Best Fake Fiance (Loveless Brothers 2)

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, because if I look at Charlie right now, I’m going to lose my shit again and make Rusty even madder.

“That’s the joke,” I explain. “She doesn’t really like angels, but we said she does.”

“That’s just a lie,” Rusty points out.

“You’re right, sweetheart,” I say. Charlie clears her throat.

“Sorry, Rusty,” Charlie says. “It’s not really that funny.”

I open my eyes again, Charlie’s staring straight ahead, like she’s trying not to laugh.

In the back seat, Rusty sighs dramatically, still frowning. I put the car into drive.

“Where’s the algorithm taking us next, pookie bear?” I ask Charlie.

She snorts and unfolds the itinerary.Chapter EighteenCharlieThank God, the next stop doesn’t have delicate, flowered teacups and saucers set up at their tasting table, just three plates with forks. Everything about this already makes me feel like a bull in a china shop: the beautifully, carefully crafted cakes; the signs on the wall with sweet sayings like Live, Laugh, Love; the other patrons who are inevitably women and inevitably have their hair and nails done and keep saying things like lemon chiffon Victoria sponge.

I’m not particularly delicate. I’m not great at being careful, unless it’s around power tools. I’ve never in my life had a manicure that lasted longer than three hours without chipping, not that I’ve painted my nails in at least five years.

Also, I’m wearing a dress, so I’m constantly afraid of accidentally flashing people, and Daniel won’t quit staring at my back and then saying that he’s not. I’m starting to think I’ve got a KICK ME sign back there.

But despite all my discomforts with traditional markers of femininity, this is the best day I’ve had in weeks. Cake is delicious. Rusty’s being her usual precocious, hilarious self.

And I think I might jump out of my own skin if Daniel touches me one more time. I don’t know how I’m supposed to wait until Monday afternoon when Rusty has her ballet lesson for him to come over. That’s over forty-eight hours away.

Maybe one of his brothers will take Rusty for a while tomorrow. I love the kid, but I’m trying to jump her dad’s bones over here and she’s not helping.

“All right,” says the woman at The Cake Walk as she brings out a platter of cake pieces. “Here’s our sampling of wedding cake options. All the way on the left is our basic white cake, which we’ve spruced up with a little bit of coconut to make it extra moist, and then there’s our raspberry chiffon, a really moist cake that we usually serve with a simple buttercream, and third is the angel’s food cake, which is dense but moist and really holds up well as the bottom tier of a cake.”

I shoot Daniel an alarmed glance.

How many times is she going to say the word ‘moist’?

“Next is our bakery specialty, the pistachio mint cake, which is probably our moistest and most popular…”

Oh, God.

She says the word moist at least five more times. She describes the red velvet cake as moist twice in the same sentence. I can no longer concentrate on cake. I can only wait for her to say the word moist again.

Midway through, she gasps. The three of us freeze, me with a bite of cake halfway to my mouth.

“That’s a beautiful ring,” she says. “Is that a ruby?”

I lower my fork.

“It’s a garnet,” I explain. “Family heirloom.”

Daniel briefly tells the story, and the woman is now sitting with her chin on one hand, leaning over the table.

“That’s so romantic,” she sighs. “How did you propose? I’m sure it was amazing.”

Daniel and I look at each other.

Is everyone going to ask us that? I wonder.

Before I can say anything, Daniel alights one hand on my shoulder, his rough hand on my bare skin. I take a deep breath and ignore the sizzle it sends along every nerve in my body.

“Charlotte loves to tell the story, so I’ll let her do it,” he says. There’s a gleam in his eye that I don’t like. “And don’t forget the part with the skywriting, sweetheart.”

I reach up and put my hand over his and smile at him sweetly, because I know I probably deserve this.

“How could I forget?” I ask.There must be some wedding cake marketing seminar where they teach people how to make small talk during cake tastings, because the same thing happens at every single bakery. It’s bizarre. It’s also kind of hilarious.

First, there’s some variation on, “What a beautiful ring!”

Then, the big one: “How did he propose?”

If we were smart, we’d have come up with a story ahead of time. We didn’t.

First was the ceramic angels. I have no clue where he got that idea from.

Next, at the Cake Walk, he threw it to me and I told the nice lady all about how Daniel took me for a picnic on a lake, and when we went out on a rowboat, a skywriter wrote MARRY ME CHRALOTTE overhead, and I said yes despite the misspelling.