Chapter Seventeen
Fake Fiancés Do
Cheyenne
Tonight is Ember’s bookish bachelorette garden party—as per the invite Graham gave Colton to give to me. I have absolutely no idea what to wear. I dressed up every day to work at The Art Institute of Chicago for several years, but standing in front of my closet now, all those clothes feel too full of memories.
Memories of the less than savory variety. Not the good ones, like my brothers parading out of the lake house wearing my floral linen pants in their late teens, or Daddy lifting my bucket hat from my head to plop onto his.
Indi floats into my room unannounced, looking effortlessly gorgeous in a flowy red maxi dress and brown leather sandals, her blonde hair in a half up half down. “Oh, my gosh, Cheyenne. You’re hiding these clothes in this closet?!” She nudges me out of her way and sifts through my wardrobe, slender fingers assessing the fabrics with practiced grace. “ Cheyenne . Some of these still have the tags on them.”
Bitterness stings my throat, but I smile to hide it. It’s not like I can tell her I bought the green and white Farm Rio dress to wear when I got my promotion, but that never came because my husband (and boss) decided my colleague deserved the position more than I did. Not only that; he also decided she deserved the love and commitment he promised me on our wedding day.
“Yeah, well, it’s not like I’m gonna wear them here,” I tell her dismissively. I wrap my arms around my middle, feeling my shoulders begin to curl in on the emptiness there. “I’m actually thinking about skipping tonight, though. It’s not like I even really know—”
“You will do no such thing,” Indi pronounces, pivoting to face me fully. “For one, Ember will literally welcome anyone into her bubble of sweetness. And two—” she spins back to my closet to pull something from the rack “—because you need to wear this .”
I inhale sharply. The dress she’s holding is the one I planned to wear that night. Unlike most of my wardrobe, it’s not designer. It came from the clearance rack of a charming boutique in the mall, and it’s flowy, covered in a soft blue floral pattern with a deep V neckline and open back.
“No, I—”
“No nos about it,” she says, pressing it into my hands. The faded tag chafes against my palm, not unlike unpleasant memories chafing against my thoughts. “This is perfect for the vibe of tonight’s party. With your tan and if you put your hair up in a clip?” She shakes her head and presses a fist to her mouth. I’m convinced there are actual tears in her eyes. “Gosh, it’s like a whole new you has emerged. No offense to your regular outfits, Chey, but seriously. I will adopt these clothes if you continue locking them up like this.”
Despite myself, I laugh. I’ve thought of Kaia as a sister since she and Beau got married fourteen years ago, but my sister-in-law leans toward quiet and introverted. Indi has a bold personality, blunt opinions, and beautiful determination stuffed into a petite body.
I love her.
“Fine,” I say. I’m not sure I have a choice. I fold the dress over my arm, take Indi by the shoulders, and gently push her toward the door. “I’ll wear it. But you need to reiterate to Colton that the kitchen is off limits tonight. They can order pizza from Giorgi’s for supper. If a kitchen becomes necessary, they can go up to Sam’s.”
She squints at me over her shoulder. “You do know Dad can’t cook very well either, right?”
“But Jordan can,” I say. “Both Sydney and Jolene will be at the party with us. He’ll need something to do.”
With that, I close the door so I can change. She mutters something like wear that dress, or else , but even with the threat, I consider choosing something else. Nearly anything else. She could have picked any other dress out of the couple dozen on the rack, and she had to choose this one.
But I told her I’d wear it, and I don’t break promises. Unless, of course, they’re to myself. Promises to myself are much too easy to break.
I toss my shorts and t-shirt into my hamper and pull an ivory bralette over my head. Taking a deep breath, I tug the tags from the armpit of the dress. The rayon flutters over my body just like it did the day I tried it on two years ago.
But the woman looking at me in the mirror isn’t the woman who bought it. She has the same naturally highlighted blonde hair. The same blue eyes and summertime freckles. The same pronounced collarbone and plain face.
But she’s not about to become a curator at The Art Institute of Chicago. She’s not married to a man as powerful in his circle as men came. She’s not the mother who wasn’t showing yet.
She’s a hollowed shell of that woman.
