Fake Fiancée, Bride Forever

by Holly Rayner

  I reach my hand across the table and touch her arm.

  “Is everything okay? How’s your food?” I ask.

  My touch seems to have brought her back to the moment. She smiles.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, putting down her fork and taking a drink of water. “I’m not being a very good pretend fiancée am I?”

  “You seem distracted. Does this presentation mean that much to you?” I ask.

  She looks down at the table for a moment, then back up into my eyes. My breath hitches at how serious and beautiful her eyes are.

  “Yes, it does. I want to see this one succeed. It will help so many people.” She hesitates for a moment, then continues, “But honestly, I’m worried because it isn’t flashy. I remember you saying that investors want a grand presentation that knocks their socks off. And this won’t be that at all.”

  I’m stunned by her honesty and vulnerability. I take her hand in mine.

  “Whatever it is, I’m sure it will be brilliant and a wonderful reflection of you.” I’m hoping my words reassure her and put a smile on her face.

  She does smile at me and red touches her cheeks. I need to remember that she responds well to kindness and affirmation.

  We chat about the tech industry while we finish our meals. The conversation is lively and casual. When we finish, I pay and we head over to my building.

  Leah falters in the lobby, starting toward the reception desk before looking back at me, apparently unsure of how to proceed. I take her hand and lead her to the elevator. Her hand is clammy. Is she that nervous?

  We reach my office, and I take a seat behind my desk. “All right,” I say. “You ready?”

  “Shoot,” she says. “I just realized we didn’t get a picture at the deli. Do we need to go back?”

  “It’s not a big deal,” I tell her. “Come on, show me your project. We can go somewhere later and snap a quick photo if we want to.”

  “Okay,” she says. She passes me the first screenshot and I scan it as she launches into her presentation.

  “So the purpose of this app is to connect elder care professionals with families in need of their services,” Leah begins. “This is a huge problem for a lot of people, obviously, because parents and grandparents tend to reach the stage in their lives where they need the most help during the stage in their children’s lives in which they’re the busiest. People in their thirties and forties are focused on advancing their careers and raising their own families, and they’re exactly the demographic most affected by the declining health of older family members.”

  She has a point. I look over the next screenshot she hands me. It’s not just a list of nurses. It references “elder care companions,” categorized by specialty. You can select your loved one’s particular need from the list—dementia, arthritis, even a category for those elders who just need a friend to check in with them during the day.

  “Nobody wants to put their loved one in a home,” Leah says. “Nobody wants to see their loved one lose all their independence and spend their last remaining years in a state-run facility. That’s a heartbreaking choice for anyone to make. But nobody should have to give up the opportunities we face during the prime of our lives, either. How many people do you imagine have missed the chance to find true love or to achieve their full potential in their career because they spent vital years caring for a sick parent?”

  I sit back in my chair, shocked into an awed silence. This was not at all what I expected.

  I remember what Leah told me about her project for the Vipers’ Nest contest, how she had developed a shield against data mining. I didn’t think she would bring me that idea today—there have just been too many data mining shield apps in the past five years—but I have to admit, I was a little afraid that her app would be something redundant or insignificant, and I’ve already committed to backing it.

  And yet this is a good idea. Leah’s right about having identified a real need that people have, and what she’s saying in her presentation is absolutely true. People do worry about the care their parents are receiving, and they do make big sacrifices to avoid putting them in a home. Has Leah come up with a real viable solution to this problem?

  I can’t be sure, but the screenshots are promising. They appear to offer everything she’s describing. And not only that, the design is good. I can see a few things I would change—I’m already looking at this thing from a marketing perspective—but in general I like it. The color scheme is good. The sizing is good. I can see all the words on the screen. Maybe we should work in the name of the app itself a little more, remind users what tool they’re using…

  She would have beaten me.

  The thought comes to me as if from nowhere. If we had truly faced each other at Vipers’ Nest, if we had competed the way we had originally been intended to, Leah would have won.

  Is that true, I wonder, or am I only overthinking things now that it’s clear she’s much smarter than I originally gave her credit for? I can’t be certain. But she’s very skilled at putting together a formal presentation, and that’s definitely a weak spot for me. She would have impressed the Vipers with her pitch. And the product she had then…well, it wasn’t as good as this one, and it would be no good at all today, but five years ago? She had something. She might very well have beaten me.

  Leah has finished talking. All the materials from her folder are now on my desk, and she stands across from me, clutching her hands together anxiously, waiting for me to say something.

  I clear my throat and stack the papers together.

  “This is really well put together,” I tell her. “I’ll talk to my advisors about next steps, but I think we should move toward production right away.”

  “Really?” She looks ecstatic. “You really like it?”

  A huge smile has spread over her face. It’s absolutely transformative, and as I regard her, I realize I’ve never seen her smile like this before. With this much exuberance and passion. But the way the expression changes her face…no. I would have remembered this. It’s like staring into the sun. She is suddenly radiant, glowing, giving off an energy that makes me feel happier just for standing next to it. Can this be the experience everyone has when they see her truly smile?

