Page 73 of Fake it ’Til Fall

There it is.

The dangerous thing.

Hope dressed as a bad idea.

“I could be that idiot,” she says.

“No.”

“You help me. I help you.”

“No.”

“You need a fake significant other. I need to go home without looking like I’ve been defeated by love, rent, and orthopedic footwear.”

“Daisy.”

“We already know each other. Our families are already entangled. Puck likes me, which adds credibility.”

“Puck likes trash.”

“Then he has a wide emotional range.”

“This is a bad idea.”

“Probably.” She leans forward, eyes bright now, but not only with humor. Something else lives there too. Fear. Want. The first spark of a plan she knows might save her and hurt her in the same breath. “But is it worse than whatever your agent finds? Because no offense, but I heard the word ‘optics’ in my soul, and I can already picture him hiring a woman named Brielle who owns a wellness brand and calls you babe in front of donors.”

I stare at her.

She’s not wrong.

Damn her.

“I’m not dragging you into my problem.”

“I’m already going to be in Winterberry Cove. I’m already organizing the dinner. I’m already emotionally compromised and underpaid.” She pauses. “Well, technically, I am now better paid. Still compromised.”

“No.”

“What could go wrong?” she asks.

I exhale through my nose. “Everything.”

“Great,” she says. “Then we should make a list so we avoid the wrongs.”

And that’s how I know we’re fucked.

Not because the plan is impossible.

Because for one second, I want to say yes.

Chapter Ten

Daisy

This is the moment where I sit across from Forrest Wolfcraft in a bookstore café, with his rescue dog using my foot as a pillow, a half-eaten sandwich in my hand, and the words ‘fake relationship’ hovering between us like a seasonal craft project made entirely of red flags.

A normal woman would let them pass.