I can’t dwell on those shortcomings now, though, nor can I give into my inward spiraling. I straighten my shoulders and smooth my hands over my hips. I fold my hair into a clip, and I holler for Indi to come tie the dress at my neck. When I try, it threatens to choke me, the awkward, flimsy bow drooping over my left shoulder and the strings too tight.
My door opens a moment later. “Oh, thank God. You’re here. I can’t—” I stop when the mirror reflects the man standing behind me. “You’re not Indi.”
His eyes don’t lift from my own reflection. “Last I checked, no. I don’t have a flair for red lipstick and bossing everyone around.”
I don’t turn. I stare right back at him in the mirror. Applesauce stains his t-shirt and he has a Hot Wheels car in his hand. “You’d probably be better suited to nude lipstick.”
“Probably so.”
“I, um…” I reach for my wave necklace habitually. “I need Indi to tie my dress. I don’t know if she didn’t hear me, or…”
He lifts his eyes to mine, and the corner of his mouth curves. “Oh, trust me, Fini. She heard you. She promptly invented something that Milo needed help with that she and only she could take care of, though.”
There it is again—my nickname on his lips. Now-familiar goosebumps freckle my skin.
I absently rub a hand up and down my arm. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” His eyes sweep over my body so reverently that it should be his hands on my hips, my face, my back. “Fini, you look…” He clears his throat. “You look beautiful.”
I try to hold it together. I really do. But the low timbre of his voice is my kryptonite. My lip trembles, and I blink at my reflection in the mirror, and just like that, I’m a shell again. Tears roll down my cheeks, and I start shaking my head.
“This was the dress I bought for our two-year wedding anniversary,” I say, my voice miserably thin. “I—I was going to tell Stephen that I was pregnant. That he was going to be a dad.” I nearly double over with grief. “That I was going to be a mom. But we didn’t make it to dinner because he forgot about it. I told him later, but it didn’t matter, because a few weeks later…”
I was no longer a mother.
In four swift strides, Colton crosses the room. His chest is at my back and his face is beside mine in the mirror. Conviction rings in his voice when he places his mouth near my ear.
“Cheyenne, you weren’t going to be a mother,” he says. His left hand lifts to my abdomen, and his other arm comes around my quivering shoulders. “You are a mother. You might have only carried the child for a few weeks, but you will always be the child’s mother. Not on this earth, maybe, but that baby is and always will be yours . You were a mother then, and you are one now.” His gaze holds mine in the mirror. “Do you hear me?”
I nod. I can’t form words. Not when Colton’s palm rests protectively on my stomach, his hand warm and tender and strong. Not when he’s the only reason I’m still standing and not crumpled in anguish. I vividly remember wishing Stephen would touch me like this in those dark days after the miscarriage. That he’d hold me when we were in the privacy of our own home, not just at business functions and dinner parties. That he’d love me for who I was as a person, not what I looked like on his arm.
That he’d have loved the baby enough to make him or her want to stay with us.
For a long moment, neither of us move. Colton’s broad chest is a resting place for my shoulders. His large hand touching my softened belly makes me remember how I felt when I saw the positive pregnancy test. His strong arm around my shoulders anchors me firmly on my own two feet, unsteady as they are.
I want to turn around and tell Colton everything—about Stephen’s infidelity and underhanded ways, about the real end of my career, about how I haven’t picked up a paintbrush since the day I lost my baby. About how I wonder if he or she would have loved art, if they’d have had my blue eyes or Stephen’s green ones.
About how I, despite all odds, still love him.
“Is it wrong that I miss her? The me… before. ” I whisper, staring at my splotchy cheeks in the mirror. I let my gaze tiptoe over to the array of power suits and floral dresses and silky tops in my closet. “I miss her confidence. I miss her purpose. I miss knowing what I want and being unafraid to go for it. I miss her, but I also miss someone I never met. Someone I’ll never meet.” Sucking my cheeks in, I shake my head. “It feels wrong, Colton.”
