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The flowing emerald, green, strappy dress that Wade had given me in the office earlier hugged my body in all the ways I wasn’t used to. I had to agree with his reaction when he first saw me in it—I looked almost ethereal with the way it moved as I walked, the fabric ghost-like. Even in the back of his chauffeur-driven car, I couldn’t keep myself from touching it, looking at it.
“I don’t understand why I need to get to know your friends,” I mumbled, pinching a bit of fabric between my thumb and fingers. My stomach twisted at the idea of not quite meeting their expectations. “Can’t I just meet them at the wedding?”
“If we were truly in a serious relationship, you’d know them well before the wedding,” Wade explained. His tailored black suit and tie fit him perfectly, accentuating every annoyingly mouthwatering part of him that I’d tried so desperately to forget about since the ice rink. “If your first time meeting Jackson and Mandy is at the wedding and people notice, it could raise questions.”
I sighed. It was fair and I couldn’t fight him on it. At least I didn’t have to pretend with them. “But if we’re not lying to them, why does it have to be a public thing? Why do I have to…” I rustled the fabric again as I looked up at him, “… dress up?”
His eyes glazed over as he looked me up and down, taking every bit of his sweet time to take in my form. It made my cheeks heat up, my belly flip, and god fucking dammit if it didn’t turn me on just a little bit. He’d been right before—there was a part of me that was attracted to him and had been since I’d mowed him down on the slopes. That didn’t mean anything, though. It would be nearly impossible to not be attracted to him. And with the way he’d spoken to me the other day on the ice…
My little gulp as he met my gaze seemed to bring him back to reality. “I asked you to dress up, Ice Bunny, because we’ll likely have our photo taken. There’s zero chance we won’t run into the press, and for once, that’s a good thing.”
If I had sleeves, I would’ve pulled them over my palms. “You could have warned me about the press,” I breathed. The swirling in my gut only got worse, and this time it wasn’t because of the way he was looking at me, even if that did set me on fire.
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m not looking forward to it, either.”
I nodded and turned away from him, forcing myself to look out of the tinted windows as we drove up the mountainside. I could still feel his eyes on me, but I did my best to block him out like I had with the silent driver. He hadn’t even introduced himself.
“You don’t have to put on an act tonight if that helps any,” he offered.
“Yeah, it does.” I resisted the urge to curl up inside myself. “I don’t think I’m ready to pretend that I love you just yet.”
“Oh come on. It can’t be that hard to pretend that you have feelings for me,” he chuckled, one finger closing the distance between our legs and rubbing against the side of my thigh. It set me on high alert again. “Just pretend I’m an ex or something.”
I snorted. “Yeah, that won’t help.”
“No good past relationships you can think of?” Wade asked, his finger going still against my thigh.
I didn’t really want to go there with him, didn’t want to give him the nitty-gritty about my life, but I knew that was all part of it. There were things he should know if he actually was around me a lot, dating me. “I stopped dating for the most part once Mom got sick since I had to give her so much of my time. And no happy endings, especially not the last one.”
He leaned forward, the side of his face entering my peripheral. “Can I ask what happened?”
You don’t actually care. “How is that useful?”
“It’s not. I’m curious.”
I chewed my lower lip as I turned toward him, meeting those angering dark eyes that gave me no clue to whatever lay behind them. “I wasn’t entirely honest in my job interview, okay? James didn’t just fire me. I was… with him.” I blew out a puff of air, sending one of my pinned-up curls flying out of my face. This was the one thing I hated talking about most, more than Mom’s illness, more than Dad’s death. It upset me on a visceral level that just didn’t compare. So why the hell was I explaining myself to him? “He broke up with me when he realized how little time I could give him because of Mom. And then used the excuse of me being late a handful of times because of that to fire me.”
Wade’s nostrils flared as he looked down at me, an angered twitch in his jaw. “Jesus. I knew Holman was an asshole but I didn’t know he was that bad.”
I nodded. “I made do for a few months and then came crawling to you. So, yeah, I don’t date. I don’t have any good past experiences, not even in college or high school. And I definitely will not be dating people I work for again,” I said, leveling a glare at him.
“I mean, technically, you are.”
“Technically my ass,” I scoffed. “Pretending is as far as this will go. End of story.”
————
Jackson and Mandy were a few years older than me, around the same age as Wade, making me feel like the odd one out that much more intense. I hated situations like these, always had, yet somehow I’d walked myself straight into one.
They were nice people, Mandy especially, and I found myself wondering what their kid looked like. Mandy talked extensively about Cassie, her smile nearly as wide as Mom’s used to be when Dad got home from his late-night shifts. Apparently, Cassie was walking on her own now, causing havoc, and misplacing Jack’s things by hiding them deliberately under the sofa.
I wasn’t very sociable as we ate. The food was incredible, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Cassie. When I was younger, I always envisioned myself growing up and finding a love like my parents had, the big fairytale princess wedding, and having my own kid. But now, I wondered if I’d ever get to the point with someone where I’d be willing to have their child before it became risky due to my age. With my mom being as sick as she was but her body holding out, I feared the majority of my time would always be spent on her, with no time left for a partner or a little one. Maybe I wasn’t cut out to take care of a child. Maybe my fate had always been to put that mothering instinct I had into caring for Mom.
“Have you considered putting out a joint statement to the press?” Jack asked Wade, his words filtering back in through the wall I’d placed. “Once we did that, we were swarmed with photographers.”
Once we did that. I’d forgotten that Wade mentioned Jackson and Mandy had done the same thing we were planning on doing, faking a relationship for their own personal gain. I tried not to think about where that had landed them—married with a kid. I didn’t even want to consider the possibility of that with Wade.
“No,” Wade said around a mouthful. “I don’t want it to get out right before Chloe’s wedding. I’d rather it look like a secret I was keeping.”
