For a moment, I could almost pretend…
“So, Cora Williams,” his voice was softer now, but steady, “would you please marry me?”
This wasn’t real. This wasn’t real. This wasn’t real.
But the way he was looking at me was real. The ring that belonged to his family was real. The way this felt less likesomething thrown together and more like something he’d been carrying around in his heart—that was terrifyingly real.
And the way my heart was racing, the way my hands were shaking, the way I suddenly wanted to say yes for reasons that had nothing to do with custody hearings—that was also terrifyingly real.
“Yes,” I whispered. “I will.”
His smile was different than any I’d seen before as he slipped the ring onto my finger. It fit like it had been made for me. As he stood and pulled me close, I could feel his heart beating as fast as mine.
“Now you have a story to tell,” he said, his voice low near my ear. “This is a small town. Word gets around. The fewer lies we have to tell, the less likely we are to get caught in one. Okay?”
I wrapped my arms around his waist and squeezed, the weight of the ring on my finger felt significant in a way that made my throat tight. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough, Jason.”
“This works for both of us.”
But as I stood there in his arms, wearing his great-grandmother’s ring in a garden that looked like something from a fairy tale, I knew with bone-deep certainty that this arrangement was going to work entirely too well. My emotions were already in upheaval, caught between the logic that this was all pretend and the growing realization that my feelings for Jason were anything but fake.
I was falling for my fake fiancé, and there was no safety net waiting to catch me when this beautiful lie came crashing down.
I slouched furtherinto the couch and shoveled a bite of Cookie Crisp cereal into my mouth as Jason’s great-grandmother’s ring reflected in the light of the television. That little beacon of bling that still had my heart racing.
Since it was the middle of the night, I had the volume as low as possible while still being able to somewhat make out what Papa Smurf was saying. Now that I was crunching cookies, that’s all I could hear.
Not that I cared. So far the blue dude had nothing in the way of wisdom for me. Granted, I couldn’t recall a Smurf becoming the guardian of a baby and then fake marrying their boss. Still, I’d hoped there was a pearl in there somewhere.
A pearl of reassurance that I wasn’t making the worst mistake of my life. A pearl that could tell me how to survive the loneliness already curling up in my chest at the thought of faking not-so-forever with Jason.
I guess I wanted that oyster to have a mouthful for me.
At least Elias wasn’t feeling all this unease in me. I was doing my best to shove all of this in the back of my mind when I was with him. He didn’t need this bleeding onto him.
Currently, he was upstairs with Anna, fast asleep. We’d all taken turns holding him and playing with him. He’d been so tuckered by the time he was done with his bath, he was ready for a bottle and bed.
It’d been so fun to see him with Anna and Ari. As big as that guy was, he was so gentle and sweet. He was going to be an amazing dad. The way Anna would watch him with Elias. Thatglow she’d had on the tarmac had only grown. And Ari, if a man ever looked at me the way he looked at Anna, I’d be the luckiest woman on the planet.
As I took another bite of cereal, footsteps sounded on the first floor.
“Hey,” Jason said through a yawn.
“Hey.”
His feet shuffled as he made his way to the couch, and then he plopped down. “You okay?”
No. I was planning a fake wedding. “Yeah.”
“You know, you don’t have to let Anna hold Elias all the time just because she wants to.”
I snorted. If that were my only problem… I’d be in heaven. “I won’t do that. Once the wedding’s over, they’ll head back to Chicago. I can share him for a little while.” I smiled.
Jason scooted closer and plucked one of my cookies out, popping it in his mouth.
“You ate my cookie.”
“Yes, I did.” He grinned and snagged another one. “I love these things.”
