Traffic (Complete two-hundred pages) (Moving to Kindle Vella in 30 Days! )

36

BREAKFAST

A FIERCE GLINT IN HIS EYES. "Put on your suit and coat and we'll meet you outside for breakfast." Raúl left the room.

Jack rubbed his eyes and sat upright on the carpet where he had slept. In the mirror he caught Margarita's movement behind the bed. She was zipping a new dress from her back. Strapless. "Can you help me put this on?" She knew he'd been spotting her reflection and turned to gesture him over.

Jack rose to his feet and came behind her. He reluctantly pulled the zipper that sat just above the dimples in her lower back, and rose it softly to behind her chest. It was tight around her chest but he managed to do the job. She didn't complain.

"Thank you," she said. "Go take your shower. A fast one. Juan, Raúl and Gabriel are waiting in the car downstairs."

Jack did as he was told. He felt he needed a shower nonetheless but he sensed the breakfast wasn't going to feel anything like a family brunch. By the way, what was that third name she mentioned? "Who's Gabriel?" He stepped around the wall of the bathroom and stripped his clothes. He could sense Margarita attempting to sneak a peek at him through the adjacent mirrors of the room.

"Gabriel's our driver." That's all she cared to say about him. That's all Jack wanted to know. He stepped into the bathroom and turned on the showerhead. The water was ice cold.

"Keep the door open," she said. Stepping over to the counter in front of the mirror outside the bathroom.

Jack found this a rather odd request. "I'd rather not."

Margarita laughed. "I've got some shower tunes for you." She unleashed her phone and turned on the Bose home speaker that came with the room. "Do you like Juan Gabriel?" she said flipping through her music. She started to play "Querida."

The shower was now scorching hot. "I don't know who that is." Jack was glad that there was a towel blocking smaller Jack from Margarita's view. But he looked over and she was focused on the music and dancing to her tunes. "Querida!"

Jack started to sway too. He lathered the shampoo. And it stung. "Good song."

"Do you like Santana?" asked Margarita.

"Por supuesto." Of course.

"Do you like Justin Bieber?"

"I try not to."

"Michael Jackson."

"Sure."

"Here's something more contemporary." She played a pop song and immediately started dancing with herself in the mirror. Jack thought oh what the hell and started dancing with her from the shower.

"What's this?"

"Enrique Iglesias." She could tell he liked it because once she saw him dancing with the removable showerhead she started laughing.

Once he was out of the shower he maneuvered himself around the shower door to fetch the towel that had blocked him from her perverted glances. Dancing to Oye Como Va now, she was slowly applying more makeup to her face. He wondered how old she was but had the decency not to ask. But then she asked him his age.

"You look younger than I'd expected. Your voice is deceiving over the phone."

Jack had an easy answer for this. "Let's just pretend I'm older than you."

She laughed like she'd just heard the funniest joke on the planet. "Okay." But this decision did make her seem less anxious. "Your new clothes are over there," she said.

My new clothes? Jack thought. In his towel he stepped around the shower wall and found a tuxedo hanging in the open closet by the mirror. Bewildered or impressed, he went over and checked the tag. "How'd you guess my size?"

"I'm from the fashion industry, I sized you up the second I saw you."

But it seemed too early to Jack to put on a tuxedo. "I thought we were going to breakfast," said Jack.

"Yes," said Margarita, deviously, "But you're a powerful man this morning. You wear what you want to wear. . ." Approaching him she snagged his towel away from him and he grabbed a pillow to cover himself. She looked at him with a satisfied smile and handed him a pair of Black Calvin Klein underwear. She turned back to the bathroom to manage her music and continued her conversation as though nothing had happened. ". . . And if what you choose to wear is overly gregarious for this early in the morning then it only makes sense that I am your wife to justify your flashy character."

Jack put on his Calvin Klein's and looked at himself in the mirror behind her. She saw him too and she looked at his clean body with the utmost appreciation. "You're so young," she said under her breath.

"Did you say you were to play the role of my wife this morning?" Jack asked.

She turned to him with confusion. "Yes," she said as though Jack were to already know the plan for this unusual morning. "And you my husband." She stepped over to him and for a moment the music stopped. "Just remember your pitch. And everything will go smoothly ... And then you'll get the girl back."

This last note enticed Jack to the point of rushing to put his suit on. The whole time realizing was this whole charade an exchange between Pat and Margarita to get Penelope back?

Margarita smiled when the next song came on and began shaking her hips in that purple dress. "Hurry up, hero."