Chapter Two
Daniel
“Hi, Daniel,” Dana said, giving him a shy smile as she walked next to him in the hallway. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” he replied.
“I mean, how are you with . . . everything that’s going on.”
Ah. There it was. If there was one thing Daniel would erase, it was his coworkers’ knowledge that his wife had left him. Ever since then, they had treated him as if he were a child, ready to explode at any moment. He was tired of it.
“Everything is good, just as usual.”
He walked toward his office, leaving his employee behind, feeling the familiar tightness in his chest.
Yes, his wife left him.
Yes, he lived in an empty apartment with no one to share it with.
Yes, he was throwing himself into work in an attempt not to think about it, but he was fine. Work was fine. Everything was fine.
One day, even he would believe it.
After working for a few hours, Daniel left the office to get some lunch, needing to get away from his employees’ stares and questions.
After he’d gotten food and sat at a table in the corner, his phone rang, and it was the last person he wanted to talk to.
“Hello?” Daniel answered, his voice level despite his annoyance.
“My boy! How are you?” Michael Anderson’s booming voice said. Daniel hated that voice. It was the same one he used on TV while preaching to millions on his live streams. Once upon a time, Daniel wished his father would talk to him like a normal person, but now he knew he treated everything like a sermon, even family conversations.
“The same as always.”
“Lucinda’s been asking about you.”
Daniel put down his fork, feeling a familiar rush of anger. “Good for her,” he replied.
“We’re both worried about your mental well-being,” his father said. “I think you need to come down to the church. This is nothing God can’t forgive.”
Daniel rolled his eyes. He would rather be anywhere other than his father’s church, which was nothing more than a TV studio and a not-for-profit moneymaking scheme that he ran. Daniel hadn’t been religious in years.
“I didn’t do anything. You committed adultery, with my wife, no less.” The thought still made him sick, and he angrily pushed away his lunch.
“An affair due to neglect isn’t an affair. Besides, I atoned for my sins.”
Maybe with God, but certainly not with Daniel.
“Is this the reason why you called?” he asked, changing the subject.
“No, it’s more important than that,” his father started. “Lucinda and I have been talking. We want to go public with our relationship.”
“What?”
Daniel had been enjoying this time where no one had known why his wife left. Despite their pity, it was easier this way. But once his father went public, Daniel knew he would say exactly how he met Lucinda.
And that was through him.
“Son, lying is a sin, and keeping my love for Lucinda secret is going to send us both to Hell. You don’t want that, do you?”
“I don’t want any of this. You can’t tell people. This is going to ruin my life at work.”
“God will take care of that.”
Daniel gritted his teeth together. “You have to give me time, at least.”
“I can do one more week.”
“Thank you,” Daniel said, feeling relieved. Usually, his father never gave him extra time. This felt almost like a gift.
“Anything for you, son,” he said, as if he had actually done something for Daniel other than steal his wife. “Love you!” he added as he hung up.
Great, he had one week until his whole life was blown apart by his father, again. Daniel put his head in his hands and sighed.
What was he going to do? One of the very few things that had gone his way was that his father had kept Lucinda a secret for the four months they had been separated. Now, that was down the drain. His shame was going to be public, and there was nothing he could do about it.
People were never going to treat him normally ever again. Not while he was single, and not with this news coming out. How was he supposed to make it through the next week knowing that everyone was going to know his wife left him for his father?
After a moment, he knew he needed to get back to work. Maybe that would distract him from what was incoming. When he strode into his office, he was ready to answer emails and not think about anything to do with his personal life.
But that was when he saw Amelia Rogers sitting in one of the extra chairs.
She had the same pensive expression on her face that she always did, but it was set with a tenseness that was usually reserved for uncomfortable HR meetings. As far as he knew, Daniel hadn’t done anything to warrant one.
“Hi, Daniel. Can we talk?” She gave him a tight smile. It was worlds different than the one he’d seen earlier in the day, when he’d been unable to resist the compliment she so deserved—despite her never seeming interested in talking to him.
He schooled his face as he sat at his desk.
His life wasn’t blown apart yet, so he didn’t need to act like it was.
“Yes, of course.”
Amelia took a deep breath. “Have you checked your Facebook recently?”
His eyes widened, and he pulled out his phone. Daniel only used it to keep up with college friends, but his father was very active on the social media app. His heart raced as he looked at his notifications, but he only saw a friend request from a woman named Mandy Rogers.
“Well, now you have,” Amelia said. “If you have a random request from a woman with the same last name as me, that’s my mother.”
“Your . . . mother?”
“Yes. Listen, there’s no good way to break this, so I’ll just say it.”
Please don’t say your mother knows my dad,he silently begged.
“My mother thinks we’re dating.”
Daniel stared. That was the last thing he expected to hear, but it was far better than what he thought. “She . . . What? How?”
