AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I turn his arms so I can see his face. “Cole. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he says. And then, “I guess I didn’t think about what it would feel like to lie to so many people. This gala is probably the most high-profile event we’ll attend together. They normally put the event photos on social media, which means you could have people from all corners of your life asking about our engagement.”
I wince. “Oh.”
He’s watching me carefully. “If you don’t want that, we can make up an excuse, say you got sick.”
“You’d go without me?” I ask. I have visions of Bridget 2.0 sitting next to him at dinner. Taylor Swift met her boyfriend at a fancy New York gala, right?
“My mom needs my support,” he says. “My dad always goes, so...”
“Ah.” I know enough about his dad to imagine the potential unpleasantness. “Do you want me there?”
His hands tighten at my back. “Always.”
“Then I’m there,” I say. I wiggle my ring finger, so that my engagement ring catches the light. “I’ve got to earn this, right?”
But Cole doesn’t laugh. Instead, he tilts my chin up and kisses me gently, carefully, confidently.
It’s goddamn romantic, is what it is.
My heart can’t take romantic right now. So I shift the kiss, turning it hotter, harder, messier. He makes a surprised sound in his throat, and then he follows my lead.
We go to my room because it’s closer. I don’t bother to turn the lights on. The snow falls over New York City and Cole makes me feel so good I almost forget the ways he could hurt me.
18
AMELIA
“Run this by me again,” my best friend Maddy says a few weeks later as she helps me browse through evening gowns. “You’re faking a relationship with your hot boss, so we need to find you a ball gown to go to a gala, except you’re actually sleeping with him and maybe falling for him.”
“Shhhh,” I say, peering over my shoulder to see if any of the other shoppers are close enough to overhear. Cole was right that if we go to the gala, my broader circle of friends may find out about my so-called-engagement. Most of them will send me a congratulatory message or ignore it.
But Maddy, freshly back from her honeymoon, would have questions. Questions like, “If you were engaged, why didn’t you bring him to my wedding two weeks ago?”
So I decided to tell her the truth.
Finally, I can talk to someone else about this hot, sweet, confusing thing that’s happening between me and Cole. Also, she can give me an opinion on what to wear to the gala tomorrow night. Cole’s mom’s stylist sent plenty of dresses over. They were sleek, sexy, sophisticated.
But none of them felt like me.
It probably shouldn’t matter if I feel like myself when I’m already pretending to be someone else’s fiancée. Living in someone else’s apartment. Working a corporate job where I don’t fit in, and plan to leave as soon as possible.
But all the lies are having the opposite effect. I’m finding myself clinging to anything that still feels like the real me. Maybe if I can hold on to who I am, I won’t get swept up in Cole.
Maddy holds up a silver column dress. “What about this? You have the legs for it.”
“Eh. The stylist already sent me something like that. I want something more...” I wave at the slouchy sweater dress I’m currently wearing. “Something more me.”
Maddy wrinkles her nose. “You can’t wearthatto a gala.”
I groan. “Trust me, I know.” I keep flipping through hangers.
Maddy lowers her voice. “I can’t believe you’re faking a relationship. This is like a Hallmark movie. Where you fake a relationship so your parents won’t think you’re a loser on Christmas.”
“I don’t think Hallmark does Rated R,” I say, and Maddy snort laughs.
I smile, but it’s fleeting.
