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Carina purses her lips together. “Well… It’s just that your boss also went to Harvard Law. What are the chances that both of the small-town lawyers in Conception Ridge did that?”
Oh.
My face flames.
Jacob goes still.
My mother crosses her arms over her chest. “Sienna, what is going on?”
“It’s complicated,” I say.
“It’s simple,” Jacob says.
My dad harrumphs. “Really can’t be both.”
Except it can be. “It is.” I take a deep breath. “I can explain.”
“Can’t wait for this.” That’s Nathan.
I flip him the bird.
Jacob stands, carefully, and wraps his arm around me. We’re a united team, so at least that’s something.
I look up at him. “I’m not really sure where to begin.”
“How about at the beginning?” He clears his throat. “Sienna did work for me. And because of her age, and the fact I was her employer, I swore to myself that I would never, ever cross that line with her.”
“And he didn’t,” I add. “Not even when I did my best to grope him when he wore this sweatshirt.”
“That might be more detail than they need, baby.”
“Right. So fast forward two years, I quit—”
“Because he was a jerk,” Carina added, glaring at the man standing beside me. “And then you made up a fictional boyfriend?”
“Sort of?”
“What does that mean?” My mother is glaring, too.
This is a disaster. “When you pushed me to start dating, I sort of split Jacob in two. I pulled out the good things he did for me and invented Jake. Which meant that ‘Mr. Lowe’ became kind of two-dimensionally sucky, since you were only hearing about the stuff I found frustrating. Everything I told you about ‘Jake’ was true, though. Nothing was exaggerated, nothing was embellished.”
Beside me, Jacob—Jake—exhales softly. “Is that why you didn’t want to tell me about ‘Jake’ when I showed up and assumed the mantle? Because it was all just me stuff that I would recognize?”
I make a chagrined face and nod.
He leans down and kisses my nose. “That’s cute.”
“So this…” My sister waves her hands back and forth. “Is this real?”
Nana snorts from where she’s still reading. “Caught them canoodling in the kitchen two nights ago.”
I rack my memory for examples I know will show them what I mean. “Carina, what did I tell you about the coffees he brings me in the morning?”
“When your ogre of a boss demands you show up two hours early in the morning, Jake makes sure to get you—”
Beside me, Jacob laughs. “An extra large vanilla latte.”
Carina gasps.
