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“I see.”
“You do,” he sighed with relief.
“So, who’s the lucky girl?”
“Well … you, of course.”
She stared. Her face crinkled in confusion. “Sorry.” She shook her head. “I think your accent confused me. What’s her name again? Wellou? Is that a common name in Cordoba?”
“Jan.” Alex put his hands on both of her shoulders. She tilted her head back and looked up at him. “I’m talking about you. Will you be my fake fiancée for the rest of the year?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
Still, she stared as though she were trying to work out what he was saying. He knew his accent wasn’t confusing. Jan just wasn’t comprehending what he was saying.
“I believe in us, in our business,” Alex continued when she remained mute. “We will be profitable. We won’t have to go through with it. I’m willing to take the risk because I believe in us.”
“I’d be engaged to you?”
“Yes.”
“But we wouldn’t go through with it in the end?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Of course not.”
She stared off at the exit door. Something crossed her features that Alex couldn’t quite pinpoint. Regret? Longing? Resignation? But it was gone before he could pin it.
“Sure.” She shrugged. “Why not? Wouldn’t be the first time.”
Chapter Ten
The last time Jan had packed for a trip to the kingdom of Cordoba, she’d had five hours to do it. This time, Alex hadn’t given her much more time than that; a full day. This time she wasn’t just packing for a long weekend. She was packing up her life.
Looking around the apartment over the pie shop, Jan was saddened to see there wasn’t much to take with her. She’d already emptied her entire wardrobe into two suitcases. Being a pie maker didn’t lend too many wardrobe changes. She mostly had jeans and T-shirts or cargo pants and cotton shirts. Her aprons were more plentiful than the number of dresses she had. All her shoes were practical; save the one pair of heels she’d purchased just to drop off a pie at her ex-fiancé’s parents’ anniversary party.
Never one for nostalgia, Jan hadn’t saved her yearbooks. She didn’t have photo albums. And thank goodness for that. She didn’t want constant reminders of her past. But had she ever looked far into the future?
Most of the furniture had been there when she’d taken the place over from the previous tenant. All her time was spent in the kitchens down below. This was mostly a place to sleep. She knew for a fact that the palace guest rooms had nicer mattresses than the one she’d tossed and turned on for the last couple of years.
Other than the two suitcases of clothes, all that remained were her cookbooks. But she knew all of those recipes by heart. This new adventure wasn’t about the past and tried recipes. No, this would be a brave, new culinary future.
Not to mention a new social adventure as well. She was engaged to a prince. In name only, not for real. But they’d need to keep up the farce in order to get the funding for the restaurant.
The scheme was something out of one of Esme’s romance novels. Jan detested those kinds of books. They were entirely unrealistic, predictable, and impractical. Everything that she wasn’t.
So why had she agreed to the farce?
The knock at her door jolted Jan out of her thoughts. Was it time to go already? No, she still had time left. But Alex was unpredictable.
At least he was knocking this time and not sneaking up on her. Jan opened the door and wished she had looked through the peephole first. Instead of seeing a prince with a glint in his eyes and a grin that Jan now knew the taste of, she was confronted by two displeased, gray-haired people on her stoop.
“Mom. Dad.”
Her parents barged past and her into her home.
