Fake Fiancée, Bride Forever

by Holly Rayner

  She shakes her head no. “Not really. It felt like I knew what to do.”

  “Never underestimate natural ability,” I say. “I think we could probably get you on the intermediate hill. Would you be up for trying it?”

  After a few more practice runs down the baby slope, Leah agrees to try the intermediate course. It’s located on the opposite side of the resort, so we hop on a shuttle that’s specially designed to transport skiers from one part of the resort to another. We sit facing outward, our backs in toward the middle of the shuttle, our skis dangling off the side, and as the shuttle pulls to a stop in front of a signpost that says “Intermediate Slope” we hop off.

  This slope is both longer and, in places, steeper than the easy hill was. Though it’s still a fairly straight descent—you could stand in the very center of the course and ski straight to the bottom if no one was in your way—it curves very slightly, causing skiers to bunch together here and there and necessitating the occasional swerve. Because the hill is so high, there’s a chairlift to take us to the top instead of just a rope-and-pulley system.

  Leah grabs my arm, a grin spreading over her face. “I’ve never been on one of those!” she says. “I’ve always wanted to try it!”

  We make our way to the chairlift and position ourselves in line. As the chair moves up behind us and bumps us in the back of the knees, scooping us to sit in it, Leah lets out a joyous laugh.

  “This is great!” she cries, kicking her skis back and forth in the air. “I could ride this thing all day and never mind the skiing!”

  I laugh. “How would you get back to the start of the hill without skiing?”

  “Good point,” she grins. “I guess I’ll have to take on the hill.”

  A part of me almost wishes my parents were with us. Leah really impressed them this morning, I know, but they would really get a kick out of how enthusiastically she’s embracing the skiing, especially given that she’s hardly ever done it before. My parents are both excellent skiers. For my father, in particular, the slopes were a place he could cut loose and let go of his usual uptight tendencies. Leah, meanwhile, is almost childlike in her enjoyment of the mountain. My father would love her right now.

  And for a moment I’m struck with a feeling of overpowering sadness and regret. This is so close to being my real life. This is the girl I’m going to marry. I’ve brought her to my home country, introduced her to my parents, and taken her to my favorite vacation spot. We’ve had a wonderful time over the past few days. I couldn’t possibly ask for anything more…except that it be real.

  Every time I relax into enjoying the time I’m spending with Leah, I remember that it isn’t real. It’s a mirage. We’re getting married. We enjoy each other’s company. She gets along well with my family. But all those perfect facts somehow don’t add up to the correct full picture. Leah and I are not what we appear to be, even to ourselves.

  “Magnus,” Leah’s voice calls me back to myself. I look over at her. Her eyebrows are raised and she’s staring at me, and I realize she must have said my name several times.

  “What?”

  “I said, I’ll race you to the bottom!” She points at the slope again.

  I have to admit, it’s a decent time for a race. There are only a few people on the slopes other than the two of us, so we won’t get caught behind a pack or forced to weave around other skiers—I’m not sure Leah’s technique is advanced enough for that yet. She can handle a pure downhill race, though, and she looks so eager I’m concerned she might jump out of her ski boots.

  “All right,” I agree. I’ve raced my brother and sister down this hill often enough.

  “No letting me win,” she says firmly. “I want a real race this time.”

  “I wouldn’t let you win a race,” I protest, and Leah laughs and swats my arm. “Ready?”

  She takes her position and lowers her goggles over her eyes.

  “Go!”

  We push off. The intermediate slope begins gradually enough, but the grade increases as the hill goes on, and by the time we’re about a third of the way down we’re whizzing along side by side.

  “Don’t forget to put your toes together!” I call over to Leah, thinking to trick her into slowing her pace so I can pull ahead.

  In response, she crouches low over her skis, tightening her body, lowering wind resistance and pulling ahead of me, bullet-like. Inwardly, I groan. How did I forget? She may be a novice skier, but she’s also studied math and physics. She knows how to go fast.

