Page 50 of Bound To Be Mine

He thought about it. “Fine. Yeah. I can stay another day but only if you give me my pen back.”

“Sheesh, you’re very serious about your pen. Worse than the bank lady.”

“Sentimental. And expensive.”

I opened my purse and pulled it out, holding it in front of him. “I’m going to text you tomorrow. We’re going to do something that puts us in public so people see us. Do not come at me with another contract, got it? I will take your pen and toss it in the Pacific.”

“We’re a long way from the Pacific.”

“I live very close to the beach. I will toss it.”

He sighed. “Fine. No contracts. For now but at some point, you do need to sign the business one.”

“I know. And I will. As long as you keep up your end of the bargain.”

“Fine.”

I handed him the pen and saw true relief wash over him. He tucked it into his jacket. “Goodnight.”

“Night, Husband.”

“Stop calling me that,” he said as he walked away.

I grinned. It was going to be fun teasing him.

I let myself into my room, slipped off my heels, and sat on the edge of the bed staring at my phone. The selfie I’d taken at the end of the night was still in my camera roll. I pulled it up.

It was a good photo. Better than I expected, honestly. Briggs had actually smiled. My hair had gone a little loose in the Vegas breeze and I was leaning slightly into him like it was the most natural thing in the world.

We looked like a couple.

I edited it quickly. Brightened it just a touch, softened the shadows. Added a light filter that warmed the whole thing up. Then I sat there with my thumb hovering over the share button.

This was the moment. Once I posted this, we were doing this for real. No taking it back, no quiet annulment and pretending Las Vegas never happened. I was officially declaring to the internet, my clients, and to everyone who followed my work and my life that Briggs Blackwell and I were in love and very happily married.

I took a breath and typed the caption.

Turns out the best wedding I’ve ever attended was my own. The secret’s been impossible to keep. I am the luckiest girl in the world.

I hit share before I could talk myself out of it. Then I set my phone face down on the nightstand, changed into my pajamas, and watched twenty minutes of a sitcom I’d already seen three times before my eyes gave up entirely.

The notifications woke me before my alarm did. I lay there listening to my phone buzz steadily on the nightstand. I told myself to ignore it. Apparently, I had managed to ignore it all night. That was the exhaustion that had me sleeping like a baby. Curiosity overruled good sense and I picked it up.

The post had north of twelve thousand likes. I stared at that number for a full ten seconds.

The comments were pouring in, a waterfall of hearts and exclamation points and screaming emojis. Several of my clients had commented. Vendors I worked with regularly. A few bridal bloggers who had reposted the photo to their own stories with captions about romance and real love.

Real love.

I put the phone down and looked at the ceiling. Guilt made my stomach sour. I was a fraud. My career was all about making other people’s real love look beautiful. And I couldn’t get that real love myself, so I faked it. What happened when people figured out I was full of shit?

They would turn on you so fast, a voice in the back of my head said helpfully.

I sat up, shoved my hair out of my face, and told the voice to mind its business. The marriage had already happened. I had no choice but to keep the charade going. No one was going to find out. No one had to know it wasn’t exactly a love connection.

Fake it till you make it.

I went through the comments more carefully, responding to a few. Professional ones, mostly. I had to engage. That was Social Media 101. I liked a few hundred things and thanked the people I knew personally.