Colton’s hands turn me gently by the shoulders. He lifts my face, and his thumb traces a soft line across my chin. “Fini, I would be concerned if you didn’t miss her. You have a purpose in this world, one that no one else can fulfill. One that will always burn right here—” he taps my heart with his knuckles “—and shouldn’t be allowed to be taken from you, no matter what. I don’t care if you’re wearing—” He pauses and gestures to my closet. “You’re going to have to help me out here, honey. I don’t know women’s clothing.”
My laugh is watery. “Chanel. Burberry. Lily Pulitzer.”
“Yes, that. I don’t care if you’re wearing a Chanel power suit—”
“Well, actually, my suits are mostly Calvin Klein.”
“—and taking the art world by storm, or if you’re wearing a faded t-shirt and trying to avoid hurricane season during Milo’s bathtime,” he continues, both hands holding my face. “Don’t let the nobodies in your life steal those parts of you. If they’re not with you, Fini, they’re against you.”
Emboldened by his words, I reach up and trace my finger across the bristled line of his jaw. His body freezes at my touch. Heat puffs against my wrist on his exhale, and I let my finger dance up to the smile lines beside his eye.
Smile lines from a life I was part of, and from one that I wasn’t.
Objectively speaking, Colton is a good-looking man. Devastatingly so, even. Ask any woman who follows the rodeo circuit about his baby blues, and she could wax poetic about them for days. Watch any interview and see hearts practically oozing from the interviewer. Look him up on the internet and you’ll be fanning yourself by the time you’ve looked through pictures spanning more than a decade.
In the world of rodeo, he’s a strong, charismatic man who’s made a darn good name for himself.
Intimately, though, I know a different Colton. A handsome man, undoubtedly, but one who is just as human as the rest of us. One who was shorter than me by an inch until he had a growth spurt at age thirteen. One whose muscles underneath that t-shirt are impressive but have been softened by age and his incorrigible sweet tooth. One who is only doing the best he can and messing up sometimes along the way.
To the world, he’s Colton Del Ray; infectious charmer, two-time world champion bull rider, and notorious flirt.
To me, he’s the boy I’ve always loved, the one with messy hair and lake water eyes, and the man I’ll always believe in.
“I miss us, too,” I whisper. My gaze hovers somewhere between his mouth and the scar to the left of it. “I miss her, the girl I used to be, but…I also miss us.”
“ Fini. ”
Two syllables. My nickname is only two syllables, and still, his voice is nearly too hoarse to get them out. It’s a prayer and a curse all the same.
An invisible string connects us, me and Colton. When his bike tire went flat and he became my summer project, it was there. When I looked out my bedroom window to see him sitting on the dock that day his mom left, that string led me to sit quietly beside him. It kept me awake when I drove from Chicago to Texas following end of year college exams to be there for his second world championship win. During those magical three months where we held hands and kissed and danced under stars, it placed rose-colored glasses over my eyes. When he showed up a week before my wedding to tell me he thought I was making a mistake, that string tried to protect me from impending heartbreak.
It's here now, as my breath mingles with his. As my thumb brushes across his lower lip, and his fingers press into the soft skin of my hip. For this one, fleeting moment, we don’t feel like Colton and Cheyenne, childhood best friends turned lovers turned strangers.
We feel like those bookstore meet cute strangers. The ones who’ll go on a date right then, and that one date turns into twenty dates, and twenty dates turns into a lifetime.
The intensity in his gaze reverberates through my chest when I lift my eyes. “Promise me something, Cole.”
“Anything,” he says. His voice shakes, but not with hesitation.
“Promise me you’ll never change the person you are, but that you’ll be open to finding other layers of yourself,” I say quietly. “Because that person is my best friend, and I don’t know what I’d do without him.”
A melancholy smile charms his lips. His thumb skates across my cheek and down the slope of my neck, coming to rest lightly on my pulse point. “I don’t think best friends want to kiss each other, Fini.”
“No,” I agree, and I’m a little breathless when I do. “But fake fiancés do.”
He laughs, and I smile, and when Indi appears a moment later to grill Colton about not being able to tie a simple dress, I meet his knowing eyes in the mirror.
I don’t know what will happen tonight. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow.
But I do know that, if I mustered a splinter of my old confidence, it would be to find the rest of my courage. Because that girl is one I’d really like to be again.