Page 21 of Fake it With Me

“You didn’t screw anything up.”

“I dumped an entire tray of champagne on an old lady.”

“Mrs. Cavendish will survive. She’s been through worse. Her first husband left her for the pool boy back in the nineties. A little champagne is nothing.”

Liza let out a weak laugh, but I could tell she was still beating herself up about it. I wasn’t mad at her. How could I be? It had been an accident. She was trying to remove herself from a horrific situation. Sasha had pulled her usual bullshit. She loved making a scene.

But even as I tried to soothe her feelings and promised her that nobody would remember it in a week, I couldn’t help wondering, had I made the right choice with Liza?

She wasn’t polished like the people at the yacht club. She didn’t glide through social situations with practiced ease or know how to deflect catty comments with a smile and a cutting remark. She was genuine and clearly a New Yorker with those quick comebacks. But genuine didn’t always play well with people who had spent their lives perfecting their masks.

Liza was not from our world. And honestly, I felt like she might be too good for us. Not the other way around.

I should cut her loose. End this stupid thing. It was unlikely to really help. It was just going to cause both of us more stress.

Then again, she looked damn good in that dress. I had felt like a king walking into that party with her on my arm. I noticed other men’s eyes follow her across the room. And Sasha was jealous. I loved that Liza intimidated her.

If only Liza could avoid drenching poor Mrs. Cavendish with champagne again, we’d be fine.

“Your ex is really something,” Liza said after a long stretch of silence.

I laughed, genuinely amused by the diplomatic understatement. “You can just say she’s a monster. I won’t be offended.”

“Okay. Your ex is a monster.” She turned to look at me. I could see the confusion on her face. “How did you two ever end up together? You seem like… I don’t know, like you would want different things.”

“We did want different things. I just didn’t realize it until it was too late. When I met her, she was charming and fun and seemed genuinely interested in boats, in what I was building. But it turned out she was interested in the lifestyle, not the work. The parties, the travel, being on yachts, not building them.”

“And then you had Daisie.”

“And then everything changed for her. Motherhood wasn’t the adventure she’d signed up for. It was hard and messy and required actual sacrifice.” The old bitterness crept into my voice. “So she left.”

“She talked to me like I was beneath her. Like I wasn’t good enough to be there.”

“That’s because you’re real. Sasha hates anything real. She only cares about winning. Her life mission is to be better and prettier than everyone else. If you got a new car, she’d get a new SUV. If you got a ring, she’d get a necklace. Everything is a competition. I’m guessing you picked up on the fact she’s shallow.”

She snorted. “You don’t say.”

I laughed. “I’m guessing her need to one-up me and everyone else is why she’s dating Grant.”

“Is he richer than you?”

I scoffed, slightly offended, but then remembered she didn’t know our world. “Grant is not richer than me. Not even close. But he’s older, established, and owns the yacht club. She probably thinks being with him gives her status. It certainly gives her access to the same social circle she had when we were married.” I paused. “Plus, he’s apparently willing to put up with her bullshit, which is more than I was by the end.”

“She’s had a lot of work done, hasn’t she?”

I burst into laughter that felt strange. I usually only laughed when I was with Daisy and it was for entirely different reasons. Talking shit about my ex wasn’t something I indulged in with anyone. But Liza was safe because she was under contract.

“You noticed that?” I said.

“Hard not to. Her lips looked like they were about to pop, and those definitely weren’t the breasts she was born with. Even when she was trying to glare at me, her eyes barely moved.”

“She’s had so much work done since we split that she’s barely recognizable as the woman I fell for back in the day. New nose, new lips, new everything. I think she’s trying to become someone else entirely. Erase the parts of herself that were married to me and the woman that gave birth to Daisie.”

“That’s really sad, actually.”

“It is,” I agreed, and I meant it. As much as I resented what Sasha had done to our daughter, there was something tragic about a person who hated themselves so much they’d rather become a plastic imitation than be themselves.

We pulled into the estate’s driveway, the security lights illuminating the familiar landscape. I parked in the garage, and we walked inside without a word.