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He nods confidently. “One that matched her dress perfectly. The dress was a deep navy color, so dark it looked black unless you looked at it underneath the light. The mask was the same color.”
“And you knew it was her?”
My eyes drift to Archer, watching him closely because I have no idea what he’s about to say. “Yeah,” he finally answers, his voice deep and raspy. “She’s hard to miss.”
I can’t look away from him as I hang on to his every word. I remember the event vividly…but I don’t remember him. I didn’t even know he was there. Yet…he seems to talk about it as if he was and I just somehow missed him.
He runs a hand over his mouth. “My firstthought when I saw her was that she was absolutely breathtaking, so breathtaking that it was a haunting, chilling feeling.”
Ruby leans forward, just as enthralled with what Archer is saying as I am. “Why’s that?”
“Because my second thought was that, given our family history, I knew she was the last person who should’ve caught my attention.”
I wonder if either one of them hear me sucking in air at his words. He talks about that night so clearly, but I truly don’t remember him being there. And I’ve replayed that night in my head over and over again countless times.
It was a night I could never forget because of what happened.
Was I so preoccupied with what was happening with me that I never noticed he was there?
Even though I think he’d prefer it to not be that way, it’s hard to ever miss Archer. He takes up so much space, his sheer presence so dominating that I don’t know how I could’ve forgotten he was there altogether.
“Did you have that same impression that night?” Ruby asks, breaking me free from my memories.
I don’t answer at first, too busy staring at Archer, wondering where he was at that party to immediately give a response. “Uh,” I begin, awkwardly shifting in my chair. My fingers loosen around his for a moment, but he doesn’t take the hint to drop my hand. If anything, his fingers wrap even tighter around mine. “That night is a bit of a blur to me,” I confess.
It isn’t too far from the truth. I’d had a few more cocktails that night than I typically do after getting in an argument with my dad. But I still wasn’t drunk. I remember the night; I just couldn’t give you any details about the man sitting next to me—about my husband.
Archer saves me by speaking up, the nonchalant tone to his voice getting rid of any of the awkward tension in the air. “While that was my first real and raw impression of her, it took a few more events for me to finally get the nerve to talk to her.”
“You don’t strike me as a man who gets nervous,” Ruby fires at him.
This makes him smile, a slow smile that takes a few heartbeats to build. “No one ever made me nervous until Winnie.” He looks over at me, and if he wasn’t so wealthy, I’d tell him to look into acting because there’s so much adoration in his eyes I almost believe him, even though I know none of it is real. “Do you blame me? Look at her.”
I’m just left staring in awe because there are so many feelings hitting me at once while hearing him talk about our fake beginning like this. To hear him talk about me like this, it’s too much all at once, yet somehow still not enough.
My blush creeps up my chest and spills into my cheeks.
It’s all pretend, I remind myself.Pretend, pretend, pretend. He doesn’t mean it.
My stupid, naive heart leaps in my chest, not getting the hint that none of the loving words he’s saying about me are true.
Ruby’s eyes are wide with delight as she looks from Archer to me and back. “So, what? You waited patiently until you finally spoke with her at another event, and you guys hit it off?”
Both Archer and I laugh at the same time. He’s probably remembering the same thing as me. Us sitting at his dining table last night arguing over who was going to be more interested in our made-up love story.
“I waited. I’m not sure you could call me patient about the entire situation.” Archer laughs. He wipes his free hand down his face, trying to remove what I think is a genuine smile and not one for performance’s sake.
Ruby focuses on me. “Did you make him work for it?” Everyone in the room seems to be leaning forward, as if how we started dating is really that interesting. We’re just two people—I don’t get the allure, but they’re all waiting for me to answer, staring at me expectantly.
So I give them an answer, pretending that everything out of Archer’s and my mouths isn’t fake. “I had nodesire to seek him out. There are so many people to speak with at those events; how was I to know that the heir to my family’s rival wanted to speak with me?”
Archer shrugs, that charming smile still on his lips. He doesn’t look fazed at all by me telling everyone in the room I didn’t want to talk to him. “Eventually, I made my move. We had a normal, boring conversation. One thing led to another, and she finally agreed to a first date with me.”
I shake my head, pretending to laugh at his joke. “Finallybeing the key word.”
The entire room laughs with us, obviously amused by the thought oftheArcher Moore having to really work for a first date with me. He had a point last night when he said it’d seem out of character for him to chase a woman.
If the wide eyes and bright smiles of those in the room with us give any indication of how they feel about him changing, they all love it. They’re eating out of the palms of our hands, and I think Archer can see it, too, because he effortlessly feeds into the narrative, even if it paints him as a different person from how the rest of the world envisions him to be.