  I pick up speed myself. The bottom half of the course is my favorite, ever since I was a kid, because it contains a few sharp drops. I squat over the first and pick up more speed, and now I’m gaining on Leah, leaning forward over my toes, my weight giving me the advantage.

  But I’m too late. Leah lets out a delighted cry as she goes over the final drop. It’s going to give her even more speed, and I know she’s going to beat me. I just hope I can make her believe the defeat was completely earned. I definitely didn’t let her win this one. I’m already thinking I’ll have to challenge her to a rematch, though. I may not have let her win, but I was too easy on her in the beginning. I can go harder, I know I can. That wasn’t my fastest pace…

  Then Leah’s whoops of delight are replaced by a scream, and I see her fall.

  Panic shoots through me. I’ve seen terrible injuries on the slopes. Did I push her too fast? Should we have stayed on the easy hill? Maybe I should have let her win so she wouldn’t have gone so hard her first time down the hill. I was so irresponsible. I don’t know how I can forgive myself for letting her get hurt.

  I hurry to her side and drop to my knees. “Leah?”

  She’s struggling to sit up. I help her, one arm behind her back.

  “What hurts?” I ask as she removes her goggles. “Can you wiggle your toes? Do you remember what day of the week it is?”

  She gives me a dirty look. “Calm down, Magnus. I’m completely fine. You’re just trying to distract from the fact that I was about to beat you.”

  “You’re sure?” I ask. She does seem fine, but my anxiety won’t seem to subside. “Are you sure you’re okay? You were going pretty fast when you fell.”

  “I was wearing a lot of equipment,” she points out. “Come on, I want to race again.”

  “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea…” I say.

  “Afraid to lose, huh?”

  “Leah, please listen. At least practice going down this hill slowly before we try racing. We should never have done that on your very first time down. It was dangerous and irresponsible. I’m not going to race you again until you’ve gotten a feel for the course, at least.”

  She sighs. “Fine. Just help me up.”

  I get to my feet, take her hands, and pull her upright…and, with a cry, she collapses back down into the snow. I drop to my knees beside her.

  “Leah?” I ask urgently.

  Her face is pale. “Okay,” she says. “You’re right. I think I hurt my ankle.” She touches it and winces. “Yeah, that hurts. Damn. I’m sorry, Magnus. I don’t think I can ski any more today.”

  “Don’t apologize.” I stand up, pulling her into my arms as I go. “I’ll take you to the lodge, and we’ll take care of that, and then we can spend the rest of the night doing calm indoor activities. Does that sound good?”

  “That sounds great,” she agrees with a smile.

  I stride across the snow, bearing Leah in my arms. She laughs as we go.

  “Leave it to me,” she says ruefully. “Skiing with a billionaire in Norway and what do I do but fall down on my first time down the hill.”

  “What does that mean? Leave it to you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It’s the kind of thing I do. I get chosen for Vipers’ Nest and then go home without even making a pitch. I go to college to study programming and then end up in data processing dodging my boss’s attention. I start big and fizzle out. You see what I mean?”

  I do, but it breaks my heart to t
hink of it. Leah is beautiful, talented, smart and charismatic, and she’s miles from the kind of person who ought to see her life story as one of fizzling out. I carry her into the lodge and deposit her on a chair, more determined than ever to bring her new project to fruition.

  Leah Simmonds deserves a win.

  Chapter 19

  Leah

  We high-tail it back to the lodge, where Magnus deposits me on the couch in the living room and grabs a few pillows from the nearby chairs. He places one pillow behind my back and two under my injured ankle. It’s all very sweet, and I’m torn between frustration that I’ve lost my chance to ski and pleasure that I get to recline here and let him tend to me for a while.

  “What else do you need?” he asks. “Maybe something to drink?”

  “Do we have any wine?” I ask. Opening a bottle could make this evening feel more romantic, a little more like a vacation. The lodge is beautiful, but I have to keep reminding myself that I’m really in Norway. This could just as easily be Montana.

