Evie REMY AND RONAN left while Rex was still with his parents. Until that point, I’d enjoyed the siblings all interacting together. My family was small and spread out. We didn’t get together regularly, and my parents were divorced. Beyond all the wealth, this b ig family spending time
together struck me every bit as much as the chandeliers and towering ceilings. I spent the bulk of my time just observing them. But after the brothers walked out of the room, Rebekah and Raven’s eyes settled on me in a way that told me it was my turn to talk, like they’d been waiting for this moment. I really wished I had somewhere to go, but I doubted I could even find my way out of this giant house without someone to show me the way back to the garage. So I picked up my wineglass and took a sip, even though there was barely a whisper of wine left in there. “You look nervous,” Raven said. “I... uh...” “Don’t toy with her,” Rebekah said. “Evie, how are you?” I wished Camille would return with more wine, but she was nowhere in sight. She had cleared the table a while ago and left a plate of cookies, but apparently she did not think wine paired with cookies. I had to disagree. “I’m well,” I said. “Your house is beautiful, and I don’t think I’ve ever had a more delicious dinner.” “Thank you,” Rebekah said. “I have to admit, I’ve been waiting this whole time to ask why neither you nor Rex thought to let me know you would be here tonight.” Then I watched as she selected a chocolate chip cookie and took the most graceful bite I’d ever seen someone take. I took notes so I could up my cookie eating game in the future. I cleared my throat. “Well, I can’t speak to why he didn’t, but I didn’t feel it was my place. You’re his family, not mine.” “Fair,” she said. “Of course, I don’t mind you being here. I’m just not keen on surprises and there were no signs at work that you two had become a couple.” I set my wineglass down. It was empty, anyway. “Oh, well, of course not. We want to ke ep things professional at work.” “That’s good,” she said, but her eyes narrowed just the smallest bit. I wondered what she was thinking. She had never been the easiest person to read, but right then, she was being especially opaque. I had no idea whether she was delighted that I was there , or whether she thought I didn’t belong. “Going forward, I promise you won’t see any signs at all, either.”
Rebekah tapped a finger on her chin. “I can’t help but wonder about something you said, though. You said you met him before you got the job as his executive assistant. In your interview, you said nothing about that. You led me to believe you’d never met hi m before.” I hoped my face didn’t reveal my feelings, or that she couldn’t hear my heart about the leap out of my body. I tried my best to ke ep steady eye contact. We were dancing around a lie together. I had to speak carefully. “We thought it best to ke ep everything at work professional.” “And that’s a good answer, but you didn’t think it unethical to take a job as his executive assistant after you started dating?” I wanted to run from the room and go hide somewhere. Surely, this house had plenty of hiding spots. “Well, I think it’s great that you two are together,” Raven said. “If you like someone, you like them. She wanted a better job. She couldn’t help that it was with Rex. If the right job opens, then the right job opens. Likewise, if the right relationship la nds in front of you, then it just does.” Yes. That. I wanted to hug Raven. Rebekah looked less impressed, but let it go as Rex came back into the room. When he had left, it had been light outside. By the time he returned, the sun had dipped low against the horizon. As always, I couldn’t tell a thing about his mood from the stoic look on his face, but I thought I saw tension hanging around his brow and at the corners of his mouth. His parents had probably let him have it about dating his assistant. And, I mean, I got it. If I had a wealthy oldest child who was probably going to inherit my hotel empire, and then he started dating some assistant at his work w ho showed up for dinner and accidentally insulted his mother, I probably would have to take him aside, too. I needed to work harder at this. Rex approached, then stood at my side, placing a hand on the back of my chair. Nice touch. As much as I enjoyed his sisters’ company, we needed a moment alone. I wanted to know what his parents had said about me, and I needed to es cape from Rebekah before I let our secrets out by mistake. “Rex,” I said, standing up. “Will you take me on a tour of your yard? I’ve been looking at it all this time and it’s too beautiful not to see up close.” “Of course,” he said, and his arm went around my shoulders. Friends had put their arms around my shoulders like this. It was no big deal. I couldn’t feel his bic ep against my shoulder. Not at all.
