Page 103 of Save Your Breath

The truth of that seemed to hit her full force, her face going white.

“Oh, God,” she whimpered, burying her face again. “I have to cancel a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden.”

Any desire I did have to comfort her was receding now, held at bay by her accusation. “Saving my ass,” I repeated, tonguing my cheek. “So, this is all about me suddenly? I’m the big bad wolf and you’re just doing this to be a little saint, huh? Nothing at all in it for you?”

“Oh, shut up,” she spat, shoving me away. I barely budged.

“Because I’m pretty sure this wasyourpublicist’s idea,” I reminded her.

“Well,youragent is the one who made me come here for your stupid game!”

“Made you?” I stood, jaw tight. “You are a woman with free will, Mia. In case you forgot. No one can make you do anything.”

She looked up at me then, her eyes softer, something in the relaxing of her jaw telling me I’d struck a nerve without trying.

No, I silently begged.Don’t do that. Don’t clam up. Fight me. Get mad. Tell me what’s going through your head.

“Whatever,” she said after a moment. The word was resigned, not laced with any sort of edge, and that upset me more than if she’d screamed it.

I could handle her yelling at me.

I couldn’t handle knowing I’d hurt her — even with all the practice I’d had over the years.

She sniffed, waving her hand in the air. “Do you at least have some tequila or something?”

“Need to get drunk to face the truth?”

“That I’m stuck in a high-rise condo with my fake fiancé with a hurricane barreling toward us?” She stood, a saccharine smile on her tight lips. “Um, yeah. Drunk is the bare minimum.”

She stormed past me and into my kitchen then, and I took a deep breath, letting it out as slowly and calmly as I could as I folded my hands together and rested them on top of my head. I stared up at the ceiling, debating converting to the first religion I could think of just to see if there was a god who could save me.

Mia needed to drink to get through this, and I needed to sit on my fucking hands.

Because she wanted to hit me, and I wanted to kiss her.

And with the two of us forced to stay together for the night, I had no idea how the hell I was going to keep up the charade of anything I felt for this woman being fake.

• • •

Thirty minutes later, Mia was two tequila shots in — shots she sipped, because the kind of tequila I had in my house wasmeant to be savored — and had resorted to lying like a starfish on her back in the middle of my living room staring up at the ceiling. She alternated between long, heavy sighs and quiet little whimpers of despair.

“We’re going to be okay,” I assured her as I sat on the couch above where she was sprawled. I had my sneakers in one hand, and I dropped them to the floor next to me, pulling the first one on my foot and lacing it up. “I’ve got plenty of food and supplies if we lose power. Flooding is our biggest concern being downtown, but right now they’re not predicting the surge to be where it would impact us. And this building is brand new, it’s up to code, it’s sturdy.”

Mia nodded, her head lolling to the side as she looked at me. “While all of that is comforting, I’m being a bit of a selfish bitch right now and thinking about how I’m about to have to cancel the biggest tour debut of my career.”

“You won’t have to do that.”

“How are you so sure?”

“Isabella is working on it, and that woman can do anything. You can’t get out tonight, but that wasn’t your plan, anyway. It was always to fly tomorrow. And my bet is that you’ll still be fine to do exactly that.”

“What if the storm completely wrecks the airport?”

“Highly unlikely, but if that does happen, we’ll come together as a community and get it fixed. And there are other airports within two to five hours in several directions from here.”

Mia’s mouth pulled to the side. “I guess I didn’t think about that.”

“You worry too much,” I said, bopping her on the nose as I stood once my other shoe was on. I could tell she was a little tipsy, mostly because she seemed less likely to claw my eyes out.