Chapter Seven
I had never been this stressed in my life.
Once, my father had drunkenly visited a strip club with no cash on him, and when asked to pay, he had oh-so-graciously told them that he had a daughter who would be 'perfect' for the job. I was eight years old at that time. And as a lanky bodyguard had thrown my thrashing body into the backset of his vehicle. As he stood me in front of a flamboyant, but skimpily dressed, nearly six-foot-tall woman, hair and heels included, I thought I had seen the peak of the proper definition of a stressful life.
I, oddly enough, had been wrong.
My father was persistent and dumb. It didn't matter if he ran the most extravagant casino in Vegas. He didn't have a single cooperative bone in his six-foot-tall figure.
Sadly, I came to this realization later than I should have.
"I don't understand, said Nova. They would never buy it." He added for the umpteenth time, running his fingers through his already disheveled hair.
I took a deep breath, trying to contain the frustration bubbling through my veins, hands coming up to cover my face. I silently wished I had more experience in dealing with mutants of my father and a kindergartener.
"Nova," I started, "It's not a question of whether they will or will not. The question is how to plot the timeline. They are bound to believe everything if we plan well enough."
He suddenly got up from the dining chair he was sitting on, angrily chewing his omelet, chair skidding along the dark wood floor from the sudden motion. He hastily placed the empty plate on the kitchen counter, before walking towards his bedroom door.
"I'm going to be late. I have meetings." His voice sounded from within the room.
Suddenly, the idea that we had been quarreling to come up with for the past thirty minutes struck me, a small gasp escaping my lips. This had to work.
"No, Nova." I stated, walking towards the room he was in. "You have to be late."
He stood near the bedside table accommodating a small lamp, scrolling through his sleek phone. His head shot up at my sudden interjection, blue eyes following my movement.
"You have to be late. Turn up late and when they ask where you've been, just don't answer them. They are bound to think something is up."
His face scrunched up, clearly confused by my statement. I let out a low sigh, grabbing his forearm and starting to drag him along with me, mumbling a quick 'come here'.
Clearly surprised by the action, he loosely followed me, stumbling once along the pathway from the room to the kitchen. Once in the area, I let go of his arm, walking towards one of the counter chair and sitting on it.
"Make me something to eat and I'll explain."
The look on his face was utter confusion, as if the words that tumbled off my tongue were in a language he was foreign to.
Ignoring his bewilderment. I started, keen on helping the clueless-multi-millionaire-casino-owner become a better pretender.
xxxxx
He left an hour late for his meetings, serving me a proper breakfast and making some more for himself. To say I was surprised on realizing he had actually come to terms with the proposition on how to spread around the gossip, would be a complete understatement. He was cocky, using his authority on people more often than he should, relentlessly teasing others, but he had listened peacefully while I spoke.
It started simple the first day. He came back earlier than his usual time, making excuses of how he 'had to be somewhere.' Entering his suite, which was actually his home, with a deep sigh, mumbling 'I don't want to be here with you', to which I had so painfully cut myself from replying 'likewise'.
For some reason, he cooked his own meals. As he was serving the well-cooked soup at dinner time, I had asked why he didn't have a maid do it, or use room-service. His reply had been, "how long do you expect me eat from the hands of those extra spice using freaks? I make my own stuff."
Cocky, but a good cook.
I lounged on the couch after dinner, only after helping him clean up. We kept our conversations at a bare minimum, fully aware that we were in a deal, mere acquaintances, business partners you forget as years roll by. We spoke when necessary, mostly me just asking questions to fill in the silence, and him answering in his usual rude-polite manner.
And throughout the day, I ignored my thoughts as best as I could. For a person whose life had always been planning and always thinking, being enclosed in a singular place was proving harder than I typically had thought. I tried my best to ignore the thoughts of my mother, of how she was coping, of my father, whether he thought I was dead by now. I tried not to think, and I failed.
The hardest part was when the maids arrived. For the air to stir with news that Nova was spending his nights with me. I hope the chatter will reach his rival cousins, who thought they were more eligible and of course Papa's astonishment. The maids had to see us together, or in some way together, so they could peek with lidded eyes and rush to tell the gossip around the staff.
Nova spent the whole time after dinner in his bedroom. I laid down on the couch, first watching a movie and later drifting off to sleep, very uncertain of everything, but pretending not to be.
The maids usually arrived before Nova woke up for the day. Today I woke up to a wide-eyed Nova shaking me rapidly as I arose from my deep sleep nearly sent me into cardiac arrest. His hair bed mused like he had just woken up, eyes bleary but set wide with hints of panic, his hands shook me awake, continuously mumbling 'five minutes, five minutes'.
This was it. Our plan was going to begin now.