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“Hey, sweetheart. I was just calling to check in.”
I can’t help smiling. “Thank you, but you know you don’t need to call every day. I promise I’m okay.”
“I know, I know, it’s just…I miss you already.”
My heart aches at her words. This is the longest we’ve been apart, and it’s eating me alive—the worry. And the missing her, too.
All of a sudden, I wish I could tell her everything. Spill it all.
Seeing Jenson again after all these years. The undeniable pull I feel toward him. The same pull I need to fight, because I agreed to this ridiculous plan.
A plan that will pay her medical bills.
“I miss you, too. I went out on the town today.” Breezily, I go on to tell her about shopping—well, more like checking out a bunch of stores I could never afford anything in.
I can’t tell her what really went on. That Jenson carelessly handed over a heavy black card to pay for all of it. Every bursting bag at my feet, full of my new wardrobe, everything I’ll need to be his fake fiancé.
Lord, what am I going to do with it all when this is over?
As Jodie fills me in on some neighborhood gossip, I dip a hand into one of the bags and pull out a cream-colored evening gown. A gown, for a company retreat? But Jenson insisted on it.
I can’t quite imagine throwing it into the donation bag at a church or thrift store. But I know I won’t be able to look at them again, either.
The good thing is, Jenson is paying me enough that I won’t have to stay at Dupont too long. Maybe I can jump ship to another company after six months, or a year. My chest is tight at the thought of doing this—getting wound up in a relationship with him, even if it isn’t real—and then having to see him day after day when it’s done.
I don’t think I can let him go again. Even if he’s not really mine.
Once was hard enough.
“—out there yet, honey?”
“Sorry? I missed that, Jodie, you cut out for a second.” Guilt floods through me.
“I said, have you met anyone nice out there yet? When I was your age, the city was full of hot young men.”
I crack up at the sassy tone in her voice, imagining a much younger—and healthier—Jodie. Jodie before she took me on after my parents disappeared. First mom, then dad; dad insisting he had to start over “fresh” when he met his second wife.
Jodie was my mom’s sister—my aunt—and only twenty-two when she adopted me. She bought a tiny house in a small town and that was the year I met Jenson Sharpe, the kid down the street. Both of us were five years old.
It hurt to see where we all stood years later.
Jenson, close to heartless and writing checks to secure the only thing that mattered to him—his company.
Me, signing over my freedom and creativity to pay the bills, and play his fiancé.
And Jodie was still back home. Our fifth home, after following her heart surgeon all around the country.
“Um, no. I haven’t quite had time for that yet. It took me a few days to get settled into the apartment, and I just had my first day of work.”
But we’re both laughing at the idea of a whirlwind romance in the city.
Unfortunately, Jodie never found anyone to settle down with. She dedicated most of her youth to raising me, and then when the blood clot happened there was no time for anything but anxiety, appointments, and fear.
“So tell me about the new job.”
I do—I fill her in on the office, the glass walls that I don’t like, my team, my second-in-command Adrian, and the basics of marketing graphic design (which I find incredibly boring, but…it pays). She can hear the excitement in my voice dim as I rattle it all off.
Graphic design was a credit I checked off the list when I went to art school. It was never the work I wanted to do, and churning out company pamphlets, organizing PR photos, and learning brand guidelines wasn’t the job of my dreams, either.
