AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Let me guess,” Preston says. “She’s a celebrity.”
It’s obvious that I couldn’t have met someone, fallen in love, and decided to get married since the last time we were all together. But it still galls me a tiny bit that the idea is so absurd that they assume I have to be faking it for the will.
I mean, even if I am faking it for the will.
And even if I’ve never nurtured the slightest thought that marriage might be for me.
“Obviously she’s a celebrity,” Rhys says. “Everyone in Shane’s life is basically a celebrity.”
“We’re not,” Hanna points out.
“I’m just saying it was inevitable that when Shane got engaged, it would be to a celebrity.”
Hanna’s eyebrows draw together. “But Shane’s not really getting engaged. He’s f?—”
“Yes, he is,” Rhys interrupts crisply. He winks at me. “Han. Think about it this way. It’s a basic law tactic. Attorneys don’t ask clients to answer questions they don’t want to know the answers to because then they won’t have to actually lie. Plausible deniability. If he just tells us he’s getting engaged, we can take it as gospel that he is and pass that along to everyone else. Like Weggers. Shane is getting engaged. He just told us so.”
My sister’s gaze swings to me. “Is that how it is?”
Easton closes a cabinet and joins her, tugging her to his side. “He can’t answer that,” he murmurs to her. “That’s the whole point.”
“Ohhhhhhhh,” she says.
He gives her a fond look and kisses her cheek, mussing her short hair.
Damn. I wish I’d thought of this idea myself. I like Rhys’s plausible-deniability reasoning. This way I don’t have to make my siblings outright lie for me.
“So who is she?” Easton asks me.
“I’ve actually known her a while.” Might as well practice the story, if we’re going to play this Rhys’s way.
“Of course you have,” Hanna says. “And we all knew about her.” She winks exaggeratedly at me.
I seriously hope she’ll be a more convincing liar by the time we have to meet with Weggers.
“I definitely did,” Preston says, already in the flow. “You mentioned her to me way back when you first met her. I could tell from the way you talked about her that this one was different.”
I probably shouldn’t be surprised that Preston, whose parentage is the same as mine, can act. Or that he catches on quickly. A guy who rose meteorically in New York finance is bound to learn to play the game fast.
“That was probably when we were still just friends,” I say. “When she thought I was just a player and she was leaving LA, so I didn’t even feel like I could make a move. But then I was here working on the January and Tobias wedding and we ran into each other again and blam.”
Actually, that’s not a bad description of the feeling I had the first time I crossed paths with Ivy.
“So convenient,” Tucker mutters. That’s about all we get out of him these days. No one knows exactly what’s going on with him, and he won’t discuss it. If you ask if he’s okay, he shrugs and says he’s fine.
“How did you two meet originally?” Rhys wants to know.
“I first met her in LA at a party with mutual friends. We hit it off, met for coffee to talk shop?—”
Ivy and I worked out a story that would be hard to refute. Our idea was that plenty of people can say they didn’t know we knew each other, but no one can prove we didn’t. As long as we don’t tell an outright lie, Weggers won’t have anything on us.
“—anyway, we became friends. It would’ve been more, but she knew I wasn’t relationship material and kept me at arm’s length. Then things blew up with her and she ended up coming to Rush Creek to get away from LA. She’d quit acting and I lost touch with her, and then—blam—I ran into her at Hott Spot. And it was?—”
It’s convenient not to have to lie about this part. “It was pretty instant, for me at least. I was like, I’m not letting this woman get away again.”
My voice gets husky. I’d like to say it’s because I’m a brilliant actor, but it’s actually because I accidentally let myself think about Ivy. The sunshine-yellow hair and the big brown eyes, the willowy curves and the wry smile.
And that fucking hug the other night.
