God, he’s cocky.
“If anyone found out, you could lose it all. We could both lose it all.”
A wave of nausea ripples through me at the thought. But I don’t know if I have another choice. I’m running out of time to meet someone, fall in love,andplan a wedding. And my prospects haven’t exactly filled me with hope and optimism for the future.
“It’s risky, for sure. But my PR team would be in on the whole thing, and they have ways of covering tracks,” Jett explains, as if he’s had to rely on them before. I’m sure he has.
“How would it even work?” I ask, overwhelm creeping over me.I’m not agreeing to anything,I remind myself.Just weighing all possible options.
I don’t have time to plan a wedding. I barely have the capacity to keep the café running as is. I chew my bottom lip, and Jett’s eyes flick down to my mouth.
“Don’t worry, Poppy. That’s the beauty of having a team, they’ll help us pull it off,” he says, before adding a not too convincing, “hopefully.”
“What do you mean, hopefully?”
“They might need a little convincing to go along with the plan, is all.”
There’s something about the subtle lilt in his tone that tells me whatever his team thinks about the scheme, Jett will make it happen. That is, in the event that we decide this is the right way to go. And I’m still not convinced.
“Then we should iron out some of the details first,” I suggest. “Ifwe were to get married, what would the timeline be for the wedding?”
“I just need to show Nuclear that I’m off the market before the World Cup Final.”
That’s in two months. Less than the timeframe outlined in the deed.
I nod, wondering when we’re going to hit a hiccup, when I’ll realize that this is all too good to be true. Because so far, there aren’t a ton of reasons for menotto do this. Not if I want to save the café.
“How long do we have to stay married?” I ask.
But the question makes a pit form in my stomach. That tiny detail was never mentioned in my meeting with the lawyer. Probably because we were talking about it as if I’d be getting married for real, like it would last forever.
“I don’t know, long enough to seem convincing, I guess?” Jett offers, although based on his expression, we both know it’s not a good enough answer. We need to make sure the plan is bulletproof, or else it’ll all be for nothing.
“Six-months,” I decide. I can stay married to Jett for six months. Though by then, I’ll be nearing thirty.
It took me this entire lifetime to find a fake husband, I don’t want to wait another lifetime to find my real one. But Thistle + Thorne is all I have, besides Cordelia. And it’s not like I’ve had any luck in the dating world.
“Six months?” Shock washes over his face.
“I mean, sure, plenty of people rush into marriage and get divorced within the first year. But we need to stay married long enough that people will think we gave it our best shot. We would need to commit. I’m not signing on if you aren’t serious about this.”
He tilts his head from side to side, the muscles in his jaw flicking. “Fine.”
There’s only one wrinkle remaining.
“What about our friends? What about your brothers? They’ll see right through this, and we have to be careful about who knows. If we get caught…” My voice trails off because I don’t want to think about what will happen if we get found out. Jett’s career will be over, and I could be looking at straight up fraud.
“We’ll have to convince them that this is real,” Jett says, as if it’s as simple as breathing air. “That we woke up one morning and realized that this whole time, we’ve been head over heels for each other, and can’t wait another day to get married.”
My stomach churns. One, because I don’t know how to make a relationship seem convincing, and two, because lying goes against every fibre of my being.
Jett might not see a problem with lying to our closest friends, but I’ve always been honest. I’m an open book, and the thought of Wren finding out about this after the fact is enough to make me sick.
“Wren needs to know,” I argue.
I can see the cogs turning in Jett’s head.
“If Wren knows, Hudson will know, and then it’ll be a slippery slope,” he points out.