And yet I had to say it to myself again — no, Evie! No! We peeled away from his sisters, and he led me back to the main foyer, where a predictably grand back door opened up to the main staircase. Without anyone in earshot, I could finally set free all of my unclassiness, which had been building up like pressure in a soda bottle. “This place is like Disneyland!” I breathed, st epping out onto a patio that stretched out from the house, all the way to the top of the staircase leading down to a perfectly manicured lawn. When I reached the top of the staircase, I lingered there, taking it in. The staircase split in two, and in the middle of the two sides was a fountain. With dolphin sculptures leaping out of it. Of course. Why would there not be dolphins leaping out of a fountain? “Disneyland?” he asked, coming up behind me. “Or a palace. Probably a palace. Disneyland was the first thing that came to mind because I’ve never seen a palace.” I should have stopped talking, but that’s the story of my life. “I have been trying to say just the right thing for the past few hours and you know what? I don’t think I said one single right thing.” “I’m sure that’s not true.” “Rebekah is very curious why neither of us gave her a heads up that I’d be here tonight.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “And she’s also curious why I didn’t disclose that I already knew you when I interviewed for the executive assistant position.” He made a low sound in his throat. “Maybe you shouldn’t have added that you knew me before into our story.” “I wanted to sound like we weren’t so fri volous. It seemed like a good idea at the time.” “Fair, but Rebekah is sharp. We’ll have to be careful around her.” “We’ll have to be careful around everyone. Tell me your parents weren’t just trying to convince you to get rid of me.” “Well, I could tell you that,” he said. “The fact is that I am sure we both knew going into this that my family might see us as an unusual match. Personally, I am not in this for parental approval. I’m in this for quite the opposite reason. I want them to butt the hell out of my life. Frankly, the less happy they are about you, the better I feel.” We started down the stairs. “So they didn’t like me.”
“Everyone is going to be watching us and scrutinizing us. This isn’t about getting everyone to like the fact that we’re together. We don’t make any sense to them. It doesn’t seem like something I’d do, because it’s not. That’s the whole point.” “It is?” “Yes. We are rocking the boat. Maybe sinking the boat, if we’re lucky. We want them to believe our story, but frankly, if they aren’t happy about this match, then that will work in my favor.” I looked up at him to find an almost giddy grin on his face. “You’re having fun with this?” “So much fun,” he said, and that smile stayed. I liked his smile. I wasn’t sure what it meant that it showed up while he was causing some family drama, but I liked it, anyway. Where he was normally handsome in a sharply dressed, professional, perfect kind of way, now he looked like somewhere in his ser ious soul was a touch of fun. I’d wanted to help him lighten up, and maybe I was. Just not in the way I’d expected. I was helping him get free of his family dynamic. So I reminded myself that this was fake. I wasn’t actually meeting the parents of my new boyfriend. Maybe I could have some fun with the situation, too. At least, after I learned how to avoid misst eps. “I wish I had known not to bring up your mother’s movi e. Apparently, that’s a major faux pas.” “I should have warned you about that, but I never expected it to come up.” “I feel like I need some lessons on how to navigate your family. Maybe you could tutor me after work or something.” He looked at me and offered another smile. I’d cracked through his crunchy exterior. “My mother will come around. She’s a kind woman. It’s my father who will never in a million years come around. Not for you, not for me, not for anyone. So don’t get your h opes up there.” I heard more about his relationship with his father in those words than he’d told me, but didn’t ask more. I was a fake girlfriend. It was probably not my place to dig into all the personal stuff, especially on the first fake date. “So what was it like, gr owing up in such a large family?” I asked. “I’m guessing you didn’t have a large family?” “No. Just your standard family of four, but not even that after my parents divorced. You have so many siblings, and you’re all so different. I can’t imagine.” “We are all different. That’s definitely true. We’re also all very close in age. Our parents were always in volved with us as we grew up, at least by day. They also have always loved being seen
at events, so often in the evenings, they were gone and it was just us. We are all different, but we’re very close because of that. They’re my best friends.” The tenderness in his voice was so apparent. I didn’t expect that. He’d seemed tenser than usual here at his childhood home, frownier than usual, but it didn’t sound like the cause was his siblings. Maybe it was only his parents, or the situation they were putting him in. “What about you?” he asked. “What was your standard family of four like?” I tried to hold back a smile. “You’re asking me about my life?” “Never mind,” he said all too quickly. “No, I don’t mind. I just didn’t expect it. I thought you wanted to be all business between us.” “I thought since we have to be together, anyway,” he said, stumbling over a few of his words. I nudged him with my arm. “I don’t mind, silly. I was surprised, but I don’t mind. I’d love to know something about each other. It makes this easier.” Our eyes caught on each other’s and some kind of insecurity was written plainly in his glance. I wanted to lift that feeling away from him, so I answered before he could say more. “My parents divorced when I was thirteen, and my mom remarried and moved to California the year after that. I have a sister who moved down there with her, but we’re not close. I’m close to my mom, but mostly via phone calls. She’s as broke as I am, so we d on’t see each other in person a lot. My dad lives up here, not too far away. We’re close. He’s also broke. It’s kind of a theme my family has going on.” We reached the bottom of the massive staircase and followed a path that meandered through the perfect lawn. I had a lawn at my house, but it didn’t look like this. Where were the uneven patches? The crabgrass? The dandelions? I spent my summers chasing wee ds and crabgrass in my yard, and never could conquer them. What kind of magical gardener did this family hire to get grass this perfect? Then I remembered seeing fake grass at home stores. Maybe the trick was to install fake grass. I had to know. I crouched down to touch it. Nope, definitely real. “What are you doing?” he asked. I shot back to my feet and felt a hot blush building in my cheeks. “I wondered if it might be fake grass. I guess I could have just asked.”
