Page 37 of Ardently Yours

“But you’ll lose your family, your money and your home.”

“If I do what my dad wants, I’ll lose me.” The words are out before I can even think about it. But it’s the truth. The scary, hard truth.

Lizzie stands up and walks over to me. I stand up from my seat in front of her desk. She looks up at me.

I try to hide it, but I can’t. The vulnerability is evident. I can feel it in my stance, my breathing, my words. She can see it. I know it. She reaches out for me, opening her arms. I don’t have to think about it.

I accept the hug, letting her wrap her arms around me. I wrap my arms around her too, feeling safe. We stand there like that, in each other’s arms, for a long moment. When she pulls away, I want to pull her back in and stand here hugging her forever.

Lizzie stares at me as she slowly lowers herself back into her chair, never taking her eyes off me. She leans her head on one hand and studies me without saying a word.

I let the silence stretch between us. It’s not uncomfortable. It’s more like a much-needed pause for both of us to process everything. She breaks the silence first.

“I want to help you. I want to help both of us. But what happens when we stop pretending?” Her question leaves me floored because it’s one I haven’t really thought about, but one we should.

“We could break up amicably and continue as business partners. Or...” I trail off.

I don’t know what the other option would be. And would it even be wise to break up and keep working together, even if the relationship was fake? What happens when we have real romantic partners and they don’t like the idea of the two of us working together anymore?

I try again. “Maybe we could fake date while having a real business partnership for the rest of the summer. Then, in the fall, I’ll work on getting a bakery food truck or something and still provide baked goods for the cafe. That way we can still work together. Our future romantic partners won’t get too jealous, and no one will question how we’re still able to work together after breaking up.”

Maybe this could work. But only if Lizzie agrees.

Chapter Thirteen

Lizzie

This is wild. I don’t know what to say. I haven’t shared the load with anyone romantically in a while. I haven’t had a business partner before.

And now I can have both, one fake and one real partnership, being offered to me like a string dangled in front of a cat. Would this really help either of us?

“Like I said before, I need the money for the cafe.”

“Lizzie,” Will says, looking as dejected as he did when I first mentioned it. I know he cares about me and the cafe. “I wish you’d told me this before tonight. You know I’d do anything to help you.”

“I was being stubborn. Trying to hide it. To figure out what to do on my own. But I have no idea what to do. And then this plan comes up and I think it could help. Maybe. So, if we do this, we’ll need to lay out the rules. Like a plan. A contract.”

It’s the only thing I can think to say to him. I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing by going along with this and talking it through. But I start thinking about what my friends were saying in the group chat last night.

I was so ready to push Will away. I’d already started to. I did that because he wanted to become my business partner, all because of one little text.

But now that I’ve heard him out and we’ve talked through some of this, I can see it’s not what I thought it was. Yes, he wants to do this because it will help him. But the crazy part is that it would help me too.

And I need all the help I can get. I don’t want to lose my cafe. And I do want to get Mama off my back and make my family believe that my dating life is perfectly fine.

I guess I want to make my friends think that too. Maybe I’m thinking too much about what other people think of me.

But right now, nothing else seems as rational as moving forward with this because, even if I’m a little unsure about how much it will help me, I know it will help Will. With everything he told me about his family, I kind of feel bad for him.

I mean, he’s rich and all, so I don’t know if I feel that bad. But I do feel for him.

Just because he grew up with money doesn’t mean he has everything. He’s obviously missing some of the most important things, like a loving family who cares about him and accepts him for who he is.

It’s crazy to think that I started my business on my own and grew up without much money, believing that one day, if I just had enough of it, I’d be happy and everything would be okay.

Now I’m looking at this man sitting in front of me, one who has had more money than he probably knows what to do with, and he’s here because he ran away from home and wants to start over.

Because money wasn’t enough. That is a sobering thought. It’s a humbling realization that makes me wonder if our plan might end up being the same way. Just like money, maybe our plan won’t be the thing that solves our problems.