“It’s a whole convoluted thing, but essentially, I was noticing you leaving the office while trying to get my mom not to set me up, and she made some assumptions.”
“So, that’s why she friend requested me? Is that all?”
“No. Unfortunately not. She still thinks we’re dating and wants to invite you on our family trip. And I don’t want to correct her because she insists on trying to set me up, even when I tell her no.”
That was a lot to process. “Okay,” he said slowly.
Amelia’s face was redder than he’d ever seen it. “I know. I’m so sorry. My brain shut off, and I didn’t know what to say.”
“I can understand how that feels.”
She winced, looking down at the hand that was fiddling with her sleeve. “I tried to say it was new and that you wouldn’t be into it. Why would you want to go to a small, secluded beach island with people you barely know? I mean, the condo is already paid for, so it wouldn’t cost you anything—”
A small beach island? Secluded?
“Where is it?”
“We go to Folly Beach every year. It’s a way to unwind. We usually put away our phones to relax and enjoy the scenery. But you don’t know us, and this is a ridiculous thing I’ve brought up, so I understand if you’re totally judging me right now.”
All he could think about was the idea of being on a small island, away from . . . everyone. That would be an excellent way to spend the next week before his father broke the news.
“Daniel?” Amelia asked. “Do I need to leave so you can report me to our boss?”
“No, it’s not that big of a deal.”
She let out a breath of relief. “Thank God.”
“A beach vacation would be nice right now.”
She huffed out a laugh. “Well, according to my mom, you’re invited, but you’d have to date me, so . . .”
“When do you leave?”
She blinked. “W-what?”
“For the trip. When do you leave?”
“Saturday,” she said. “Why do you ask?”
“And it’s for a week?”
“Yes.” She arched a brow. “Why?”
“I mean . . . She’s invited me, and we could pretend to be together.”
“W-what?”
“If you were okay with it, that is.”
She stared at him for a long moment. “The better question is why are you okay with it?”
“Something is going to happen to me in a week. A vacation before this awful thing happens would be nice. And in turn, you would get your family off your back.”
“But you don’t take vacations.”
“Which means I have a lot of PTO saved up. I think I can make it work—if I’m invited, that is.”
“But you’ll be dating me.”
“I think the better term is fake dating.”
“Semantics.” She waved her hand in the air. “The point is—this is wild. For both of us to do.” She hesitated for a moment. “So, you’re really considering doing this?”
“I am. Unless that’s not what you were getting at.”
“Are you kidding?” Amelia leaned forward. “Because I can’t tell. My mom will have the time of her life if I bring my boyfriend with me. Fake boyfriend, I mean. But even fake boyfriends have to do certain things. Like hold hands. Share a bed.”
“Would your parents let us share a bed if we’re not married?”
“Of course, they’re not from the 1960s. They know how couples work.”
Sharing a bed. Sure. He could do that. “Then sharing a bed would be fine.”
“But still.”She waved a hand again.“Even if I can convince my brother to give us the room with the adjoined bathroom, we’d still be with my family.”
“There are bedrooms?”
“We rent a waterfront condo. It’s right on the beach and has plenty of room for us all. We’re not all staying in one room. That would be . . .” She shuddered. “Also, people here might have some questions if you’re leaving the same week I am. And my mom might post on Facebook, which I bet someone will hunt down because they always are gossiping about something.”
As she spoke, Daniel noticed that she never seemed to sit still. Having a conversation felt like he was watching a performance.
“And they’d definitely figure out we were together,” he finished for her.
“Exactly. And that’s why it’s a bad idea, so we can forget about it and pretend this never happened.”
“No, it’s a great idea.”
“Huh?”
“I need people here to think I’ve moved on from my ex-wife.”
“You do? Why?”
“She’s with someone else. Someone . . . well-known.”
Amelia raised her eyebrows, and he expected her to question him. “Is this the news that drops in a week?”
“It is.”
“And you want to look like you’ve moved on.” Her hands moved as if she were drawing a graph. It somehow helped him make sense of this strange situation.
“Exactly.”
“So . . . What, we pretend here too?”
“For a short amount of time. Then we break up.”
“Wow, okay.” She leaned back in her chair. “This is not how I expected this conversation to go.”
“Me either. Is this something that you would be willing to do?”
“I think so, but there’re a lot of logistics we need to work out. Especially since we leave in two days. How about we go to dinner tonight and I can tell you more about it?” she offered.
Their conversations about not work-related things, coupled with their possible fake relationship, had thrown them into new territory. Dinner with her would push them beyond that.
But he couldn’t remember a time when he went out to dinner with a woman who wasn’t Lucinda, and the idea of it, especially since it was Amelia, made his heart skip a beat.
“Sounds good,” Daniel said. “What time do you get off?”
