Page 43 of Ardently Yours

Chapter Fifteen

Lizzie

His words replay in my mind, crowding my thoughts, my fears, and my questions. Will is just making stuff up for the sake of the fake relationship, I remind myself. Don’t get caught up in getting offended if he isn’t being serious.

But wow.

He is really good at pretending, which is exactly what we need. He really had me there for a moment. That’s what he’s supposed to do, and I know that. So why does it sting that he took it all back?

My phone buzzes, and I don’t have time to think about that because I get a text from the one person I do not want to talk to.

Billie: Lizzie, can we talk, please?

“You okay?” I hear Will ask me, but his voice sounds far away.

I look up from my phone and lock eyes with him. He can probably read the expression on my face, and I’m sure it isn’t a happy one.

“I wish I could say I was, but guess who decided to text me.”

“Who? Wickham?”

I take a moment to thank God that George didn’t, in fact, text me just now. Then I remember he actually did text me earlier today, and I still haven’t responded.

When I saw him coming into the cafe, I hid in my office and told Will and Wolfsheim that I didn’t want to see him. Of course, they told me he’d asked about me, but I told them that no matter what he said, to tell him I was unavailable.

His text from earlier is still unread. I want to leave it that way. But I know I need to tell him to leave me alone. I don’t know if it’s better to do it over text, on the phone, or in person. But I know I’m going to have to do it eventually.

On the other hand, another person I really, really don’t want to talk to over text, on the phone, or in person is Billie. Probably even more than I don’t want to talk to George.

Billie and I have history that goes deeper than any crush I had on George as a teenager. Billie and I were together for years, and even though it all ended in shambles, something still pulls at me. I hate that it does because I know I’m not in love with him anymore.

Maybe it’s the fact that I’m sitting here trying to arrange a fake relationship that’s making me think about how I got here. How I was supposed to be happily married to Billie by now. Instead, I’m not married, not dating, and, quite frankly, not nearly as excited about the possibility of romance as I once was.

It makes me sad that a fake relationship is probably the closest I’m going to get to romance because I think I may be broken after everything I went through with Billie. I look back down at my phone and consider typing something, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I lower my phone and set it back on the counter.

“It’s Billie. He wants to talk,” I say dryly to Will. “George texted me earlier too, but I still haven’t responded.”

“What are you going to say to them?” he asks.

“I don’t know. I really don’t want to talk to George or Billie.”

Will studies me, his thoughtful expression slowly turning into a smirk.

“What?” I ask, intrigued. “You look like you have something to say that I need to hear.”

“I do. What if you use this as an opportunity to announce that you’re in a relationship now? To both of them. That’ll really take them by surprise, and it might make them mad. But it’ll also most likely get rid of them and make them jealous.”

I consider it, knowing he’s probably right. If I text them both that I’m no longer interested and tell them I have a new man in my life, they may be upset. But what can they really do about it if I turn them both down and lean into my fake relationship until all of this dies down?

Finally, I say, “You’re on to something, Darcy.”

“Will.”

I look up from my phone after opening my messages app. “What?” I ask, caught off guard.

“I think you should call me Will if we’re going to be dating. Not all the time, but sometimes.”

I’d already thought about that too. Calling him Will makes me think about him as a whole person, not just as my friend or the baker at my cafe. It makes our back-and-forth dynamic feel different. Like I’m graduating to another level with him.