  Magnus disappears into the kitchen, and I hear him rummaging around. I take the opportunity to examine the lodge—what little I can see from my current position, that is. Once again, I’m deprived of the chance to fully explore the place.

  I hope my ankle is better in the morning. I want to open the drawers of the chest in the corner and see if it smells like pine inside. I want to feel the green curtains on the windows and discover whether the fabric is as heavy as it looks. I want to look at the books in the shelves on either side of the fireplace, which are worn and old looking in the best possible way, as if they’ve been held and read by dozens of guests. I wonder what language they’re written in.

  Magnus returns with two glasses of red wine in one hand and a towel in the other. When he hands me the towel, I realize it’s wrapped around a bag of ice.

  “Put that on your ankle,” he says, passing me one of the glasses as well. “It’ll recover faster if you take care of it.”

  “Can we stay an extra night and ski tomorrow if I’m better?”

  I’m not really counting on this, because Magnus and I both have commitments in the States that we need to get back for, and I don’t think we have much leeway to rearrange our plans on this trip, so I’m surprised when he nods. I’m not used to being catered to like this. It’s a little awkward. I swirl the wine glass in my hand to hide my discomfort. It smells earthy and delicious, and I take a sip and lean back.

  Magnus turns to the fireplace and fusses with kindling and matches. When he pulls back a few moments later, a crackling fire is leaping cheerfully upward, and the room warms around us. He retreats to an armchair near my head and takes a seat, sipping his own wine as he does so.

  For several long, pleasant minutes, we sit quietly and watch the flames. Despite my earlier fall, this is a very nice end to a very nice day. The wine begins to carry me away a little, allowing me to forget the complications of my situation with Magnus. I feel content, at the moment, to know such a kind man and to be here in this cabin with him. What does the rest of it matter, really?

  “Do you like the wine?” Magnus asks after a stretch of time that might have been five minutes or half an hour.

  The silence isn’t uncomfortable, it’s luxurious. It’s intimate.

  “I love it,” I say. “I don’t usually even like reds very much, but this is so…I don’t even know how to describe it, really. It’s not bitter, the way they usually are.”

  He laughs. “We should take a wine tasting class together sometime if you’d like. It’s a good time, and you learn how to describe the qualities you taste in your wine. And there’s free cheese.” He stands and goes back to the kitchen to fetch the bottle. “I had this wine sent up with your luggage,” he calls, and as he returns, he shows me the bottle in his hands. “You can only get it in Norway. It’s one of my favorites.”

  “I never thought of Norway as a producer of fine wines.” I take the bottle and examine the label, but it’s printed in Norwegian and unintelligible to me. “Do you make a lot of them?”

  “Not really. And they’re not appreciated worldwide or anything, not when there are places like France and Italy to compete with. I just happen to like this one a lot. It reminds me of home. I was hopeful that you’d like it too.”

  “This is expensive, isn’t it?” I’m unable to read the price on the label, of course, but this definitely tastes better than the cheap stuff I’m used to back home.

  “It’s a high-end varietal, yes.”

  “You shouldn’t be wasting it on me—”

  “It’s hardly wasted,” Magnus cuts me off. “You heard what I told you before about money, didn’t you? There’s no point in my having it if I can’t spend it on things I love with people I care for. I wanted to share this with you, Leah. Please.”

  I nod assent. “You just do so much for me, Magnus.”

  Then I realize what he said. He cares for me.

  “For both of us. And one day, after your app is a success, you’ll have an excess of money yourself. You’re going to be a great success, Leah.”

  “Maybe.” I sigh. The financial talk has me troubled, pondering my own missteps and the direction my life has taken.

  Magnus seems to read my expression. “What are you thinking? You look far away.”

  “I was thinking of…well, I was thinking of my gran, actually. It’s an uncomfortable thought.”

  “Tell me,” he urges.

  I hesitate. I’ve never shared these secret thoughts, these burning questions I’ve never quite been able to quench from my mind, with anyone before. What if it changes his opinion of me? And yet his face is so open, so inviting, that I feel safe.

