by Holly Rayner
Chapter 15
Leah
My dreams are of nothing, of shapes and colors and sounds, and it’s blissful. When things resolve in my dreams, take solid shape and form, that’s when I have to worry. That’s when things are going from dream to nightmare. But as long as I’m floating in this hazy sea of color, I’m at peace.
I haven’t dreamed this way in a long time, months or maybe years, and I’m not sure why it’s coming back to me now, but I know that I’m more relaxed than I have been in years.
I wake up gradually, rising through layers of foggy sleep into awareness. Knowledge comes to me in welcome little increments, like packets of understanding bursting open in my brain. I’m home, warm and comfortable in my bed. I can hear Dragon’s toenails scrabbling for purchase on the hardwood floor of my living room—he’s always so full of energy in the morning. And I can smell the rich, energizing aroma of my favorite dark roast blend of coffee…wait, coffee?
Magnus.
The memory floods in with my next inhale, as if carried on the scent of the coffee, and suddenly I’m overcome with thoughts of last night. His massive hands, his strong arms, so gentle when they embraced me. The way he pushed me into my bed and covered me completely, slowing things down only once we were there to plant kisses on my face and move my hair from my eyes, to hold himself away from me and look at me as though he was studying a work of art. I’d never felt more beautiful. I’d never felt more taken care of.
And now he must be the one brewing coffee.
I don’t open my eyes to confirm my suspicion. It feels like Christmas morning, like I’m a little girl again, forcing myself to keep my bedroom door closed and not peek at the living room to see what Santa’s brought me before I have permission. The longer I pretend to be asleep, the longer I can delay the shiver of pleasure I know will come when I see the handsome man who’s still in my bed.
And he’s here. I know that, without even having to look. I can feel the warmth of him beside me, the slight indentation in the mattress. I can hear, now that I’m paying attention for it, the tiny sound of his breath. He stayed. He didn’t disappear in the morning, and morning didn’t turn him back into the cold, insensitive man of my imagination who stole my dream and didn’t give a damn.
He’s always been caring. He’s always been kind. He’s never been the kind who would run out on a girl before she woke up in the morning. I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s still here, because now that I know him, of course that’s the kind of man he is.
Suddenly our fake engagement doesn’t seem like quite so much of a burden. Won’t it really be like a year of dating Magnus? A year making public appearances, getting to know him better? We’ll be legally bound, of course, and that does complicate things, but it’s a lot less painful than the idea of being bound to someone I can’t stand.
He shifts beside me, bringing me fully awake, and I roll over into his warmth and open my eyes. I can already feel the smile spreading across my face as I realize how he must have slipped out of bed, careful not to wake me so that he could start the coffee brewing. Not only that, once he started it, he must have carefully snuck back in, wanting to be beside me. He’ll be looking down at me, I think, waiting to see my eyes open, hoping that my memory of last night is as blissful as his surely is…
But I’m taken by surprise.
He isn’t looking at me at all, nor is he lying down. Instead, he’s sitting upright, phone in hand, texting rapidly.
As I watch, he swipes his thumb across the screen, an action I know is taking him from one app into another, and his eyes move back and forth quickly, reading. Then he swipes back and texts again. Deep crease lines are etched into his forehead, and he looks much older than I’ve ever seen him.
“Magnus?” I whisper, and he startles at the sound of my voice and looks down at me. I get the unpleasant feeling he completely forgot I was here. “Magnus, what is it? What’s going on? You look…” I trail off, unsure how to describe how he looks without alarming or insulting him.
“An article came out today,” he says. “They’re accusing me of marrying you to gain citizenship.”
His mouth forms a thin line, and I do my best to stifle a gasp. I have no idea how serious this is, but it can’t be good, right?
“The article is in a major newspaper,” Magnus says, showing me. “Not like that cheap rag of a magazine that published our original engagement announcement. When presented with these two stories and no other evidence, it’s likely most people will believe this one.”
“How could they have known?” I whisper. “I don’t understand. We’ve been on dates. We’ve been doing everything we could to look like an ordinary couple. What gave us away?”
“Exactly that, I think,” Magnus says heavily. “We’ve played our parts too well. I won’t make you read the article, but it lays out exactly what must have happened between us, and they’ve got it almost letter-perfect. In short, we’ve acted exactly the way two people entering into a fake marriage and trying to make it seem real would act. Of course, we got caught.”
“What’s going to happen?” I ask, a sharp bolt of terror shooting through me. “Are we going to jail? Are they going to arrest us for fraud?”
“No,” Magnus says firmly. “You won’t be in any trouble at all, Leah, I promise you that. It’s only me they’d come after. You haven’t done anything other than accept a proposal.”
“What’ll happen to you?” I ask, feeling faint and not at all sure that I want to hear the answer.
