Wilby’s eyebrows lift slightly. “You two are so domestic. It’s adorable.”
“Yeah. He has his routine, and I have mine,” I say. “Plus, we have work to do.”
Wilby’s mouth curves into a knowing smile. “I have already been on calls this morning with our team back home.”
My stomach tightens a bit. “I’m guessing there’s a lot being said.”
Wilby nods. “Oh, they all know. And we definitely beat Tyler and Belladonna to the altar. You got this fair and square.”
I blink and scan through more emails. “Oh. Fun.”
Wilby leans forward in his chair. “My intel from back at the office tells me that people are secretly celebrating that you’ll be taking over. And others...not so much.”
I snort. “Shocking. Well, I’d love to know who is not celebrating.”
“Oh, it’s an entire shitshow back there,” he continues. “They’re scrambling for breadcrumbs of information.”
My lips curve into a smile. “Which you have.”
He grins. “Which I have carefully curated to release per your permission.”
I sit up straighter. “Let’s see it.”
Wilby turns his laptop for me and clicks a few keys. A folder opens, and thumbnails fill the screen. They are carefully curated photos, it seems, meant to prove that we are, in fact, a real couple. There’s just one problem. They don’t look fake at all. In fact, in each photo Wilby captured, we experience real emotions and real-life moments. There’s nothing fake about it.
My breath catches. Because they’re beautiful. We’re beautiful. We’re a real-life looking couple. The way I gaze into Cal’s eyes and the way he holds me? It’s real. At least it feels real to me. And these are intimate and real-life photos.
Now they suddenly feel very, very personal.
“I don’t want to share these,” I say quietly.
Wilby’s grin fades. “What? Why?”
I swallow, and my throat feels tight. “I don’t want to share Cal. Or anyone here.”
The words feel so vulnerable as they leave my mouth, but I mean every word.
Wilby studies me for a long moment, something softer replacing his usual sharper edge.
“Silverlyn,” he says gently. “This was the plan.”
I look down at my lap. At my fake wedding ring, catching the light. At the normalcy of sitting and working at Cal’s table, waiting for him to come home from fishing so I can make us lunch.
I think about how he joked I could fry up his catch, and I told him that I wasn’t cutting up dead fish, and he laughed.
Our life here on Coconut Beach doesn’t feel fake. It’s starting to feel very real, and that’s scaring me.
“I know,” I say.
For the first time since this began, the cost of it all hits me full force. The cost to Cal and the people I’m growing to love very much here. The people who have shown up for me in ways that some of my real family never would.
I don’t want to share this. But I know I have to. Otherwise, I’ll lose it all. But is it really worth saving? Because right now if I just lived in Coconut Beach, would that be enough? Surely, I could find a job somewhere? Something remote even? I don’t even care about the money at this point.
The next morning, Cal and I wake up tangled together. Literally. My leg is thrown over him, my arm draped across his chest, and I’m pretty sure I drooled on him. Gross.
The sheets are twisted around us, the room washed in early morning bluish light, and my brain finally catches up.
I had the most vivid sex dream about Cal. It’s unfair that the intense level of hotness that happened in this dream. A dream where Cal’s hands were everywhere on me. His mouth was slow and devastating as he devoured me. And in the dream, no one was pretending anything. It felt so very real.
