“What do you do here?” I move around his office, my nosy brain curious to know more about my fake husband.
Zane’s office is so different from the typical businessman’s office I’ve seen in movies. Now I’m wondering if they don’t have their facts checked on TV or if Zane is an anomaly in this context too.
His office looks more like a library—tall bookshelves lined with medical books and journals. There are two leather armchairs facing a fireplace. Between them on the circular glass table, there are some more books, two water bottles, and a mint tin. I picture Zane sitting here with his head buried behind a book.
When I look over my shoulder, I find him watching my every move carefully. I flop down on a chair that looks too comfortable to pass up. After being on my feet for four hours at the café, my legs hurt. I try not to think that this was never the case before. I used to run around all day without breaking a sweat.
“This looks like a lawyer’s or a doctor’s office. But then you are one.”
Zane smiles, walking closer to where I’m sitting and takes a chair opposite to me. My gaze follows his move brazenly as he settles on the couch. His black suit gleams under the yellow light of the tall floor lamp behind him. Zane grabs the mint tin and plucks out a ginger candy. But at the last moment, instead of putting it into his mouth, he offers it to me.
When our eyes meet, the world stops for a second. Everything feels like a frozen TV screen. And for the first time, I can hear my heartbeat out loud.
Boy, my heart beats crazy fast.
I can see in Zane’s eyes that it’s not just me, but he too feels the crackling in the air between us. His attention is solely focused on my face.
My scorching face.
In this very moment, everything swims before my eyes. Zane stepping into the café for the first time. Me hugging him over the counter after he placed his order of Vienna. The small smile that tugged on his lips that morning.
My brain replays everything in slow motion. I remember the feel of his muscles as I hugged him, and in my imagination, the suit is gone. We’re no longer in the café but his bedroom. Me in my cotton nightclothes, and him in just his track pants. This time when I hug him, my hands roam over his warm chest and back until I feel the dips of his two back dimples, which have been plastered in my head since the morning.
I must have groaned, because the candy drops from Zane’s hand and onto the glass table, making a clicking sound. He releases a heavy, shuttering breath before resting back against the chair.
“Sorry,” I squeak, not knowing what I’m apologizing for. For shamelessly gawking at him, or for breaking our staring contest?
Zane places the mint tin back on the table without putting a candy in his mouth and gulps down an entire bottle of water.
“How often do you pee?” I blurt.
Zane starts coughing on his water, and only then do I realize what the heck I just said.
Oh my God! Can I please just die of shame?
He glances at me with wide eyes, and after a second, bursts into full-blown laughter.
I’ve often seen his smile, but I’ve only heard his carefree laughter a handful of times. My heart tugs watching him this happy.
“I c-can’t fucking believe you as-sked that,” he finally says, wiping away the tears from the corners of his eyes.
“Me too.” Before I can make another smart-ass comment and hear that laughter, his phone pings with the sound of an incoming text.
Zane continues to grin, making me delirious as he pulls his phone from the inside pocket of his jacket. But his smile drops from whatever he just read, and then he looks at me.
The grave expression on his face twists my insides. I pray so hard that the text has nothing to do with me, but God is not on my side these days.
“It’s-s from the hospital,” Zane says. “Th-they are unable to r-reach you.”
“My phone is at the store for repair,” I reply, telling Zane how I was showing some videos of Tassels to the kids this morning, when my phone stopped working and I left it for repair and will pick it up in the evening.
He nods and says, “I got a call fr-rom Mary th-this morning too. Th-they’ve finalized a d-date for your biopsy.”
I clutch the leather on the arms of the chair.
“It’s-s on Monday.”
No! That’s so soon.