Free Over the Line by Emmy Curtis

than regular old Beth. Fake-fiancée Beth will just smile and play along.
    “Go and unpack and get settled. I’ll send Sadie out when she’s finished wrapping the bridesmaids’ gifts,” Mrs. Walker said as she urged them down the steps to the car.
    They both got in and Beth reached for her seatbelt, and watched his mother disappear back in to the house. Beth turned to him and said, “Wow. Just wow.”
    James winced and tried to apologize, but she brushed his concerns away.
    “I’m the fake fiancée. She doesn’t worry about these things. She’s marrying you, not your parents. She finds this all very amusing.” Beth smiled and settled into the car seat. “Fasten your belts; it’s going to be a bumpy night.”
    “Oh shit.” He replied, looking as amused as she did. “I can’t tell if you being here is going to be awesome or some kind of nightmare that will haunt me for years.”
    “I’m leaning toward nightmare,” she said, grinning as he groaned. Then they turned a corner and all teasing thoughts dropped away. She could actually feel her jaw drop open at the sight of the pool house. When his mom had mentioned it, she’d kind of imagined a tiny outhouse, maybe, that had been made into a room. No so much. The pool house was bigger than her own house in North Carolina.
    The pool was designed to look like a Roman spa. There were columns around two sides of the pool, which made it look like a ruined Roman temple. Cushioned sun loungers were spaced out between the columns, and the transom offered shade.
Holy mother of crap.
    At the far end of the pool was the house. It was almost shaped like a Bedouin tent. A drape-shaped roof gave way to ceiling-to-ground windows overlooking the pool.
    For a moment the view was obscured by more tall trees as they parked to the side of the building. She jumped out of the car this time and ran around to the pool front. The floor-to-ceiling windows actually housed an invisible set of double doors. She opened one and stepped into the most luxuriously decorated space she had ever been in.
    Huge daybeds and sofas faced out toward the pool, with blankets and towels draped at the ends of each piece of furniture. Drapery hung from the ceiling, bringing the outward tent vibe into the living area.
    There was a small kitchen with a huge, full wine fridge, and an open archway that led into the bedroom. It was dark and cool, again with the fabric draped low, making the room feel enclosed, safe, but very intimate. She could almost believe she’d walked into a harem.
    James called to her from the doorway. “Does this suit you, ma’am?”
    “Ha! You may never get me to leave!” she said, still goggling in awe.
    “All your bags are here. The closet is to the left of the bedroom.”
    She looked around. Indeed, the only feature of the bedroom was the bed and two night stands. There was nothing else there. She looked for the closet and opened louvered doors. A light came on automatically, illuminating a walk-in closet with wooden shelves for shoes and padded hangers by the dozen for her clothes. Phew. It was good they had stopped to get new clothes for her, as she suspected her normal wardrobe would have been automatically thrown from the closet by some kind of built-in ejector-seat mechanism.
    “James, this is incredible. I can’t believe I know someone who lives like this.”
    “
Used
to live like this,” he said, throwing his own bag on the floor of the closet.
    “Well, it’s beautiful. I will say that. This debt I’m paying is not such a hardship, you know.”
    “Well, I feel like I owe you now, after my mother…”
    Beth laughed. “No way. That was priceless. I wouldn’t have missed that for the world. Although, you might want to talk to her about that later. I mean, if you bring a real fiancée home with you at some stage. If we were really together, I may well have already left.”
    “No kidding,” he replied.
    “But then there’s this place.” She ran her hands along