Chapter 27

27

The window shatters so loudly I’m afraid the whole party must have heard it.

“Shit, Cooper! That was bonkers loud. What if—”

“There’s a ten-piece swing band playing in the hall,” Cooper assures me, hopping back up to the outhouse and carefully reaching his arm into the window. “No-one heard.” He squints for a moment, feeling around the inner wall before his eyes light up. “Got it! Okay. When this goes off, we’ll go round to the front and melt in with the others. Are you ready?”

I nod furiously, my heart starting to thud. “I’m ready!”

Cooper wrenches the fire alarm and a high-pitched siren sounds out so loudly the strength of the vibration makes my boobs and belly wobble a bit.

Cooper jumps down and together we march around the side of the building, trying to move quickly but not run. It’s harder than I thought it would be, keeping cool. I’m panicking on the inside but must present as gala serene on the outside. Look how I belong here! See how I glide in like this is just an everyday part of my charmed life! I glance over at Cooper and yelp at the sight of blood dripping thickly from his hand.

“Shit. Cooper!”

“What? Can you see someone? Have we been made?”

“No! You’re bleeding!”

He looks down at his hand. “So I am.”

“It’s really, really bleeding. It must have been the glass on the window frame.”

“Delphie, reach into my inside pocket,” he instructs. “There’s a spare handkerchief in there but I don’t want to get blood on my tux.”

I hurriedly open up his tuxedo jacket and root around the inside pocket, feeling a multitude of bits and pieces but no fabric.

“I can’t find it,” I say, frantically wiggling my hand around his pocket.

“The other side. Try the other side.”

I do and I’m now so close to Cooper that I can see the outline of his chest against the white cotton of his shirt. I can smell his soap. My heart starts to pound. It must be the sight of blood. I’ve never been queasy about it before, but this is already quite a high-octane situation for someone who, until last week, had only spoken to four people in the last year.

“There’s no hanky in there either!”

“Christ. I must have forgotten it.” Cooper stumbles slightly, at the blood loss or his surprise at forgetting something? Could be either.

The cut is bleeding really badly now. Heavily enough that in another few minutes we’re going to be in a serious pickle. The fire alarm stops and we hear the sound of guests exiting the front of the hall.

“Let’s just go inside, okay? We need to get that seen to. It doesn’t matter if they suss us out. We can’t have the both of us die for this.”

“Die? What? No. It will stop any minute now.”

“Let’s use your suit jacket to stem the bleeding.”

“Then my jacket will get covered in blood!”

“Who fucking cares right now? For someone who went to Oxford, you can be a bit thick sometimes.”

I press Cooper down onto the grass. He doesn’t look the type to pass out, but better to be safe than squished forever beneath his massive chest. Then I get a brain wave. I reach into his inside pocket once more, pulling out the Swiss Army knife. I lift up my dress and cut a slit into the shorts part of my shapewear, ripping right around the thigh until it’s fully torn off. I step out of it, immediately kneeling down and wrapping it around Cooper’s hand, squeezing it as tightly as I can.

“It’s working,” I whisper. While Cooper’s hand remains impressively steady, mine is trembling. “Does it hurt?” I ask.

“No. We’ll be late, though. The ruse will be ruined.”

“That’s not important right now.”

I continue holding the fabric in place until the bleeding subsides. And then, grabbing the army knife again, I rip off the other thigh. As I do, I notice that Cooper is looking right at my legs, his eyes almost black. “Yes, some of us have meat on our bones,” I say in response to his weird expression. Then my heart starts to thud again. I ignore it and wrap the other piece of fabric around his hand, tying it at the bottom so it looks like a black bandage.

“There,” I say. “Looks like a fancy black bandage.”

Cooper stands up, inspecting his hand before his eyes drop down to my thighs, which now have two slight muffin top bulges spilling out of the remaining shapewear.

“Jonah appreciates them a little chunky,” I say, pulling my dress back down.

I hear the swell of voices softening from the front of the building. Cooper hears it too.

“They’re going back in,” he says. Come on! Hurry.”

“Shit. Shit, nooooo,” I mutter as a guy with a walkie-talkie stands out at the front, eyeing us with suspicion as we approach.

“Keep cool,” Cooper says, striding purposefully towards the man.

“Do you have your tickets, mate?”

“Of course not,” Cooper immediately says with the same imperious air I know him to be excellent at, since he’s been using it with me pretty much since we met. “Our phones are inside our coat pockets, which, of course, are inside the manor, abandoned during the panic of the alarm. How irritating for the fire alarm to go off and stall the festivities.”

“Coats?” the man says. “In a heat wave?”

Cooper realises his mistake, his eyes widening in panic. This is a man unfamiliar with failing. I need to distract the bouncer away from the coats line of questioning, because it can only end badly. I know what to do. I’ve seen plenty of old movies in which women use their feminine wiles to disarm an enemy. I’ll take a crack at that.

I step in front of Cooper and smile at the bouncer, knowing that right now is the best I’ve ever looked in my whole life. I bat my enhanced eyelashes, open my glossy mouth, and swiftly remember that I have never ever flirted before. Not ever. I have no fucking clue what I’m doing.

“You are…very handsome on your face…” I try, immediately flailing.

“Come again?”

“And I like your…buttons.” I trail my hand down the buttons of the man’s black shirt. Wow. Some distant part of me knows this is bad, but somehow I cannot stop. “They’re shiny buttons. I like it shiny.”

I wink at the man.

I wink.

Cooper darts in front of me.

“Haha. Forgive her, mate. We may have already had a little too much free champagne. You know how it is…”

“Too much free champagne? No, mate, funnily enough I don’t know how that is.”

The bouncer narrows his eyes at us. I truly think we’re about to be busted, when suddenly he peers down towards my knees, his eyes sliding across to Cooper. I follow his gaze to where Cooper is frantically trying to smooth back his curls, which have returned to full wild disarray after the whole window-smashing thing. The bouncer nods slowly and gives a little chuckle. “Ah, that’s why you were around the corner, eh? A little hanky-panky? My wife likes it in the open air too.”

Huh? I look down at my knees and see the green grass stains from when I kneeled down to bandage Cooper’s hand. He thinks we were doing it?

I lean in. “Kindred spirits, your wife and I!” I giggle. “But I am parched now. You know…”

“Of course, love,” the man says, waving us through. “Go in and get yourself a drink, looks like you’ve earned it.”

Ew. Ewwwwwww.

I hook Cooper’s arm and drag him along with me to the lobby of the manor, where a waiter holds a tray filled with crystal champagne flutes. Cooper plucks two of them from the tray and hands one to me, clinking his glass against mine.

“You like it shiny?” he asks, amusement lifting the corner of his mouth. “That’s a new one.”

I down my champagne and immediately grab another.

“We will never speak of it again.”