The Room With a View

ROMY'S POV

"Ma'am," the driver said quietly, "is anyone supposed to be following you today?"

I didn't turn around. "Silver Audi?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"No. Nobody is supposed to follow me."

He nodded once, and that was all. At the next light he waited until it turned red and then went through it anyway. He took two quick turns into a residential street and a third up a narrow road that climbed into the hills. When I finally looked back, there was nothing behind us but a gardener's truck.

"Lost him in Bel Air," the driver said. "He'll know which neighborhood, but not which house."

That was almost worse. Brice knew I had gone to Bel Air, so Paloma would know within the hour, and Paloma knew I was supposed to be on a plane to Atlanta.

The gate opened as soon as we reached it this time, and the guards didn't ask my name. Mrs. Quarles met me at the front door. She smiled warmly, but her eyes went over my face again, slowly, the same careful look she had given me two days before.

"Welcome home, Mrs. Pembroke. Let me show you your room."

The room was on the second floor of the east wing. It had a canopy bed, a dressing room and a balcony that looked over the whole canyon, with Los Angeles spread out in the haze beyond it. It was bigger than our living room in Hancock Park.

"Mr. President asked that you have the best view in the house," she said.

"Where does he sleep?"

She paused. "The west wing, ma'am."

I looked at the canopy bed. If I slept in the east wing and he slept in the west, every person who worked in this house would know within a week that the marriage was fake. Some of them would talk, and one of them would talk to his grandmother. The moment she doubted us, she would come home early to see for herself, and she would look at my face and know I wasn't the woman she chose.

"I'll stay with him," I said.

Mrs. Quarles's eyebrows went up.

"Bold," said a voice behind me.

Evander was leaning in the doorway with his jacket over one shoulder.

"If we're convincing your grandmother," I said, "we share a room."

He looked at me for a long moment, and then he smiled, though there was nothing kind in it.

"Mrs. Quarles," he said, "move my wife's things to my room."

Mrs. Quarles and I were carrying my suitcase down the west hallway, with my mother's dress folded over my arm, when his phone rang. He glanced at the screen, and his face changed. For the first time since the courthouse, he looked almost gentle.

"Grandma," he said. "Yes, she's here. She's settling in." He listened for a moment, and then he looked straight at me. "She wants to see you."

He held out the phone. On the screen was a gray-haired woman with sharp eyes and a string of pearls, sitting in a garden full of white roses. She was smiling, and she was waiting to see the face of the woman she had chosen for her grandson.

I took the phone and turned it so the camera faced the ceiling.

"Hello? Mrs. Pembroke? I can't hear you very well. I think the signal is bad in this part of the house."

"Turn the camera, dear," she said. "I can only see a light fixture."

"Let me try another room."

I walked into the nearest bathroom and shut the door behind me. I said "Hello? Hello?" twice, as brightly as I could, and then I pressed the red button and stood with my back against the door, looking at my own reflection in the mirror. The woman in the glass looked guilty, and I couldn't blame her.

When I came out, he was leaning against the wall of the hallway, waiting. I gave him back the phone, and I made sure my hand was steady when I did it.

"It cut out," I said.

"Shy, are you?"

"I'm not dressed for a first meeting."

He didn't answer. He only looked at me for a long moment, and I had the uncomfortable feeling that he was adding something up. Then he stepped aside and let me walk past him.

That night, his bed was large enough that we didn't have to touch.

I lay on the far left edge in an old T-shirt, with my back to him. He lay on the far right, scrolling through emails in the dark, and the blue light from his phone moved on the ceiling.

Neither of us said anything for a long time. I listened to the air conditioning and tried to work out how long it would take Paloma to tell my father that I had never gone to Atlanta.

My phone lit up under the pillow. It was a text from Dad.

Did you land?

I turned the screen away from Evander and typed with my thumb. Landed. Exhausted. Will call tomorrow.

Three dots appeared and disappeared, and then appeared again. Then they stopped, and nothing came.

On the other side of the bed, his phone went dark.

"Your sister's friend," he said into the dark.

I went still.

"Silver Audi, California plates, following you from Hancock Park." His voice was calm. "My driver sent me his license number before you even reached the gate."

"I'm going to have him looked into tomorrow," he said. "And then I'm going to find out why your family is following you to my house."

He turned over, and within a minute his breathing was slow and even.

I lay awake until the sun came up.