  “When she got sick,” I say, “she asked me to hire a home care nurse for her. She had the money to cover it, and she didn’t want me to give up my independence, to move in and spend my ‘prime years’ taking care of her. She thought it was too great a sacrifice. But I refused to go along with her plan because I knew that if I were in her shoes, I would want to be with family. I knew that was what she really wanted for herself, underneath what she wanted for me. And she had taken care of me all her life. It was my turn to put her first.”

  “Wow,” Magnus says quietly.

  “But…but what if I hadn’t?” I ask desperately. “Sometimes, when I’m lying awake at night, dreading going into work the next day, I can’t help but wonder it. What if I had done as she asked, hired a nurse and stayed in my apartment. Maybe I would have dated, found someone I loved. Maybe I would have given my career the focus it deserved. Maybe I wouldn’t be floundering so much right now.”

  I stop for breath. He’s still gazing at me. He hasn’t pulled away in revulsion.

  “Does that make me a terrible person?” I ask.

  “Of course not,” Magnus says. His voice is slow and gentle. Soothing. “It’s natural to wonder about the road not taken, and even to have regrets. You did a wonderful thing for your grandmother, Leah, but of course you wonder what would have happened if you’d made a different choice.”

  “But wouldn’t that make me horribly selfish?” I ask. “She needed me. How can I even consider the possibility that doing anything but staying with her would have been right?”

  Magnus pauses. “I wasn’t completely honest with you today at breakfast,” he says heavily. “I told you that my brother and sister were too busy to join us, you remember?”

  “I do. You mean they weren’t busy?”

  “The truth is that I wouldn’t have any idea. I had a falling out with my brother years ago, when I first moved to the States. He and I had planned to go into business together here, but I pulled out at the last minute to pursue the Vipers’ Nest opportunity instead.

  “There was a huge fight. We’d both invested time and energy into the business. I left it all in his hands, told him he was free to bring on another partner, keep the work I’d done, and proceed without me, but he said he couldn’t do it without my inventive mind.” Magnus rubs his chin with h
is hand. “My mother tells me his business is afloat now, but he had a hard few years, and he hasn’t spoken to me since.”

  “That’s awful,” I whisper. “That must have been so hard. But it sounds like you did the best you could.”

  “And then my sister…well, when she got pregnant two years ago, she asked me to come home. She wanted the whole family here for the birth of the baby. I think she also hoped to help me and my brother reconcile. In the end, I was the only one who didn’t come. I had an investors’ meeting that weekend—it was a big deal for my company, I had to be there—and I told her I would come as soon as I could to congratulate her and meet my new nephew.”

  “Did she understand?”

  “At first she did,” Magnus says. “I could tell she was disappointed. The rest of the family was there. I was the only one who didn’t make it. She kept calling, asking me when I could come and meet Luka, and I kept putting her off, and…well, she hasn’t called me in about a year. I still haven’t met my nephew.”

  I sit silently, taking this in. That story is harder to explain away or shrug off. His poor sister, wanting nothing more than to bring her family together to witness the birth of her son, having to realize that her brother wasn’t going to show up for her. Calling him over and over, doing her best to include him in her life, only to be rebuffed every time. She must have been heartbroken. It must have felt as though Magnus simply didn’t care about her and her child. No wonder she gave up in the end.

  And yet, as I look at Magnus’ face and take in the anguish there, I know things aren’t that simple. It’s not that he doesn’t care—it’s obvious how much he cares. It’s written all over him, painfully etched into the lines of his face, as if he’s growing into the shape of his regrets.

  “Magnus,” I say quietly. “You should call her.”

  “It’s been so long,” he says, his voice growing hoarse. “Why would she want to hear from me now? Why would anything I have to say matter? All I ever thought about was work, Leah. I couldn’t leave Seattle because I might miss a meeting with potential investors? Why didn’t I reschedule the meeting? I wouldn’t have lost the deal for something like that. And if I had lost it, they wouldn’t have been worth doing business with anyway, would they?”