He takes a while to speak. “I’ll probably be deported,” he says quietly. “I can’t really see another way out of it now. I’ve been texting with my lawyer, and she says the immigration authorities in charge of my case have already seen this article. Furthermore, she says, they aren’t surprised. This only goes in support of what they already suspected—that you and I are staging a marriage to help me gain citizenship, and that you’re being paid for your services in some way.”
I hate that characterization of what I’m doing. It makes me feel so cheap. And it doesn’t feel true, either. In the beginning, I was taking Magnus’ money because I felt like he owed it to me for robbing me of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Now I’m taking it because I can tell he really wants to invest. It’s true that our relationship probably opened doors for me that wouldn’t have been opened had I not known him personally, but Magnus can hardly complain about someone having doors opened for them in unorthodox ways, can he?
And, I find, I don’t want to see him deported. I can tell that his life in America means a lot to him. He wants to stay here, to continue his business, and I want him to have that chance. And while we’re at it, I’d also like the opportunity to get to know him a little better. I was just starting to look forward to the prospect of our marriage, to the next year of my life spent in his company. Now he’s going to be taken away from me before I can decide how I really feel about him.
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” I ask, feeling desperate. “They can’t prove we’re not getting married for real. They just don’t like the way it looks. They shouldn’t be able to deport you on such flimsy evidence. There’s no proof!”
“You’re right,” he says, his voice slow and thoughtful. “There might be something we can do. They don’t like how it looks…so we need to change the look of it.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“We’ll have to make it a big wedding,” Magnus says. “We’ll have to rent a hall and invite guests—friends and family and business associates—and you’ll have to wear a white dress and everything. Of course they don’t believe someone of my stature is getting married at city hall. That seems contrived, given my circumstances. But a big wedding, one where your friends were bridesmaids, where your father walked you down the aisle…”
“My father’s dead,” I say, cutting him off, and Magnus falls silent, recoiling as if I’ve slapped him.
The silence that overtakes the room seems to have actual weight to
it, as if a blanket has been dropped over us.
I want him to go.
I crawl out of bed and grab clothes off the floor, not even looking to see what they are before throwing them on. In the same breath, he’s asking for a big white wedding, a formal wedding, a real wedding, the kind I would have to tell people about, and revealing how little he cares about me. I just told him last night about my parents. How could he forget something like that? I was right about Magnus from the start. I had an instinct, and I allowed myself to go against it, and now I’m getting what I deserve. How dare he.
After what seems like forever, he speaks. His voice is cautious, as though he’s treading carefully on a frozen lake, afraid to put his full weight down, not sure what will cause the ice to break and send him plunging to his doom.
“I’m sorry, Leah,” he says quietly. “That was unforgivable. I remember what you told me about your parents. I was carried away in the moment. I was visualizing the traditional roles of the members of a big wedding party. But that’s no excuse for my mistake. Please forgive me. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Damn it. It’s a good apology. I can feel my anger melting away already. And now, to my utter consternation, I’m feeling bad for him. He must be appalled at his slip-up.
“It’s all right,” I say quickly before this can go any farther. “I mean…I know you didn’t mean anything by that. But Magnus, a wedding, really? What on earth are we going to tell people?”
“That we’ve been having a secret affair?” he suggests. “My family are all in Norway. They’ll find it odd that I’m engaged to a girl I’ve never mentioned, but it will be easy enough to gloss over by reminding them of the fact that we’ve had so much to talk about on every call. What about you? Is there anyone in your life who simply won’t believe this, no matter what you tell them?”
I think of Aimi, already perfectly primed to believe.
“No,” I say regretfully, wishing I could give a different answer. “I think, if I’m honest, people would believe almost anything about me.”
“Are you okay with this?” Magnus asks. “You don’t sound sure.”
I’m not sure. Even though Aimi has been haranguing me for details about my personal life since the day we met, the idea of lying to her doesn’t sit well with me. When it was just omitting my marriage to Magnus from the narrative it was one thing, but making up a story for people about a fictional relationship, trying to sell them on the existence of a fictional marriage?
And Aimi is the tip of the iceberg. What about Gran’s friends, who will definitely want to come see me get married, especially in a wedding as big and well publicized as this one is sure to be? I won’t have any excuses to leave anyone out. What about the rest of the people at the office? They’re going to be talking about this every day leading up to the big event. I’ll have to tell a million tiny lies, answer a million tiny questions before this is over. And what about my aunts and uncles and cousins? I got closer with many of them during Gran’s final years. I don’t want to squander those new relationships by feeding them a pack of lies.
But are they lies? It can’t be denied at this point that the line is starting to blur between fiction and reality, and the truth of the matter is that I’m no longer sure what the status of my relationship with Magnus really is. We’re no longer enemies, I’m certain of that. I don’t hate or resent him anymore.
In fact, the more time I spend with him, the more I come to realize that I kind of like him. In the beginning, I saw that as a danger—Magnus, I felt, was not a safe person to like—but now that I know him better, I feel more secure with him. After all, I did sleep with him last night.
