Page 95 of Fake it With Me

I stood there, phone in hand, feeling like the ground had opened up beneath me.

Liza was already lining up other jobs. Already planning her next fake relationship. She was already scheduling a new gig that would start two weeks after our contract ended.

Two weeks.

I let myself believe we had a future together. And she had been treating this like any other job. It was a job. I almost forgot I was paying her.

I felt like an idiot. A complete and utter fool.

I should have known better. Should have kept the boundaries in place, should have remembered that this started as a business arrangement and no amount of real feelings on my part could change what it fundamentally was—a transaction. She was here because I was paying her. And when the money stopped, so would she.

She’d be moving on soon. I would be left here alone again with a giant hole in my heart where Liza used to be.

How could I have been so stupid? How could I have let myself fall for someone who was literally paid to be with me? How could I have confused her professional performance for genuine feelings?

I set the phone down carefully to keep from waking her. I needed to think. I had to process this away from her. I didn’t want to say something I would regret.

I got dressed quickly and quietly, then headed out of the house toward the boathouse. I had at least an hour before I needed to make breakfast for Daisie. Working on my old boat was like meditation for me. It centered me, gave me something to focus on besides my own spiraling thoughts. I couldn’t be around Liza right then. I was afraid of what I might say. I would lash out and make myself look like a damn fool.

The boathouse felt like a refuge. I pulled on work gloves and grabbed sandpaper, attacking the hull of the boat like it had personally offended me. How had I gotten here? How had I let this happen?

I had hired Liza to avoid this kind of emotional entanglement. The whole point of using Faux was to keep things clean and professional. I had a contract with clear boundaries and a defined end date. No messy feelings, no complicated breakups, no risk of getting hurt.

I had started imagining a future with her. A real relationship and maybe even more children.

But it wasn’t real. Not to her. It was just another job. I was a paycheck.

I was going to be stuck trying to explain to Daisie why another woman she’d gotten attached to had left. I was doing to Daisie exactly what Sasha had done, except this time I couldn’t even claim ignorance. I had known this was temporary.

I just hadn’t expected it to hurt this much.

I didn’t know how long I’d been out there when I heard footsteps behind me.

“Darek?”

Liza.

I kept sanding, not trusting myself to look at her yet.

“Hey,” she said, coming closer. “What are you doing out here? I woke up and you were gone. Is everything okay?”

Everything was not okay. Everything was the opposite of okay.

“Just working,” I said, my voice flat.

“At six in the morning? Darek, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

I kept working. If I looked at her, I was going to break. I willed her to go away. I needed to be alone.

33

LIZA

Something was wrong. I knew it the moment I walked into the boathouse and saw the rigid set of Darek’s shoulders. When I woke up to find him out of bed, I was a little surprised. I expected to find him in the kitchen with a cup of coffee waiting for me like he had so many other mornings. But he wasn’t there. I searched the house and decided to check the boathouse.

And now I understood why he disappeared from bed. He was upset about something which I didn’t understand. Did the lawyers call him? No. I would have heard the phone and there was no way they would call him before six in the morning.

Something happened.