“So you know my roommate, the gossip columnist?”
“Mmmm.”
“People are already talking about us. She says she had to publish a story on it ASAP but she’ll give us an hour or two to prep, whatever that means.”
“Already on it.”
Duke put his phone in his front pocket.
The cab slammed to a stop. Horns blared. Pedestrians swarmed around the car, like a rushing river around boulders. He turned to face me.
“Jane . . . You can still get out of this. You can get out now and walk home and we’ll laugh this off as a practical joke and then pretend it never happened.”
“Or?”
“If you come home with me, there’s no going back. No pretending it didn’t happen. We’re gonna make this real.”
I had made it this far . . . From the quiet, sleepy streets of Milford to the always loud, always bright streets of New York City. Sam’s kiss was no the longer the last one on my lips. I’d already overcome Jane Who Didn’t a little bit, more and more. It started with a kiss, a drink, a prank, this cab ride and could lead to whatever the night held. I was scared of all the unknowns. But I knew I couldn’t go back to being the Jane who was fired and jilted and spent the past six months in quiet and lonely desperation. Something had to change.
“Let’s go,” I whispered.
The cab lurched forward and made a sharp right turn, launching me right into Duke’s lap. He caught me and didn’t let go. In the dark back seat of the cab with the city flying outside the windows, he kissed me. Pulled me onto his lap, tightened his arms around me, and kissed me.
I kissed him back, even though I wondered if this was part of the ruse or if it was something else. I kissed him because I was lonely and because his kiss chased away the cold I’d been feeling these past few months. His hands were warm, caressing the bare skin of my back. I felt him hard beneath me. I hoped we were stuck in traffic. For a while. Because when he kissed me, I forgot everything.
We broke apart only when the taxi came to a stop in front of a modern building on the corner of Bowery and Bond.
THE ELEVATOR DOORS closed behind us and after one hot, frantic kiss with me pressed against the walls the doors opened to the penthouse, revealing a large, modern space. I was sort of breathless from the kiss, but still had to gasp at his apartment.
One wall was purely glass, showing a breathtaking view of the uptown Manhattan skyline including the Empire State building and the Chrysler building. The living area opened to a large kitchen and dining area decorated with stainless steel appliances, granite countertops and top-of-the-line fixtures. The long dining table was covered with massive, wafer-thin Apple monitors.
Two guys and two girls stood around the kitchen island, sipping bottles of Miller Highlife and working on sleek Mac laptops.
They looked up when we arrived.
“Jane, meet my dev team. Rupert, Kyle, Amy and Jessica. This is Jane. My fake fiancé.”
Rupert spit out his beer. The others burst out laughing. I glanced up at Duke; he was clearly enjoying this.
“Hi,” I said awkwardly. “Nice to meet you all.”
“Congratulations?” Jessica asked.
“We saw the video. Nice proposal, dude,” Kyle said. He and Rupert wore faded T-shirts under open plaid flannel shirts with broken in jeans and sneakers.
“Thanks. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of the world sees it and starts Googling us. In fact, I know it’s started already,” Duke said. “So if we’re going to pull off this whole ‘I’m engaged to Sweater Set and settling down’ thing, we need a backstory that goes back further than last night when Jane and I met.”
“Go on.”
“There’s no proof of our relationship online, other than that video. So we have to create it. The problem is that Jane here is still living in the nineteenth century, technology-wise.”
I opened my mouth to protest. It’s not like I used an AOL account and still had dial up.
“So we need tweets, check-ins, stupid lovey-dovey pictures on Instagram,” Amy said.
“Exactly,” Duke said.
“A sex tape. You should totally make and leak a sex tape,” Rupert suggested with a lecherous chuckle.
Jessica, Amy and I rolled our eyes.
“Jane?” Duke questioned.
“That is not happening. At all. Ever.”
“Exactly the reaction I was expecting. A second option, which will be slightly less fun, is hacking Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook and Instagram to create proof of our longstanding, secret relationship.”
Ok, he had me at secret romance. This was the kind of thing I loved reading about in paperback novels after a long day. It was the kind of story I’d considered writing one day. Or maybe I’d start tonight? A Secret Romance by Jane Sparks. In fact . . .