He grinned. That made a total of three times he had done something other than frown at me. Perhaps there was hope for this fake relationship not to be a total bust after all. I could save my house, and he could es cape his controlling parents, and we could do it with a smile. We followed the path as it got closer to the water, and that’s when I noticed a dock stretching out into the lake with two boats at its end. “Are those your family’s boats?” I asked. “Yes, they’re my father’s,” he said. “But he prefers to call them yachts.” “I thought yachts were huge.” “Yachts come in many sizes. Technically, I think the smaller one might be a cruiser.” We st epped out onto the dock, so that water surrounded us. He stopped walking at the end of the dock, right next to the larger boat. “My parents are watching us,” he said. I was about to turn my head to look, but he stopped me by placing a hand on my cheek, which froze me in place. “Don’t look. I’m going to put my arms around you. Is that okay?” His fingers were warm on my cheek, distracting me from answering. All I could do was nod lamely while I tried to figure out why these completely meaningless touches k ept making my heart race. He wound his arms around the small of my back, his face steeled and steady, and pulled our bodies close together, so close that I could feel the contours of his stomach against mine. He definitely had abs. My hands flew up against his chest to hold him at some sort of distance. I could feel the warmth of his hands on my back through my shirt. This was too weird — romantic in theory, yet robotic in action. I wasn’t sure I liked it, but this was exactly what I’d signed up for. Then I remembered my thought that we could have fun with this — that I could have fun with this. The thought had been random, but now, in the thick of some pretend sweetness with my boss, I decided having some sense of fun with this situation would make it more bearable. I thought about what I could say that would bring a smi le to his lips or make him react somehow. Anything other than this stoic, strange hug on a dock. Then it came to me.
“Maybe,” I said, and words came out before I could think too much about them, “it would be more convincing if you kissed me.” His eyes flicked to my lips and then flew wide. I liked that he looked a little nervous. “We agreed to ke ep any contact casual.” “You’re right, but if they’re watching us, and you really want to seal the deal on how seriously they take this whole thing, then a kiss might be the way to go.” He tried to ke ep his face stern, but I watched as at least a half dozen emotions, ranging from embarrassment to maybe fear to maybe excitement, went through his expression. That part was enjoyable. “You’re right. Going beyond casual contact would be far mo re convincing, but I don’t want to dishonor our original agreement.” Mostly, I’d wanted to tease him a little. For fun. I hadn’t actually thought he’d consider it. I thought he’d shut it down right away. I liked how he looked, sure. Every time he’d touched me that night, I’d reacted. A kiss would only make that more complic ated, and yet, here we were. I didn’t want to take it back now. It was true a kiss would make our situation more convincing, so there was that, at least. “Let’s do it, then,” I said, my eyes glued to his lips, my heart pounding. Why had I just said that? Why couldn’t I just stop talking? His eyes lingered on mine, and the muscles in my stomach tightened. I’d never gazed at him like this. It would have been inappropriate in the office, but here, with only us standing by the water, holding each other close for the benefit of his parents watc hing from the house, I could gaze as long as I wanted. And he gazed back. The moment felt personal, like we weren’t just putting on a show. But we were. This was a show. This was a performance. I r epeated those words to myself as he drew closer and met my lips with his. The kiss was so soft and gentle that I never would have expected it from this commanding CEO. He pulled away without much mor e than a peck on the lips, and yet I was left nearly breathless.