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I laughed at her enthusiasm for gossip. “Nope. Not at all.”
Leaning back, she snapped her fingers. “Darn, that would have been cool. No one ever does that!”
I pushed the silly redhead lightly on the leg to get her off my desk. “I’m forever holding my piece. Especially in this case, because I’m not going,” I said.
“You have to go. Jim and I are going,” she wined. “Plus, won’t your cousin be hurt?”
“Quite possibly, but I don’t know if I can go through all that,” I admitted, allowing myself to slouch in my chair and whine just slightly.
Vicky scoffed and rolled her eyes. “I know, right? All that dancing and cake, I’m pretty sure that was one of Dante’s seven circles of Hell.”
I picked up a random paper clip and threw it at her, only making it to the corner of my desk. “It is with my family.”
“Oh, right.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I forgot that my in-laws are cannibals.”
“Nope, Catholics. Not big on having a child from a one-night stand at least if the constant questions about where my husband is are anything to go by. My older relatives are even worse and will never accept the idea of me being a single mom. I might as well walk around the reception with a scarlet letter.”
“You could try it,” Vicky suggested, tapping her chin again.
“What do you mean?”
“Wearing a scarlet letter. It would be an interesting, if somewhat brutal, statement.”
“It’s a thought,” I said, imagining my grandfather’s and great aunts’ shocked expressions.
“Or you could go anyway.” Vic reached down and slid the invitation back towards me with one extended finger. “A bit of pestering won’t be the end of the world,” she pointed out.
“No.” Defiantly, I shook my head.
Letting out an exacerbated little sigh, she continued. “And you want to support your cousin, right?”
“Well, yeah, I do.”
“And you’ve never really been one to be pushed around, have you?”
“Well —”
“When it really matters, I mean. You fought for our country in the army. You fight like hell for your clients. Staring down judges and opposing counsel, some of whom are truly nasty. Yet you do it, and you win.”
“Most of the time,” I amended, starting to wonder if Vicky should be a lawyer here. She was so good at arguing.
Raising her eyebrows, Vic stared into my face. “When was the last time you lost?”
“I really don’t —”
“Humour me. When was the last time?”
“October 28th,” I said grudgingly.
“You see? That’s not so bad.” She waved her hands triumphantly.
“2014,” I amended.
Vic laughed. “You see? A loss every six years isn’t so bad.”
“True,” I conceded.
“All you have to do is bring some of that badassness to bear with the relations.”
I sighed. “If only it were that easy. You haven’t seen my grandma when she’s disappointed. She’s all smiles and hugs with you and Jim.”
Sensing defeat, my sister-in-law sighed and slid into the brown leather chair in front of my desk. “Maybe you’ll meet someone at the wedding,” Vicky tried.
“Does that ever really happen?” A headache was coming on, reaching up, I rubbed my temples.
“You’ll never know if you don’t try. Or, if it is easier, you could bring someone to pretend to be your fiancé.”
We both laughed again.
Using a fake fiancé was becoming a normal way to meet the love of your life here at the Howell and Howell law firm. It had started with Vicky’s best friend from high school, whose husband now worked for my brother and me. Since then, two other associates had found romance that way — simply by asking or paying someone to pretend to be in love with them.
It was a weird twist of fate, but a part of me wondered if I could get it to work in my favor. I have been unlucky in love in the past. Maybe this was a crazy way to break the cycle.
“That does have a track record of success,” I admitted thoughtfully.
I knew that Vicky was half joking, but it would throw my relations off the scent for sure, and even if nothing else happened between my fake date and me, that would be a blessing.
The only question was where I could find someone to pretend to be my fiancé. It wasn’t like I could post an ad on Craigslist — well, I could, but I wasn’t that kind of crazy just yet. There still had to be a way to figure this out.
Chapter Two
Russ
L.A. traffic was hell. I had heard this before moving here but had always thought it was apocryphal. How wrong could one man be? After the second time of missing appointments, I started google mapping alternative routes. It took longer to get to work, but I liked to get up early, so it wasn’t that big of a deal.
I was starting at the bottom like all new hires do, but Howell and Howell was one of the top five legal firms in the country, so I tried to think of it as starting at the bottom section on the top peak of the pyramid. That made it a good enough reason to move to California. Plus, my sister had lived in L.A. for a few years. Her presence made the choice easier. It wasn’t like I was moving somewhere where I knew no one.