  I realize I’m on my feet. When did I stand? I know that she asked me a question, that I haven’t answered it, and she’s probably waiting, but I honestly can’t remember what she asked. I’m being foolish. I’m letting myself be overwhelmed by a pretty face. But I’m so taken by surprise. I knew that Leah was lovely, of course. I’ve known that since I met her. But I wasn’t prepared for the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

  I want to kiss her.

  I take a step, then another, towards her. And then, at the last second, I stop myself. I can’t allow myself to kiss Leah. We don’t have that relationship. We’re business partners, no matter what the tabloids and my social media accounts might say, and that’s all we’ll ever be. I have to keep this professional.

  I sit back down in my desk chair.

  “I’ll draft a memo to my advisors right now,” I say, returning us to the relatively safe topic of app production. “We’ll get this up and running quickly.”

  Leah smiles again, and I avert my eyes.

  Chapter 13

  Magnus

  “Can I take you out to dinner?” I ask as I hand Leah her notes to put back into her briefcase.

  For some reason, I’m nervous, too nervous to look directly at her, and I’m making a big deal of packing away my own things to avoid having to do so. Most of the things I’m carefully stowing in my desk drawers—my pens, my stapler, even the mouse for my computer—were sitting on the desk when we entered the office. But I need something to do. I’m not sure when the last time I’ve actually been nervous in my own office was. Probably never.

  Leah eyes me suspiciously. “Dinner? We just had lunch.”

  I feel a sudden and urgent need to loosen my tie. It’s as if I’m under questioning, as if I’m suspe
cted of having committed a crime and am being asked to give testimony. It feels like every word out of my mouth has the potential to get me in trouble.

  And I don’t know why I feel this way. It’s not like I’m afraid of Leah. I know her well enough to know that she isn’t an unkind person. She won’t do anything to me. And she won’t break our contract because she wants it as much as I do now. I saw it in her eyes while she was making her presentation. Maybe she wasn’t sure at first when we originally made our deal, but now that she’s actually shown me this app, she wants to see it become a reality. She’ll follow through with this just as surely as I will.

  “We didn’t just have lunch,” I say, pointing at the clock. “We’ve been up here for nearly three hours.”

  Leah looks up, somewhat unwillingly, and sees that I’m right. “Three hours? It doesn’t feel like it’s been three hours.”

  “Well, time flies,” I say. “It was a compelling presentation, Leah. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in this room with people who have had absolutely nothing interesting to say. But your app caught my attention and made me want to know more, and that bodes very well for our ability to sell it.”

  She can’t keep a proud flush from suffusing her cheeks. “Thank you.”

  “So. Dinner? All you had for lunch was a salad,” I say. “I’m sure you could eat again.”

  “I could,” she says. “But I’m not sure we should…we’ve already spent so much time together today, I mean, and I just wouldn’t want us to…to…” She trails off, grasping for words.

  I don’t know if her inability to complete the sentence is due to not knowing what she wants to say or simply feeling awkward saying it to me, but either way, I understand.

  “You don’t want us to lose track of the fact that this is a business arrangement,” I say.

  Leah nods, looking somewhat relieved and somewhat abashed.

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “It’s a strange day for me when I don’t take a prospective new business partner out for drinks or a meal after we’ve talked. So, given that, will you join me for dinner? There’s a wonderful steakhouse just down the street, one of the best in town, and they know my name so I can get us in on short notice.”

  Leah cocks her head to the side, then nods. “All right. If it’s standard business practice, then dinner sounds fine.” She smiles. “You were right. I am hungry.”

  “I told you—you should have eaten more than that salad for lunch,” I tell her, putting on my jacket.

  “Don’t tell me what I should eat.” She laughs so I know she’s being playful. “If I’d had the steak sandwich, I wouldn’t be hungry now, and I wouldn’t be joining you for dinner. Did you think of that?”

  “Good point.”

  We make our way through the hall to the elevator. I notice Evelyn rising to half stand at her desk so she can stare after us as we go. It’s strange that she’s here on a Saturday, but the gossip rags are full of news about me right now, and I imagine it must be a more than usually exciting time to be my secretary. She must have felt she’d hit the jackpot when she saw me bring Leah into the office.

  A small smile crosses my face. With Evelyn on the case, we aren’t even going to need a picture from today to post to social media. Everyone in the city will soon know that my mystery girl was in my office for a clandestine meeting outside of working hours. And once the whole city knows, it’s only a matter of time until the gossip columns and the internet find out. In any other situation, it would be annoying, but right now it’s kind of perfect.

  We walk out onto the street, where the sun is starting to set. The evening has taken on the soft, watercolor sort of glow that makes things seem romantic. The low light is catching Leah’s hair and bringing out subtleties to its color that I hadn’t noticed before, and I’m so mesmerized by her beauty that I almost don’t notice when we walk right by the steakhouse I’d intended to take us to.

  “Wait a minute,” I say, reaching out and grabbing her hand instinctively. “The restaurant is back there. We passed it.”