“I try to leave at five.”
He had been staying late, trying not to think about his life, but he could leave at five if he wanted to. “Okay, I can leave then. Any ideas for a restaurant?”
“The Metro Café Diner is close by.”
He had only been there once, and it was back in college. It was a casual breakfast spot, which was more than okay with him. He didn’t think his flustered mind could handle somewhere fancy. Then he would have an even harder time not thinking of this as a date.
“Sure,” he replied. “I’ll see you tonight.”
Amelia nodded at him, giving him a small smile as she stood to leave. And that was when Daniel saw the curve of her hips. He hadn’t looked at a woman since he and Lucinda had dated. But now he was single, and he felt like a kid in high school looking at a girl for the first time.
He only let his eyes linger for a second, and then he tore them away. She walked out of his office soon after.
Daniel’s mind was a jumbled mess, and he did what he usually did when he felt this way. He called his sister.
Terri was older than him, and they had been very close all their lives. She and her wife, Chrissy, had been blissfully living in Nashville for the last five years, and recently, they adopted a little boy named Tommy. However, since their father had been told by God that being gay was a sin, Terri hadn’t talked to him since she came out in high school.
“You will never guess what I am about to do,” Daniel told her.
“Murder our father,” Terri said, her voice level.
“Maybe soon, but I think I’m going to pretend to be a coworker’s boyfriend.”
There was silence on the line and then a laugh. “No way.”
“I’m serious. She asked me to.”
“Why?”
“Something about a lie she told her mom. I’m not too sure of the details, but Dad is going public with Lucinda.”
“Wait, seriously?”
“Yes, and if I can have a pretend girlfriend, it’ll make life so much easier for me at the office.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because it’ll look like I have moved on.”
“Okay . . . I’m kind of following now. So, why tell me this?”
His fingers trailed over his desk nervously. “I think this is the wildest thing I’ve ever done. Are you about to convince me out of it?”
“I mean . . . Honestly, this isn’t any worse than what our father did. What’s this woman’s name?”
“Amelia Rogers.”
“A . . . meeeelia Rog-erssss.”
“Are you looking her up?”
“Of course.” There was a pause. “Oh, hey, she’s really hot.”
“Terri, you’re married.”
“But we can still appreciate other people. It’s like art, and this woman is definitely something. Does she look as good in person as she does in photos?”
“Better,” he said, his voice low. He hadn’t even seen her in any photos, but he simply knew the answer was yes, judging by the way he’d stared at her as she was leaving the office.
“Cute. You’ve even noticed how pretty she is. When would you start this whole charade?”
“Saturday.”
“Wait, why Saturday?”
“Because I would also be going on her family vacation as her fake boyfriend.”
“Am I being pranked right now?” Terri asked. “There is no way you would say yes to something like that.”
“I do need a vacation, Terri.”
“I mean, yes, you do, but seriously? You’re going on vacation with this woman?”
“That was part of the deal,” he explained. “I help her out and she helps me out.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“A week.”
“A week? You couldn’t even spend a week with your wife, much less a stranger.”
“So, I shouldn’t do it, right?”
“I’m not saying that . . .”
“Then, what are you saying?” Frustration seeped into his voice.
“I’m saying that this is so out of character for you. Now, me? Five years ago? Yeah, I would have pulled a stunt like this, but not you.”
“I know this is out of character, but Dad is about to drop a serious bomb on my life. I don’t want pity, Terri.”
“I know you don’t,” she said sympathetically. “And I’m not against the idea, but I also seriously doubt you’re the kind of person who can spend a week with some random woman.”
“I know I’m not, but as far as I know, Amelia is reasonable. We’re going to dinner tonight to talk more details.”
“Okay, that’s a good sign,” she said. “Hopefully, you can learn a little more about her. If you get any . . . Lucinda-type vibes from her, then don’t go.”
“So, you’re saying I should do it?”
“I think you should try it. Maybe doing something out of character is exactly what you need right now.”
“That’s what it feels like.”
“Then take a risk. Be a little more like your older sister.”
“Didn’t you get stuck with a truck driver in Montana?”
“Yes, but I also met Chrissy there.”
Daniel rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help the glimmer of hope that he felt. Maybe this stunt would help him find the happiness and stability that Terri had.
“Okay, then I’ll go to this dinner and see how I feel.”
“Keep me posted about it.”
“Also, don’t tell Mom.”
“I would never. She would kill you. Oh, Tommy, honey, Play-Doh doesn’t go in your—Daniel, I have to go. I’ll talk to you later.”
Daniel laughed and said his goodbyes to his sister. After he got off the phone, he wondered what the dinner would bring. Maybe Amelia would have some sort of red flag he could catch before it all started.
Or maybe she didn’t, and he would get to go on a vacation after all.