“You can talk to me about anything. What’s bothering you?” I asked. “I’ll answer whatever you want, other than the fact that I lied about making the spaghetti sauce.”
“Okay first, I guess, I’m wondering what’s happening. I mean, we’re here in Paris. I’m supposed to be your fiancée and we’re supposed to be out showing off our relationship to calm down some scandal that I know nothing about.” She paused to suck in a deep breath “I know nothing about you and I’m marrying you. Don’t you want to know about me?”
She paused again,so I waited, not knowing if she was done talking or reenergizing. I’d taken a seat on the couch while she talked and paced trying to keep up with the onslaught of questions. Now she stood completely still, looking at me expecting answers.
“I’m up now?” I asked, pointing to myself. “What’s happening is I had to come to Paris to get some design meetings and such done. You needed to get out of Australia, so it worked great to get here. We are supposed to be getting married, and would be already if it were up to my mother, but I thought it might be nice to spend some time together and get to know one another. Hence, why we went for a walk tonight, which I won, and we are sitting here talking now.”
I was trying to keep pace with her inquiries, so when she started to speak, I put my hand up to hold her off and went on answering the questions she had presented already.
“We will go out and show off our relationship, but we only just got here today, and I wanted you to have a chance to recover from any jet lag, not to mention your injuries. However, you decided to take a bath in the fountains and taunted me to join you. It worked. I joined you, but in the interim, the paparazzi had followed us and caught the whole display on video for all of Paris to enjoy.” I bent over to take a few exaggerated deep breaths only to look up and find her laughing at me.
She was laughing so hard no sound was coming out, and she was fanning her face and waving at me to stop.
“What? You can’t take your own medicine? I’m not even done yet. I think I have a few more questions to answer, so here goes.” I sucked in air and prepared to go on.
“Stop, stop, stop. You’re killing me,” Imogen declared. “You’ve made your point.”
“Oh no you don’t, I’m going to win this one too,” I argued back. “To finish now, the scandal Asher Hawthorne caused was to be seen with another woman when he was supposed to be, according to the tabloids, engaged to a princess. Her father and her did not take it lightly. You are getting to know me. You know I’m a better walker than you, I don’t eat ice cream, I’m afraid of Gunner, I’m a brilliant architect, and besides being extremely handsome and charming, I have a wicked sense of humor. What I know about you is you like to play in public water, you cheat at competition, you ran track in high school and you love those red stilettos. Whew, that was a lot. I don’t know how you do that all the time.”
“Is it my turn now?” Imogen pleaded.
“No wait, I’m not done. I have questions.” I motioned for her to wait and listen. “Where did you grow up? Do you have siblings? Just how tall are you? Is red your real hair color? Do you want kids? And…what’s your favorite animal for a pet?” I gasped and fell on the couch.
“Are we really doing this, like this?” she asked from her end of the couch. “Or should we start over and do it another way? I have an idea.”
“I’m intrigued. What’s your idea?” I prompted her to go on.
“Let’s sit face to face with a timer. We’ll ask one question at a time and go back and forth.”
I sat up straighter. “I see, kinda like speed dating?”
“Yes, exactly. Do you have a timer?” She pointed to my wrist. “What about your watch?”
“We need rules, because you cheat.” I wagged my eyebrows at her. “Ten questions each, so take a minute to think of your questions.”
“All right, and we count each question as a month of dating… no, more like a week of dating.” She held her hand out to shake on it.
“You’ll go first, and we get thirty seconds to answer,” I said and set my timer to zero. “And…go.”
“How many siblings do you have?”
“Four.” I pointed to her dark red hair. “What’s your real hair color?”
“Blonde. My turn. What’s your favorite color?”
“Grey. How tall are you, without the red stilettos?”
“Five foot nine, and still shorter than you with the stilettos on. What’s your favorite food?”
“I don’t have a favorite, but my go-to is steak, because I’m a man.” I winked. “Who’s your favorite musical artist?”
“Asher, we already went over that one on the plane. Since I don’t cheat, you can ask another one.”
“That’s being very fair, Imogen. What’s your favorite shape?”
“Is that a serious question?” Imogen asked, eyebrow raised.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Hey, you don’t get to question any of my questions. Answer please.”