“I’m fine, really. But you…” Her bottom lip quivered. Although she was a stranger to him, he could tell she was not the sort of woman to break easily. But his being hurt had almost broken her. Why? Why would he matter to her? He could no more matter to her than a distant star in the sky or a grain of sand upon the earth.
“I seem to be… fine too.” His last two words came out more like a grunt than he intended, but he’d made the mistake of trying to shift up on his bed and it hurt. He should have listened to the nurse.
Angelo tried to keep the conversation casual while he made sense of why his entire universe was now orienting itself around this woman.
“The nurse said the surgery went well… I was lucky. Did they catch the man who attacked you?”
She shook her head. “No. I spoke to a policeman earlier and described the attacker. He took pictures of my sweater and my hands.” She glanced down at herself, a pink blush tempting her pale cheeks. “Your sister-in-law loaned me her sweater. Mine was covered in…”
Blood. She’d been covered in blood. His blood. A shiver rippled down him, and he shoved away the dark, swirling thoughts that tried to creep in.
Angelo moved his thumb over the back of her hand soothingly. There was no point in delaying the inevitable question any longer.
“My mother mentioned that you said you were my…fiancée?” He offered her his most charming, disarming smile, the one that put anyone at ease, but she tensed and pulled her fingers free.
“I’m sorry, I… er…. I made a mistake. I told EMTs I was your fiancée so they’d let me travel in the ambulance with you. You asked me to stay, and I didn’t want you to be alone. I couldn’tjust let them take you away after you’d saved me, not without knowing what happened to you.”
She shook her head, causing red waves of hair to tumble around her face and shoulders. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think it through. Then I was sitting in the waiting room holding a plastic bag with your belongings, and I had to tell someone what happened, so I called your mother. And when your family arrived, the waiting room attendant told them I was your fiancée, and…”
Angelo could piece together how things went from bad to worse after that. He chuckled, then winced as pain flashed through his body.
Kara wiped fresh tears that formed shiny tracks on her skin. “It’s not funny.”
“Oh, you’re wrong. It’sveryfunny,Tesoro mio,” he said, still grinning. It was probably the pain killers in his system, but this was all so hilarious that he’d be roaring with laughter if it wouldn’t hurt like hell.
“Your friend Jared laughed too. He made it sound like this was some silly rom-com or something. But this is real life. Your family thinks we’reengaged. That we’ve been dating for two months. We don’t even know each other.” She said it as if it was the worst thing in the world, as if she’d caused some terrible problem. He wanted to throw back his head and laugh, but that would hurt like hell.
So he tried taking her point seriously. “You’re afraid to tell my family the truth? It would be easy, Kara. They would understand that you were just trying to make sure I was okay.”
“It’s just that they looked so…happy,” she whispered. “I mean, what if they think I was trying to run a con on you or something…”
She said “happy” with a softness that reminded him of when he’d been a young man and his grandmother had once shownhim a bit of her wedding veil. It had been torn in places, stained yellow with the passing decades, but it carried the weight of grand, wonderful memories. The sound Kara had made was like that, the kind someone made when they knew that they were holding something precious and were afraid it might break in front of them.
“My family would never think you were trying to con, them,” he said honestly.
“They wouldn’t?” the hope in her voice was so thin but there.
“No, they wouldn’t,” he assured her.
Angelo saw something in her eyes that called to him. An echo of something he felt buried in his own soul every day.Longing. She wanted to belong, to feel connected to something, even to his crazy family.
He had a sudden desire to confess that he wanted to know her, but that might scare her. So he chose his words carefully.
“I understand where you’re coming from. My family might be upset, more with me than you. So let them think we are together, at least for the holidays. We can tell them we broke up after New Year’s.” He paused, thinking over what else might make her agree. “I don’t know what your plans were for the holidays, if you have family coming in or…”
She shook her head so he continued. “Or if you’re busy with work…”
“I have a week off,” she murmured, her gaze thoughtful as he continued.
“In that case… I could offer you some of the best food in Chicago either cooked by me, or my restaurant, every night during the holidays. That way my parents might see me with you and at least for a while they’ll think I’m happy and in love and stop pushing me about marriage and grandkids.”
Their gazes locked and he saw a fragile hope swell in Kara’s eyes. The shield she was holding up to keep the world at baywas crumbling. Suddenly, she blinked and gave her head a small shake.
“Won’t your family just get more attached to the idea of you getting married if I’m around?” she asked.
“Perhaps, but they will accept our breakup when I eventually tell them.”
Her eyes met his. “Why would you want to do this? Why pretend to have a fiancée? I feel like that’s probably the average man’s nightmare.”
