Page 21 of Power Play
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SOPHIE
I’ve read the same sentence three times and it still makes no sense.
Something about quarterly projections and last year’s revenue streams. Or maybe it’s in Portuguese. I wouldn’t know. My brain is mush, my coffee’s gone cold, and ever since I walked into work this morning, I’ve been fighting the urge to stare blankly out the window and relive every single second of last night like some deranged teenage diary entry.
Murphy. Arm around my waist. Me, laughing like I actually belonged tucked under his arm. The way he looked at me when I joked about catching feelings, like I’d said something dangerous but true.
I tap my nails against the desk. Nope. We’re not doing this. We’re not rewinding and replaying and assigning meaning to things that were explicitly meaningless.
It was fake. That’s the entire point.
“Stop being weird,” I mutter at my laptop, which responds by crashing. Because of course it does.
My phone buzzes on the desk.
MIA: You on lunch?
MIA: Or still hungover from pretending to like Murphy?
I snort, already dialling.
She picks up on the first ring. “So, how’s my favourite fake girlfriend?”
“I’ve been worse,” I say, spinning slowly in my desk chair. “Once had food poisoning on a hen weekend. Comparable experience.”
Mia laughs. “That bad, huh?”
“It was fine,” I say, and even I can hear the deflection in my voice.
“Fine?”
I sigh. “Fine-fine. Good-fine. Weird-fine.”
There’s a pause.
“Want to run that through the Sophie-to-English translator for me?”
I pick at a loose thread on my sleeve. “You were there, you saw it. We played the couple part. It worked. We fooled everyone. Murphy made heart eyes. I threatened to kick him in the shin. Classic romance.”
“Mm.” Mia’s voice is careful now. “And how didyoufeel?”
“I felt like I wanted another drink,” I say breezily. “Which I had. And then I went home, alone, and absolutelydidn’timagine what it would be like if any of it was real.”
She doesn’t respond straight away. “Ah,” she says finally.
“Oh, don’t you ‘Ah’ me,” I groan. “It’s not a thing. We’re not a thing. We had one-night months ago, and mutually agreed it was a blip.”
“Sure.”
“Mia.”
She clicks her tongue. “You know, when people get that defensive, it’s usually because they care.”
“I careenoughto not ruin things,” I snap, then wince. “Sorry. I just…this whole thing is giving me whiplash.”
She softens. “Because you actually like him?”
