” I coo, and I get to watch the color spread to his cheeks before I look back down at his phone. But as I scroll through his playlists, my humor fades into disbelief. “Are you logged into your own account?”
I feel more than see the glance he shoots me. “Yeah, why?”
“Because your music taste is all Afrobeats and hip-hop.”
He shrugs when I lift my eyes again. “Yeah, I like it.”
Okay, who kidnapped my pure English rose and replaced him with…this?
“I had a lot of West African mates growing up,” he elaborates when all I can do is stare at him. “I inherited their taste in music.”
Somehow, this explains so much about him and yet I’m still so surprised. “Are you still friends with them?”
He nods. “Our group survived primary school and all my racing years. You’ll definitely get to meet Joshua and Amara at some point. Oh, and just a heads-up, Amara’s already in love with you.”
I guess it’s a good sign that he wants to introduce me to his friends, though I’m worried that if our lives get too intertwined, it will be difficult to extricate ourselves. We’re barely threeweeks into this sham—hell, it’s not even December yet. What are things going to look like in three months, let alone a year from now?
Then again, I spent five years with Étienne and all we really have left to split are our houses and one joint bank account. We barely had any mutual friends—his friends were his and mine were mine—and all his family was in France, with zero interest in coming to visit us in the States. As far as separations go, ours has been straightforward, minus the emotional entanglements on my end.
So maybe I shouldn’t ask, all for the sake of keeping my distance, but I do anyway. “Tell me more about your friends? Especially Amara. She sounds like my kind of woman.”
Two hours later, I know my husband a little better, relaxed in the knowledge that I probably won’t mess anything up with his family. Also, we’re firmly in the middle of fucking nowhere.
