Fool for You (Southern Bride 7)

“I call bullshit!”

I felt my face screw up in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

She laughed and shook her head. “Nothing, never mind me. What is this I hear about an engagement? As soon as I saw the news, I called your daddy and demanded to know why no one had told me, only to find out it’s a…fake…engagement?”

I rolled my eyes. “Lord, it’s a long story, Aunt Autumn.”

“Well, luckily for you, I’ve got all the time in the world.”

“Wait, I thought you and Uncle Jack were in Vermont with Sophie?”

“We were, but then we decided to take a little trip to Europe, just the two of us.”

I smiled. Autumn was my father’s sister, and she and Jack had been separated for a few years when their daughter, Sophie, was younger. Then they found each other again, and they made sure to get away at least once a year. No work, no phones, no social media. Just the two of them. I had always loved their story. It was a typical second-chance romance, but nothing about their love was a cliché.

Sophie was nearly eight years older than me and lived in Vermont with her husband and three kids. They owned a bed and breakfast up there, and my family and I used to go and stay at least once a year, before life just got too busy. It had been at least three years since we had gone up to visit them.

“Europe, huh? How romantic!” I said as I laced my arm through hers and walked her farther into my house. Lady came barreling toward Autumn and damn near swept her feet out from under her.

“Goodness, who do we have here?” Autumn asked, dropping down to let Lady give her all the licks she possibly could.

“This young lady is Lady.”

Autumn laughed, trying to keep her mouth away from my dog’s crazy-long tongue.

“From Lady and the Tramp?” Autumn asked with a knowing smile. It wasn’t a secret that it was one of my favorite Disney movies, second only to Brother Bear.

“Yep. I just need to find a Tramp.”

With another laugh, Autumn stood and brushed little bits of Lady’s white hair off of her jeans. “Now, back to you. When Jack and I landed in Atlanta and I saw your picture on a rag magazine with the word ‘Engaged’ across the front, I pulled my phone out and called Malcolm. He gave me the lowdown on what happened and said you were both going along with this crazy thing. Why?”

“Trust me, I’ve been asking myself that very question. But both Landon and I would have looked like fools if we had said we weren’t engaged at that point, and I only said it to my ex in the first place because I was having some weird meltdown at the time.”

She lifted her chin and said, “Ahhh. So you’re saving face by lying.”

I groaned and buried my face in my hands before I laughed. “I know. I know. It’s all so crazy. I just…I don’t need negative press right now. Neither does Landon.”

I told her our reasons for the fake engagement and she stared at me with an assessing look.

“It’s not that big of a deal. It’s going to give me a chance to see what my job is like from the other side.”

She nodded. “Right. Or do you think maybe you secretly want to be engaged, and that being engaged to your best friend isn’t such a bad thing?”

I tried to swallow. “I mean, who doesn’t want to be engaged and getting married?”

Her brows lifted.

“It’s nothing, Aunt Autumn. It’s fine. It’s all going to be fine.”

“Famous last words,” she mumbled under her breath before she reached for my hand. “So, are you really going to do all of this wedding stuff and pretend that it’s real?”

“Why not? There’s zero pressure, and I think it’ll be fun.”

“What about dating?”

I flinched. “Oh, we’ve got that covered. I mean, we’re dating each other, just not in the way people think.”

Ugh. I wanted to punch myself. There was something about my aunt—she could always tell when I was hiding something. Or maybe it was because lying to her seemed to be so hard. Hell, I had no problem at all doing it with my parents. But I knew Autumn was different. She wouldn’t judge me and wouldn’t stick her nose into my business like my mother and father would.

“I was asking if you and Landon would have a problem if you wanted to date other people,” she said, giving me a knowing look.

“Oh!” I said with a laugh that sounded so fake I’d probably be booed off stage. “Well, neither one of us is interested in dating other people right now.”

Okay, that wasn’t a lie.

“Because you’re seeing each other secretly.”

“Exactly!” I said then frantically shook my head. “No! I mean, of course not. No. Nope. No.”