Which doesn’t necessarily mean anything, I remind myself firmly. People go to bed together all the time, and if you haven’t talked beforehand about what it means, you can’t let yourself take anything for granted.
It’s true that I haven’t done this in years, but I’ve seen movies. I’ve read books. I know that sometimes a night of passion is just that. Magnus and I had a wonderful date last night and emotions were running high. Maybe he only made coffee because he likes caffeine in the morning. Maybe he only slept over because he was tired. It doesn’t mean he likes me.
And even if he does like me, do I like him? That is to say, are my feelings for him of a romantic nature? I know I like him as a person, and I don’t think I can reasonably claim that I’m not attracted to him. But do I love him? Much harder to say.
And even if we did have those deep and hard-to-define feelings for each other, would that mean we were ready to marry if it weren’t for the other factors forcing our hand?
Almost certainly not.
Marriage is a big deal, a life-altering deal, and—leaving out that meeting five years ago that amounts to virtually nothing—Magnus and I haven’t known each other long at all. It would be crazy to make a commitment like this with someone you’d known such a short time. If one of my friends were doing it, I would try to talk her out of it.
Oh, God. What if someone tries to talk me out of it? How will I navigate that conversation?
Magnus registers the warring emotions on my face. “Listen, it’s all right,” he says quietly. “We’ll just make it my friends and family, and you can leave yours off the list. You can figure out how to tell them what happened privately, in your own time. Would that be easier?”
“It would,” I say, although it does raise another problem. How am I going to explain to my family that I got married and none of them were invited?
This wedding isn’t going to be kept quiet. If my family members haven’t already seen me in the news on Magnus’ arm, it’ll be a miracle. Maybe I should bite the bullet and invite them to the big event. Aunt Kathy is sure to ask me head on if it’s a green card marriage, so I’ll have to practice laughing her questions off. Maybe I can invite everyone except her. Or maybe I can enlist my cousin Joey to help keep her under control…
“What about your family?” I ask Magnus, hoping to distract myself from the many issues at hand with one that can’t even remotely be considered my problem. “You said they were in Norway, right? Will we have to get married there?”
“Oh, no,” Magnus says. “We’ll get married here, in your hometown. It’s only right. My family members will just have to fly over from Norway. It’ll be a nice vacation for them, especially since I’ll be paying for their plane tickets and lodging. I’ve already found a place my mother will love. It’s charming. You’ll see it. I’ll take you for a visit before the wedding.”
“You’ve already done that?” I ask. “I thought we just found out it would have to be a big wedding this morning.”
He shows me his phone. One of the apps he’s using is for finding hotels.
“I see.” I’m amazed at how quickly he works—how efficient he is. I can see how he’s been so successful in business, and for the first time, I feel impressed instead of resentful.
“Speaking of my family,” he says. “I wonder if you’d be able to take a few days off work to come away with me? Seeing as we’re going to be married soon—really married, in the eyes of the law and our families—I’d love you to meet mine.”
“Your family in Norway?”
“If you wouldn’t mind,” he says. “Friday through Monday would be enough, and we could go away for a long weekend. I’d get us a nice hotel, so you wouldn’t have to worry about staying in their home on the first occasion you met them. But I know you’ll like them, Leah, and I’m certain that they’ll like you. So what do you say? Will you come to Norway with me and meet my parents?”
Chapter 16
Leah
A Week Later
I am tremendously excited about our trip to Oslo. It’s my first time on a long international flight. I’m a bit nervous about all the details, though. Is Magnus handling everything? Or is there something I’m supposed to be doing.
I decide to call him for a change to alleviate all the thoughts swirling around in my head.
“Magnus,
I have so many questions about the trip,” I say when I get him on the line.
“Don’t worry about anything. I’m taking care of it. All you need to do is pack your suitcase and have your passport with you,” he tells me.
“But what about my ticket? Are you bringing that to the airport or do I need to get it from you ahead of time?”
“What are you talking about? I haven’t purchased a ticket for you.”
“What?” I ask. “I have to purchase my own ticket? Or do you mean I’m not going to Norway with you after all?”
“Of course you’re going with me. That’s the point of the whole trip.”
“But then I need a ticket—a plane ticket—to get on the plane with you.” I have no idea why he is being so difficult.
I hear him laughing on the other end of the line.
“I’m sorry!” he says. “You must think I’m such an idiot. The truth is that I forgot you’d be thinking of a commercial airplane—but of course you would. Why would you think anything different, when I never told you?”
“Told me what?”
“About my private jet,” Magnus says. “I bought it a few years ago, for the business.”
“You own a plane?” I stammer.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, of course. Magnus has the best of everything, and though I don’t want to accuse him of bragging, I can tell he likes to show it off.
The day of the trip, he leads me to my seat on the jet as if he’s a butler, gesturing that I should sit, producing a bottle of champagne, and pouring me a glass.
“I never like to take off for an international flight without a glass of champagne,” he says. “I feel like it’s bad luck.”
