Don't Come Closer

ROMY'S POV

I woke up alone again, but this time his side of the bed was still warm.

For a few seconds I didn't move. I lay there with the sheet pulled up to my chin, staring at the ceiling and listening to the shower run on the other side of the wall, and I waited to feel ashamed. I didn't. I felt rested, and a little sore, and more awake than I had been in months.

Then the shower stopped, and I remembered that he still thought I was somebody else.

I got dressed before he came out. I pulled on jeans and a sweater, tied my hair up and went downstairs before I could lose my nerve, because if I waited for him in that bedroom, I knew I would never find the right words.

Mrs. Quarles had laid breakfast out in the glass room off the kitchen, with eggs, toast, cut fruit and a pot of coffee big enough for six people. I poured myself a cup and sat down. My hands wanted something to do, so I buttered a piece of toast I had no intention of eating.

He came down ten minutes later in a dark suit, with his hair still damp and his phone already in his hand. He stopped in the doorway when he saw me.

Neither of us said good morning.

He sat down across from me, poured his coffee and drank it without looking away from my face. He wasn't angry. I had seen him angry at the courthouse and in the hallway, and this was something else. He was studying me, slowly and carefully, and I had no idea what he was looking for.

I put the toast down.

"About last night," I said.

He set his cup on the saucer.

"Can we at least talk? There's something I really need to tell you, and I.."

I had started to stand up, and he lifted one hand, palm out. It was a small movement, but it stopped me where I was, half out of my chair.

He didn't say stop. He didn't have to.

Then he picked up his phone, stood and walked out of the room. A moment later I heard the front door close behind him.

I sat back down. The coffee in my cup had gone cold, and Mrs. Quarles came in and quietly poured me a fresh one without asking any questions. I loved her a little for that.

I went to the window. His car was already halfway down the drive, and it went through the gate without slowing down.

For a while I stood there, angry at him and angrier at myself. Then I went up to the bedroom, took a sheet of paper from the desk and sat down to write him the truth. If he wouldn't let me say it, I would make him read it.

My name is Romilly Ashcombe, I wrote. I am not the woman your grandmother chose. I was waiting at the courthouse for a man named Brice Tolliver, who my stepsister paid to..

I stopped there. I read it over, and I could hear exactly how he would laugh at it. A stepsister. A fake groom. Do you think I haven't seen this before?

I folded the page small and hid it in my mother's sewing tin, under the spools of thread, beside the marriage certificate. I would give it to him when he was ready to listen.

Mrs. Quarles came to find me at ten with a leather folder and a pen.

"Just a few forms, ma'am," she said, sitting down beside me at the desk. "Mr. President wants your accounts set up today."

There were more than a few. The first one asked for my full legal name, and I wrote it before I could think about it. Romilly Ashcombe.

Mrs. Quarles glanced at the page. "Ashcombe," she said. "As in the studio?"

"No relation," I said. It came out too fast.

"Of course, ma'am." She turned to the next form without another word, but I saw her look at my face again, the same careful way she had at the front door.

Another form asked for my bank details, and another was for a household card. The last one was for a security pass, so the guards at the gate would never turn me away again. She took my photo against the white wall of the hallway with a small camera and checked it on the screen.

"That's lovely," she said. "It goes into the family records, of course. Madam Winifred's secretary in Geneva receives a copy of everything at the end of the month."

I stopped writing.

"The end of the month?"

"The thirtieth, ma'am. Madam likes to keep up with the household." Mrs. Quarles smiled at me kindly and gathered the papers. "Don't worry. It's only a formality."

She left, and I sat there looking at the calendar on my phone.

It was the first of the month. In thirty days, the woman who had chosen her grandson's bride would open an envelope in Geneva, look at my photograph and know that I wasn't her.

My phone buzzed in my hand.

I thought it was Paloma again, so I almost didn't look. Then I saw the name of my bank at the top of the screen.

A deposit of $100,000.00 has been credited to your account.