I smile sweetly at him. “You can leave, Cormac. We’ll see you out there. Try not to trip my mom on her way down the aisle.”
He gives me an inscrutable look. “I’ll be standing at the front. I’m the best man.” He takes a step toward the door but hesitates. There’s genuine concern on his face when he adds, “Are you okay, Nora?”
No.
“Of course.”
He leaves the office, shutting the door behind him, and my gaze skates back to Pansy, who’s still staring at me. There’s a knowing glint in her tepid blue eyes.
“Marco’s fake,” she says after an excruciating twenty seconds of eye contact. “You made him up.”
My heart starts racing. She’s going to force José to quit. She’ll back him into a corner, and he’ll leave, and everything in my life will go to shit…
The business will go bust, and I’ll probably never get to speak to him again. She’ll plant one of those tracking chips in his neck, and she’ll know if we’re within fifty feet of each other.
She angles her head to one side, studying my face.
“You’re nervous.”
“I’m never nervous,” I bluster, feeling sweat bead at the back of my neck.
“You’ve been lying to everyone.”
“Oh?”
“You made up Marco because you don’t want people to know you’re dating your brother.”
“Excuse me?” I blurt in genuine shock. “I don’t evenhavea brother.”
“Cormac,” she says with a knowing smile, gesturing toward the door.
Her words hit me like a physical blow. “You think I’m datingCormac?”
She stuns me by stepping forward. For a second, I think she’s going to attack me, but then she wraps her arms around me. It’s like getting a hug from an android who has never hugged anyone before in her life. To be fair, I’m not much of a hugger, so I don’t have a lot of experience to compare it with, but it isawkward. “Your secret’s safe with me, Nora.”
I’m about to tell her off when it hits me…
If Pansy thinks I’m secretly dating my stepbrother, I won’t have to find a new boyfriend and parade him around the brewery. Because she’ll think I’m having secret dates with Cormac.No one will have to know the truth. He’ll be my fake boyfriend for an audience of one.
My internal Jiminy Cricket chirps to life, the annoying little bastard.
Okay, fine. Cormac deserves to know. It obviously wouldn’t be cool for me to drag him into this mess without his permission, especially after our talk today, but I’ll figure out a way to make it worthwhile for him. There must be something he wants.
Heart racing, I edge back and give Pansy a brave smile. “Yeah, okay, but Cormac and I have to keep it quiet for obvious reasons.”
“Of course,” she says, her tone placating. “Does José know?”
“No, only you.”
This answer clearly pleases her. “I’ll have to tell him, of course. I couldn’t keep something this big from him.”
I bow my head, pretending to be penitent. “Yes, I’d never ask you to do that.”
She smiles at me, and it pleases me immensely that lipstick has rubbed off onto her right front tooth. “I’m so glad we had this talk. You don’t need to pretend with me anymore. We can talk about anything.”
I’m tempted to ask if that includes the creepy texts I’m ninety-nine percent sure she was sending me last year.
They stopped right after I told José about them, go figure.
