The Ex-Change novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: One Bed

The villa on Lake Como had forty windows, one private dock and exactly four bedrooms.

Lowen gave us the keys in the front hall, in a crowd of crew carrying lights up a marble staircase.

"The show rule," she said brightly. "Exchange partners share a room. It's good for the cameras, and the audience likes it."

"No," I said.

"It's in your contract. Page fourteen."

I looked at Jude.

"I said it for the network," he said. "I want the record to show that."

"Rule two."

"Rule two," he agreed.

Colton and Vanessa went up the stairs ahead of us with their bags, side by side, laughing about something in a low voice.

They looked so easy together that for half a second I envied them.

Our room had a balcony over the lake, a fireplace and one bed.

It was a huge white bed with a canopy, built for a married couple who had stopped speaking.

Jude stood in the doorway holding his guitar case and looked at it for a long time.

"I'll take the floor," he said.

"Don't be ridiculous. It's marble."

"I'm a grown man with a bad back and a good sleeping bag."

"You're a world-famous pop star, and I'm not going to have you in the papers as the man who slept on the floor in my room."

"I'd like to be in the papers for that."

"No."

I built a wall down the middle of the bed out of eight pillows and a spare duvet, and he watched me do it with the grave interest of a man observing a bridge being built.

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