Fake Fiancee (For Now) (Big Men of Blue Mountain 1)

Helen is gracious enough not to acknowledge my tears as I wipe them away, and the rest of our lunch is perfect. Leo is probably pacing like a caged animal wondering how it went. Before I left, he seemed nervous. I can’t wait to tell him that it’s fine. Better than fine. Amazing.

“Leo mentioned being in the office today,” I say to Helen as we pull into Blue Mountain. As soon as I get out of the car, I hear yelling. What the hell?

Helen and I glance at each other and rush up the porch steps together. The door is already open, and we walk into chaos.

Leo is facing off against his friends, his back to us, and he’s the one who’s yelling.

“This isn’t at all what I planned, believe me. I’ve been out of my mind all week trying to make this work, and it will happen. I didn’t ask for my family to fuck everything up, and I didn’t want to have to fake a fucking relationship just to get my parents off my back.

“They go home tomorrow. One more day and we’ll have the money. And after that I’ll find a way to get it so that we don’t have to go through this shit again.” His voice drops to a more manageable level. “Just twenty-four hours, and I’m free of everything and everyone. And we can go back to business as usual.”

Beside me, Helen has gone completely still, and I don’t know what to do with myself. Leo’s friends are looking at the two of us, and that’s what makes him turn. The look on his face is terrible, because he realizes what just happened—what he’s done.

But as terrible as it is, it’s nothing compared to the pain that’s cracking through my chest. It shouldn’t hurt like this, because I knew that it wasn’t real. But the ground is falling out from underneath me, and everything in the world hurts.

A weight sits on my chest and I can’t breathe. I never knew that this could cause a pain so tangible. My body aches and screams, even though everything around me is silent. It feels false, this silence.

I can’t be here. He won’t see me fall apart.

Turning, I look at Helen, my face flushed with shame. I can’t decipher the look on her face. But I can’t just leave her with that. “Everything that I told you was true,” I say quietly. “I’m so sorry.”

And then I’m walking out of the lodge in a daze and back toward Leo’s cabin. There’s a fog around me. If a train came hurtling past, I don’t think that I would notice. There’s only what’s directly in front of me.

There’s not much to pack. Only the small suitcase that I brought with me for Emily’s bachelorette. And the amount of time that I’ve spent naked made that easy to manage. It’s only minutes for Leo’s cabin to be like I never existed in the first place.

The last thing I do is pull the ring off my finger and place on the counter. I already miss the feeling of it there. The reminder that we were a we.

I can’t blame anyone but myself for this. I knew I was too deep, and I ignored it because it felt too good and too real. It was part of the deal. And now it’s over.

Somehow I make it to my car, though I don’t remember walking there. And it’s not until Blue Mountain isn’t even in my rear-view mirror anymore that I start to cry.

14

Leo

Fuck.

My mother and Diana standing in the door is like a vision from my nightmares after what I just said. My stomach plummets through the floor, and it sinks even deeper when Diana turns away. She says something to my mother and then she’s gone. I blink for one eternal moment before I’m running after her.

My mother stops me with a hand on my chest. “No.”

“I need to talk to her.”

The fury in my mother’s eyes knocks me back a step. “No, I think you’ve said quite enough for Diana. You’re going to let her go, and we’re going to talk.”

“That can wait.”

“Now, Leo.” She marches out of the lodge and toward the cabin she’s staying in, and I glance back at my friends. Even though we were fighting five minutes ago, they’re still my best friends, and there’s sympathy on their faces. But there’s nothing they can do.

I follow my mother in body if not in mind. My brain is across the property at my house where Diana probably went. I have to fix it. I have to. I don’t know how much she heard, but even if it was only the last line, I don’t blame her for being hurt. Free of everyone and everything…I’m a fucking idiot.

I meant the pressure of this situation and the fact that even though I’m loving every second with Di, the water temperature is rising higher, and I’m being squeezed like a vise on all sides.