Her nostrils flare. “And I don’t want yours.”
“So we’re on the same page then.” I add that in to the contract.
She watches intently as I print out two copies of our marriage agreement. I pluck my nicest pen out of its case, the one I usually reserve for big important deals. I sign my name on the bottom of both copies, and then I hand over my pen with a flourish.
“I feel like I’m signing my life away,” she mumbles, but she takes the pen and scribbles her name anyway.
“For better or for worse,” I say with a smirk.
Jules’s eyes flick up to mine, hard and determined. “For better or forbetter,” she says firmly.
I snort a laugh. “Fine by me. For better or for better.”
I’m only in this for the sake of finalizing my business deal. Nothing else matters as far as I’m concerned.
After Jules signs both documents, she slides one back across the desk to me.
We sit there in silence for several long moments.
She fumbles with the top corner of her own copy, mindlessly wrinkling the sheet of paper. “Okay. Well. Now, what’s the next step?” she asks, sounding unsure of herself.
I scratch at my stubbled jaw. “Um, well. I think we need to start telling people we’re getting married.”
12
JULES
“Did we really need to start with telling our moms?” I peer up at Lincoln as he opens my door and helps me out of the front passenger side of his car.
“Huh?” he mutters, his attention fixed on Cameron who’s already hopped out of the back seat and is wandering up the parking lot sidewalk ahead of us.
I stare at my fake fiancé hopefully. “I was thinking we could start with some low hanging fruit. Test out the waters by telling the neighborhood mailman our big news. Or maybe that tall, gangly teenager who bags groceries at the market downtown.”
But Mei Sasaki and Monica Raines? Together? Over lunch? Talk about nerve-wracking.
“I don’t think we can pull this off, Lincoln. Our meet cute issonot cute, and we don’t even have a proposal story to tell, and you know they’re going to ask.”
Lincoln sighs impatiently, his massive hand finding the small of my back, coaxing my steps forward. “They’re our mothers, Jules. They need to be the first to know.”
Admittedly, it’s hard to fight the logic in that. No matter how uncomfortable it makes me feel.
So we’ve invited my mother, Lincoln’s mother and Cameron to join us for a casual Saturday afternoon lunch at a restaurant in town.Notthe one I just quit from, thank goodness. I had to put my foot down when Lincoln suggestedLa Trésor des Fées.
I paste on a wobbly grin as we step through the entrance ofMatilda’s, a new seafood franchise that recently opened here in Fairy Bush. Cameron heads straight to the table where our mothers are already seated, lost in their own conversation even though they’ve just met.
I lean in to whisper in Lincoln’s ear as we walk over to meet them. “Sooo…we just tell them? Rip the bandaid off?”
He gives a little shrug, his grin as stiff as concrete on his handsome face. I realize for the first time that he looks just as nervous as I feel. That doesn’t comfort me one bit.
“We’ll, uh, test out the waters. See how it goes.”
I eyeball him murderously, still smiling through gritted teeth. “We’re winging this? You said you had a plan!”
“The plan is us not blowing this whole thing up within the first two minutes.” He politely pulls out my chair. “Now, smile big, Troublemaker,” he says into my ear before helping Cameron into his seat and then sitting beside me.
The server delivers our drinks and we all place our meal orders. We chat about nothing while we wait for lunch to be served.
After a while, my mom starts eyeballing me, silently asking what the heck this out-of-the-blue lunch date is all about.
