“Caleb?”
“IT genius who has helped my family a time or two and consults for me sometimes at the firm for really tricky cases,” she explains without looking at me. “Is it too late? Should I call him?” She looks at her watch. “Probably too late, and if I pointed them out to my sisters, they’d know it was staged.”
Okay, time to intervene. I stand up and walk to Libby. I place myself in front of her so she has to stop pacing, but I don’t reach out to her. “Libby,” I say in a gentle voice. “They’re going to believe you.” It’s her who reaches for my hands, and I take them gratefully. “Remember, I’m really good at flirting with you.”
That gets a small smile.
“Later,” I continue, “when your hockey team is madly successful and your show is everything you created it to be—you can tell them the truth and they’ll understand.”
She leans into me, wrapping her arms around my middle, and I take that as an invitation to hug her back. I revel in the moment she breathes deeply in my arms and take triumph in the way her shoulders relax.
“Okay,” she says against my chest. “Let’s do this.”
It’s a short drive from Libby’s apartment to the Bennets’ house in River Oaks. She reaches over and squeezes my hand when we pull into the driveway. “At least there’re no cameras tonight,” she says, forcing a smile. We’ve filmed a few things to put in the first episode, but it’s only been an hour or two here and there. So far, not too intrusive, although Libby says I may not feel that way in a few months, when they seem to be around all the time.
She hates that she’s lying to her family about us. I don’t know them, so I can’t say if the truth would be better. She insists they’d step in to fix things, and even if getting married is way outside the box, she wants these decisions to be hers alone. I’ll have to trust that Libby knows what she’s doing right now.
She waits in the car while I get out and open her door, then take her hand to walk up the driveway. She leans into my shoulder, the way she did when we walked the beach in Maui. She smells like lemons and vanilla, and I try to take a long, discreet breath.
I clocked Libby’s attractiveness the first time I saw her at that benefit, and it was only added to by the compassionate way she treated what happened with Bryce, and then of course her generosity to save the people in my community. The more I’ve gotten to know her, the more beautiful she becomes. When she gets home from work every day, even though she’s just wrapping up things to hand over to the woman who’s taking over, she brings with her the troubles and cares of the women who come to her for help. She tries to compartmentalize, but she’s too tender to forget them, ever. It’s like she’s lived it herself, the way she protects the truths they share with her. She serves those women wholeheartedly and never judges anything in theirstories. She’s thrown herself head over heels into this new venture with hockey—it draws me to her more and more.
I’m smitten, to say the least.
It means I’ve been thinking about this kiss all day and looking forward to it. We’ve already discussed that it needs to look as real as possible. Real like the kiss on our wedding day, when I got lost in her.
We reach the top of the steps, the choreographed place for this kiss. I lean my forehead against hers. “We don’t have to do this,” I whisper. “I can be in love with you without crossing that line.” I don’t realize what I’ve said until after it’s out—I can be in love with you. NotI can pretend.
But Libby doesn’t notice. Her expression relaxes from worry. She even smiles a little as she reaches a hand to the back of my neck to pull me toward her and press her lips to mine. I wrap my arms around her back, holding her to me. Her lips are soft and gentle. They immediately draw me in. I want more, and it’s difficult to hold myself back from deepening the kiss when we only need tolookintense.
The door swings open. Libby and I pull apart enough to turn our heads to see who’s come to answer the door. It’s a young girl, probably nine or ten, arching an eyebrow at us. Libby’s oldest niece, Cordelia. We’ve had multiple sessions in which Libby has taught me about her family. Though our six months of dating was supposedly a secret to them, she obviously would have told me all about the Bennets. They’re important to her.
“Grandma said to come and get you guys,” Cordelia says.
Libby lets out a breath of a laugh. She leans over to pull her niece into a hug. “Why didn’t she come and get us herself?” she asks.
Cordelia hangs her arms around Libby’s neck, and Libby pulls her up into her arms, even though the girl is only a few inches shorter than Libby. To be fair, she looks light as a feather. She wraps her legs around Libby’s waist, holding on like she’s a baby monkey.
“I don’t know,” Cordelia says to Libby as we make our way through the entryway and toward the warm glow of the living room. “Grandma just said, ‘Libby and Jordan are here. Go open the door, Cordie.’”
Libby grimaces slightly, then wipes it from her face. I want to ask her about that.
Cordie turns to me. “Are you my new uncle?”
That somehow feels a lot more serious than Libby’s fake husband, which makes zero sense. Being a husband is a big deal. It’s intentional. Something I did on purpose. Being an uncle is something that can happen to anyone with siblings.
I shake off the weird gravity of Cordie’s question and hold out a hand to her. “Hi, I’m Jordan.” I figure not directly addressing the “uncle” issue is best.
She holds her hand out over Libby’s shoulder. “Hi, Jordan. I’m Cordelia, but most everyone calls me Cordie.”
Libby grimaces again, but we reach the family room before I can ask. It’s filled with people. Or at least it feels that way. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet are in the kitchen on the opposite side of the room, but they stop their dinner preparations to look up at us as we enter.
A man stands from where he was sitting on a couch with two little girls on his lap. Charlie Baldwin is Libby’s brother-in-law, and the girls are his and Janelle’s youngest daughters, twins who are eighteen months old.
My brother-in-law. My nieces.
Oof.
Should I feel bad that I’m only lying to my parents about my relationship with Libby and it didn’t feel likethatbig of a deal? I mean, I didn’t like it and I wanted to tell my mom the truth, especially since she got all starry-eyed over Libby. I wanted to warn her not to fall like I am.
