Chapter 1 - The First Rule of Pretending
The sanding dust from the walnut cabinet settled like gray snow over the workbench, catching the afternoon light slicing through the drafty windows of my woodshop. I stared at Brooke Keller, trying to calculate the exact moment my life had derailed.
"You told your mother you were engaged," I repeated, keeping my voice dangerously level.
"Practically engaged," Brooke corrected, wincing slightly as she pulled the old navy university sweatshirt tighter over her shoulders. The sleeves were pushed up to her elbows, revealing the faint dusting of freckles along her forearms that I knew a little too well. "There’s a massive difference, Leo. Well, legally and semantically, at least."
"To a normal human being, yes. To Eleanor Keller? Absolutely not." I dropped the sanding block onto the wood with a dull thud. Eleanor Keller treated family gatherings like an Olympic sport, and gossip was her favorite medal category. "If you told her you’re engaged, she’s expecting a diamond the size of a pigeon’s egg, a guest list, and a caterer. Not a quiet sigh and a shrug."
"Worse," Brooke said, grimacing. "She booked us the honeymoon suite at the Harbor Crest Hotel. As a surprise. She called it her 'early wedding gift to the future in-laws' when she booked the room next door for herself."
I stared at her, the blood rushing into my ears. "She booked us a room?"
"The bridal suite. The one with the heart-shaped tub and the balcony overlooking the Monterey coast." Brooke bit her lower lip, a nervous habit I had cataloged months ago during our late-night phone calls about client disasters. "Which means if we don't fix this by Saturday, my mother is going to walk in on us, realize I lied, call a family summit, and make my life a living hell for the next five decades. Derek and his new girlfriend, Ashley, will watch from the front row while eating canapés."
"And your brilliant, genius solution to this disaster is for me to pretend to be your fiancé for an entire weekend in front of the most judgmental family on the West Coast?"
"You’re good under pressure," she offered weakly. "You built a dining table for six out of reclaimed barn wood in forty-eight hours when a client had a family emergency."
"That was wood, Brooke! Wood doesn't judge my posture, ask about my tax bracket, or remember that I used to date your older sister."
The name hung in the air between us like a physical weight. *Vanessa.*
For a second, the light in the workshop seemed to dim. Vanessa Keller. The woman who had treated our eleven-month relationship like a preliminary interview for a CEO position. The woman who had looked at my calloused hands, my sawdust-covered boots, and my rented house with polite, thinly veiled pity before packing her designer bags and moving into a high-rise downtown with a corporate litigator who wore silk ties to Sunday brunch.
I had spent two years getting over Vanessa. Or rather, I had spent two years convincing myself I was over her, right up until the moment her younger sister started dropping by my shop to complain about graphic design software, bring me leftover Thai food, and listen to me ramble about wood grain densities.
"Vanessa won't even care," Brooke said quickly, reading my expression. "She and her new guy are flying in late Saturday night because of some board meeting. She’ll barely be there. It’s just Mom, our aunts who think every unmarried woman over thirty should be fitted for a nun’s habit, and Derek."
"Derek," I muttered, rubbing the bridge of my nose. The mere mention of his name brought back the memory of his smug, perfectly manicured face at a family barbecue two years ago, where he had casually explained to me how the housing market worked, as if I hadn't built half the custom cabinetry in this county. "The guy who cheated on you with an office assistant and then blamed your 'lack of ambition' for the breakup."
"The very same." Brooke stepped closer to the workbench, her eyes pleading. "Please, Leo. Just for forty-eight hours. We drive down to Monterey Friday afternoon. We put on a good show at the rehearsal dinner. We survive the wedding on Saturday. We sleep in separate beds—or, well, the bed and a very uncomfortable velvet armchair in the corner of the suite—and then we drive back Sunday morning. I’ll pay for your gas. I’ll buy you that expensive Japanese chisel set you’ve been drooling over."
I looked at her. Really looked at her.
At the way her dark blonde hair fell messily over her shoulders, at the fierce, stubborn pride in her eyes that masked a deep, aching vulnerability she hid from the rest of the world. I knew how much Derek’s betrayal had gutted her. I had sat on her living room floor at two in the morning three months after the breakup, handing her tissues while she cried until she fell asleep against my shoulder.
I was a fool. Every instinct I possessed—every rational, logical fiber of my thirty-three-year-old body—was screaming at me to run in the opposite direction.
Instead, I reached out, grabbed a pencil from the workbench, and tapped it against her coffee cup.
"Japanese steel," I said. "The blue paper steel ones from Kyoto."
Brooke’s face lit up with a brilliant, blinding smile that hit me right in the chest like a physical blow. "It’s a deal."
"We have rules, though," I added, narrowing my eyes. "Rule number one: No kissing. Rule number two: We maintain strict boundaries. Rule number three: If your mother asks how we met, we tell her the boring version where we bonded over a mutual hatred of Ikea furniture."
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"Agreed," Brooke said, her smile softening into something a little quieter, a little more dangerous. "We’re just two very convincing actors, Leo. What could possibly go wrong?"
***
