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“As my sister, you’re supposed to be repelled by that kind of talk.”
“As your sister, I’m supposed to want what is best for you. If you have to get some in order to see that, then that’s fine by me. It’s all part of the process.”
Nothing about what is happening between me and Cora is part of any normal process. We’re doing everything backwards, or sideways, or inside out. Whatever direction we’re going, it isn’t a straight line, and it doesn’t make any fucking sense.
That’s probably why I haven’t talked to her since I dressed her in those sinfully small pajamas and tucked her into bed.
I fold the newspaper and drop it into the top drawer of my desk. I’ll read it later when Anya isn’t breathing down my neck.
“I know what is best for myself.”
Anya stares at me for a few seconds…then she bursts into obnoxious laughter.
I’ve learned that it is best to let her run her course, so I go back to working until she can breathe again.
“The—whooo,that was a good one; I’m tearing up—the fact that you believe that is really cute, brother. I mean, you were going to let that interview run without any intervention. It doesn’t speak well to your judgment.”
I frown. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“Did you really think this is what that interviewer wrote about the two of you?”
My stony silence is answer enough.
Anya shakes her head and continues. “The first draft read like a medical report. It was fucking bleak. The writer was afraid of upsetting you, but it was obvious you two gave her nothing to work with.”
“Because thereisnothing to work with. We aren’t a real couple,” I spit.
Anya slouches down in her chair and rolls her eyes. “Thank God your fiancée has a good head on her shoulders, at least.”
“What does Cora have to do with this?”
“With the interview?” she asks. “Everything. She wrote it! The reporter said she couldn’t pull it because they didn’t have a backup article and her editor would have killed her, so Cora begged her to let her take a shot at rewriting it a bit.”
Cora did that. On her own. She reached out to the interviewer and took action without me ordering her to. Without any prodding. She just…saw a problem and fixed it. She didn’t even ask me about it.
“She’s pretty amazing, isn’t she?” Anya is smirking far too smugly for it to be safe.
I wave her away. “Some of us have work to do. Go be a nuisance to someone else.”
She stands up and tosses her hair dramatically. “Maybe I’ll go hang out with my future sister-in-law.”
“She isn’t real.”
Anya simply blows me a kiss and hurries out of the room.
I try to get back to work, but a few minutes later, I find myself kicked back in my chair with the newspaper in my hands.
The article is good. Really good. Even people who don’t know a damn thing about me or my family would read this and root for us. Cora softened me in all the right ways, making me approachable, desirable. She also made me sound like the luckiest fucker in the world for having a woman like her on my arm.
I could call her up and thank her. It would be the right thing to do after ghosting her for the last two days.
I tap the edges of my phone, considering.
Finally, I pick it up and text Kieran.Have a simple gold bracelet sent to my house for Cora. For the note, just write, ‘Thanks.’
She won’t be able to wear the wedding ring once our sham marriage is over, but she can keep a bracelet if she wants to.
For some stupid reason, I find myself hoping she will.
