Mister Fake Fiance

Erin swallows, heartbreaking uncertainty fleeting through her gaze. I open the lid. “Of course. Erin baked ’em last night.”

“Thanks!” Bev takes one and bites into it greedily. “Oh my gosh. This is great. So soft and chocolatey. I didn’t know you could bake so well, Erin.” She smiles, careful not to show any teeth. “It’s amazing. Now the day’s starting off right! Hey, gotta run. Another meeting!” She trots off.

Erin lets out a slow breath, too overcome to say anything.

“Told you.”

She turns to look at me. Her eyes shine brighter than stars, and her entire being glows like the moon. For an instant I can’t breathe. How lovely she is in that moment.

“You sound really smug,” she says finally.

I swallow before I can answer. “What can I say? I love being right.” I brush the bridge of her nose with the back of a finger, watch the flush bloom on her cheeks and think, And I love this sight even more. “Let’s get to work,” I say before I do something really inadvisable. Like drag her into my office and have my way with her. Again.

And we really can’t afford to screw around, literally or figuratively. I have a lot to clear off my plate before we go to Virginia for the party next Saturday. I was initially thinking about flying out on Friday night, but Mom wouldn’t hear of it. Her text made that abundantly clear.

David, how are we going to get to know Erin better when there are so many people around at the party? You need to bring her EARLY. You know I’m already heartbroken abo

ut not being in L.A. this weekend like I wanted!

I don’t know how much getting to know each other is going to happen on Friday, though. We’re flying on a red-eye on Thursday, and we’re going to be tired when we land Friday morning in Dulles. Hopefully Mom hasn’t made any really ambitious plans involving an elaborate breakfast, lunch and dinner and outings. She can go overboard when she’s focused on something, and I don’t want Erin to feel overwhelmed.

Wyatt strolls into my office at nine thirty, holding two cookies. He’s one of my closest friends and colleagues at Sweet Darlings, Inc., and we have a few items to go over, which hopefully won’t take too long.

He hands me a cookie. “Here. Thought you wouldn’t want to miss these.”

“I already had some last night,” I say, watching him sit down.

“That was last night, ol’ son. This is now.” After I take it, he munches on his. “Damn, this is good. Thought you said she couldn’t bake.”

“Did I? Oh yeah, when you fired that girl…”

“Yup. Baked like a dream. Just wasn’t cut out for office work.”

“It was just that one time,” I say, not wanting Wyatt to mention my criticism of Erin’s baking to anybody.

“Yeah? Because you sounded really sincere back then. And you’re lyin’ now.”

“I’m not lying,” I say, wishing I’d never complained to Wyatt. If he opens his big mouth, the damage is going to be incalculable. I doubt he’ll gossip and tell anyone—that’s not his style—but I have to be one hundred percent certain. “If you ever tell anybody I said Erin can’t bake, I’m sending Kim a viper. In your name.”

“Real mature there,” Wyatt says dryly. “She’d never believe I sent it. Our love is pure and eternal, like sunlight on the snow on Mt. Everest.”

“If you ever get tired of working here, you’ve got a bright future in a mediocre Shakespearean theater somewhere.” At the same time, I have to give him the point. He and his fiancée are committed for life, the way Dane and Sophia are. I consider the cookie on my desk thoughtfully.

Erin and I agreed to a temporary fake engagement. But why shouldn’t it be more permanent? I can’t think of a reason. I meant what I said at Dane’s place. After I broke up with Shelly, my heart was empty. In retrospect, I realize what I felt for her wasn’t necessarily love, but half friendship and half affection that I mistook for love because I was young and we’d known each other for so long. When she betrayed me, it hurt, but if I’m brutally honest about it, I was angrier with myself for being fooled than upset about losing her.

But now my heart isn’t empty. It’s full of emotions—exasperation, admiration, humor, despair, surprise, joy—and some of them are unfamiliar in their intensity. But they all have one thing in common: Erin. She makes me laugh, she makes me horny and she makes me want to slay every dragon for her, whether she likes it or not.

“Hey, man, you listening?” Wyatt says, waving a hand in front of me.

“Of course. Just, um, go ahead and say what you just said again, because I want to make sure I heard you right.”

He regards me with a sort of lazy exasperation. But he repeats what he said.

And I decide I’m going to find a way to make the arrangement between me and Erin permanent before my grandmother’s birthday party.

Chapter Forty-Two

David