  Leah raises her eyebrows. “I thought you said today was my turn.”

  “What?”

  “You said it was my turn to choose how we spent our day together, remember? You don’t get to change your mind now just because you want a steak. It’s still my day, and I want to have dinner at my favorite restaurant.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Your favorite restaurant is also on this street?”

  “Well,” she says. “Okay. Maybe not my favorite. But it is my favorite place to get a beer and a grilled cheese sandwich.”

  “That’s what you want for dinner?” I ask her. “A cheese sandwich?”

  My stomach rumbles in disagreement. I was looking forward to a huge, juicy cut of sirloin, with a glass of red wine to wash it down. I was looking forward to the kale chips the steakhouse sets out in little baskets alongside the bread before the meal, and the dessert menu full of rich delicacies. I thought we’d end our evening with a bit of brandy, or some coffee—maybe even both—and then I’d call a car and escort Leah back to her home.

  And instead of that, she wants to go get a cheese sandwich? Really?

  The door she takes us to is so old I almost don’t want to touch it, but Leah shows no reservations about pushing her way inside and leading us across a chipped tile floor to a booth.

  “Isn’t anyone going to seat us?” I ask quietly, looking around. No one so much as looked up when we entered—not the other patrons, who are carrying on loud conversations, not the cooks, who I can just barely make out under their ventilated hood through a window that leads straight to the kitchen, and not the harassed-looking servers crossing the floor from table to table.

  “It’s seat yourself,” Leah says, sliding into the booth. “See, the menus are already on the table for us.”

  She pulls a couple of menus that definitely look like they’ve seen better days from between the napkins and the ketchup, which is still in the bottle it probably came in at the grocery store, and hands one to me.

  I flip it open. “All-day breakfast?”

  “Yep. You can get pancakes and waffles at any time of day. But trust me, the grilled cheese is what you really want here. Get it with the tomato soup and the crinkle-cut fries. You’ve never had anything like it.”

  I shrug. I don’t want a cheese sandwich, particularly, but I don’t feel compelled to try anything else on this menu either.

  “You’re the boss,” I tell Leah. “Today is your day. Why don’t you order for both of us? I’ll follow your lead.”

  And so she does. It’s a strange feeling, sitting in this diner and letting this woman I don’t even know all that well pick out my food, but I find myself going along with it. It clearly means something to her, and I’m already not getting steak tonight, so it doesn’t make any real difference to me.

  The food arrives quickly, much more quickly than I would have expected. The sandwiches are cut diagonally, with cheese positively oozing out of them, spread apart to leave room for a nest of seasoned, crinkle-cut fries in the middle. The waitress sets a bowl of tomato soup in front of each of us, along with a plastic cup full of soda and a straw, still in its wrapper.

  I have to admit; the food does smell wonderful. Something about it reminds me of home, of those days in winter when my mother would cook for the family. It’s as if the food was prepared with an extra ingredient that mothers and independent-diner owners still know how to find, that big chain restaurants have lost.

  Leah blows on her soup, then picks up her sandwich and dips the corner into the creamy broth. She lifts it out, careful not to drip, and takes a bite.

  “Perfect.”

  “You’re supposed to dip it?” I would never have guessed that.

  “It’s not a rule or anything,” Leah says. “But it tastes really good that way. You should try it.”

  I pick up one of the halves of my own sandwich. The bread has been toasted and crumbles a little under my fingers, and I know it
will crunch satisfyingly when I bite into it. I dip it into the soup for a moment, allowing it to absorb the tomato flavor, and then I pull it out and take a big bite.

  It’s heaven. The cheese, already melted and gooey, fills my mouth with savory flavor. The texture of the bread is absolutely perfect, and there is something about the soup that elevates it, makes it all that much better. I look across the table, at Leah, who is sipping her soda as if to clear her palate before taking her next bite.

  “This is wonderful,” I say, and I mean it wholeheartedly.

  She nods. “My father used to bring me here when I was very young. I don’t like to do a lot of things that remind me of them—my parents—but somehow, being here still feels good. I think it’s something about the fact that the place hasn’t really changed.”

  She looks around the place before continuing. “I worry all the time about what my parents would think about me now, about the ways I’ve changed since they saw me last. But this place hasn’t really changed at all. If my dad came walking through the door right now, he’d know exactly where he was. It’s reassuring.”

  “Your parents…” I hesitate. “They’re gone?”

  “When I was a child.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  I’d never realized that. She never told me.

  It’s strange to think that I could be on the verge of marrying a woman without knowing something so fundamental about her. To lose your parents at a young age must be so formative. It must account for so many facts about her character, her personality, and the way she sees the world. I want to ask more, to show that her past trauma matters to me and that I’m interested in her life, but it seems like it isn’t my business. She chose to confide this in me today, but would it be wrong of me to push for more?

  It occurs to me, as I watch her take another bite, that my interest in Leah doesn’t stem from a place of scientific curiosity. I’m not interested in her the way I would be interested in a character on a television show, just because she’s nuanced and compelling. She is those things, but there’s much more in the allure she holds for me.