Chapter Five Lily
CHAPTER FIVE
Lily
B efore I reach out to Lorenzo’s team to schedule a meeting to discuss the city council’s buyout plan and ask for help, I want to consider all my other options.
After thirty minutes, I narrow my ideas down to two: my original one of meeting with Lorenzo, or starting a petition to abolish the amendment, which gives the mayor permission to buy up properties.
The Ludlows want discretion, so it makes sense to do the opposite, but what if it affects those who might have already signed the NDA? Would there be legal or financial consequences for them? Just thinking about the loopholes makes my head hurt, so I ditch that idea and go with my first one.
Maybe Lorenzo’s campaign manager, Willow, can help come up with a better solution to my problem. She’s Ellie’s best friend, and I was in the same running club as her before I graciously bowed out after a disastrous 5K, so I feel comfortable enough to talk to her about the issue.
My worries lessen when Willow answers me back and invites me over to her house for a wine night, only for them to reappear thirty minutes later when I’m dropped off by my mom at her front door.
What if she can’t help me?
What if Lorenzo agrees with the Ludlow family because my part of the Historic District is run-down?
What if—
“Oh, it’s you! Thank God.” Willow opens the door and yanks me inside before closing it.
“Were you expecting someone else?”
“Hopefully not,” she replies before shutting all the blinds and curtains in her living room.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yes!” She turns with a huff. “We might have to swap the wine for something a bit stronger though.”
“What happened?”
“I’m having a bit of a campaign emergency.”
“Who knew a small-town mayoral election could have such issues.”
“You’re telling me.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Sure, but first let me give you a quick tour.” She shows me around her two-bedroom bungalow, which is nestled in front of Lake Wisteria.
I love everything about the quaint space, but I’m pretty sure my sister would have a meltdown at the clashing fabrics, bold paint colors, and interesting choice of green carpet in the sunken living room area.
Design choices aside, I’m surprised Willow hasn’t sold the place because I’m sure her lakefront property is worth a million or two for the land itself.
Her phone rings in the distance.
“Do you want to answer?” I ask.
“Nope.”
I follow her into the small kitchen, where her laptop was left open beside a half-empty bottle of wine.
“Got started without me?” I joke.
She laughs while pouring me a glass. “I only needed a minute to recover from the new poll numbers I got.”
“Not what you wanted to see?”
“Nope.” She tops off her glass and uncorks a new bottle. “Just in case,” she says when I look at my full glass.
“I’m sorry about the polls.”
She shuts her eyes. “Me too. Ten points… Ugh. Lorenzo’s going to be so pissed.”
“Ten points? That doesn’t seem too bad, right?”
“It might not sound like a lot, but it might as well be thirty when we have less than five months left until election day.”
I wince. “Oh. In that case…” I hold my glass up, and she clinks hers against mine.
“I’ve been trying to help us get ahead. With single-issue voters, Lorenzo’s gained good ground, but now he’s fallen behind with more complicated swing voters.” Her computer makes a noise, and she quickly becomes distracted with something on the screen.
“Shit,” she mutters under her breath, completely forgetting about me altogether as she scrolls through some PDF with charts and graphs. “He’s going to go ballistic when he sees this.”
I’m about to say something when her phone starts ringing.
“Called it.” She grimaces. “Do you mind if I take this?”
“No. Not at all.”
She leaves the kitchen, but her house is less than a thousand square feet, so despite her disappearing into one of the rooms, I can still hear her side of the conversation.
“You saw for yourself how people want someone with connections to the town, and your charity events aren’t enough.”
Safe to assume she’s speaking to Lorenzo, then. I sip my wine and try not to eavesdrop, but that becomes impossible when I hear her say, “You’re the one who refuses to find yourself a wife.”
I choke on my wine.
A wife?!
Willow groans. “Fine. I meant a fiancée . Are you happy now?” There is a pause before she says, “I can only do so much. A ten-point lead is going to be difficult to overcome.”
Silence follows, although my rising heart rate fills the quiet while I wait for whatever Willow says next.
“I didn’t say impossible, just difficult. Whether we agree with them or not, people associate stability and values with family, so either you pick one of the women I vetted for the job or you can say goodbye to ever winning this election.”
I stare at a wall and process what I overheard. I’m so stuck in my own head, I don’t notice Willow walking back into the kitchen until she speaks.
“How much did you hear?”
I flinch.
“Shit. Can we…pretend you don’t know anything?”
“Um…” I’m so stunned by the entire conversation that I can’t even begin to formulate a response, and thankfully her phone vibrating saves me from doing so.
“Dammit,” she says when she checks to see who’s calling. “It’s him again.”
“Maybe you should let it go to voicemail?”
“Yes! Love that.” She takes a few gulps of her wine.
I take another small sip before saying, “So…fake fiancée?”
She squeezes the bridge of her freckled nose. “I had hoped you didn’t hear that part.”
“I assumed as much, but your walls are kind of thin.”
She rubs her forehead. “He’s going to kill me.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I know, but…” She takes a deep breath. “Since you already overheard the conversation, will you let me vent for two minutes? I swear to shut up afterward so we can focus on whatever it is you came here to talk about, but I need to speak with someone. Ellie’s out of town, and I don’t want to burden her—”
I stop her from worrying any further. “Sure. What’s up?” I play it cool in front of her, but I’m spiraling on the inside because what the hell does she mean by fake fiancée ? Is that something people do in real life?
She takes another sip of her wine before beginning. “You’d be shocked to know how difficult it is to set two people up.”
“Coming from someone who has spent years of her life navigating different dating apps, I believe you.”
“At least you want a relationship. Lorenzo is the complete opposite, even if it’s all fake.”
“Hm.” I can’t say much more with the way my throat tightens.
“I’ve vetted a ton of options and interviewed a few candidates who I thought were real contenders, yet Lorenzo rejected them all.”
“How long has he been looking?”
“It’s been a more recent thing,” she answers vaguely. “Although about a year back, he used a dating app to try to find a fake fiancée on his own—”
No . I don’t realize I said the word aloud until Willow looks at me for clarification.
“He used an app?” The question comes out as a half squeak, half wheeze.
She nods.
Hell no , I say stronger this time, but the sharp pain lacing through my chest doesn’t pay it any attention.
There is absolutely no way…
“What was it called?” Do I sound anxious? I can’t tell with the way blood is pounding through my ears.
“Eris?” She taps her chin. “No. Wait. Eros . Like the Greek god of something.”
“Love,” I say. “He was the Greek god of love.” My voice sounds so small.
“Yes! You’re right.” She is completely unaware of the damage she’s inflicting as she carries on. “I never heard of the Eros app before, but based on how much Lorenzo hated it, I assume it sucked.”
“He said that?” My heart feels like it was punctured with a thousand thorns.
“Yes.” She nods with pinched brows, only for them to dart up toward her hairline. “Wait. You just said you used dating apps too, right?”
“Yeah.” The word slides against my tongue painfully.
“Did you try Eros?”
“Briefly.”
“What did you think?” she asks.
“Wouldn’t recommend it.”
“He said as much too.” She laughs while I wish for a hole to open up underneath me.
“So he wasn’t looking for a real relationship?” All that time I spent talking to him, imagining a future together…
God. You’re so stupid.
“No, and the experience made him shy away from the idea until a month ago.”
“Why?” I rasp.
“A focus group pointed out how he lacked any deep connections to the town, and someone said maybe if he had a family, they’d be more likely to take him seriously…”
I’m no longer paying attention. Willow continues talking, but I’m too lost in my own thoughts to reply.
He realized finding someone on an app was a bad idea.
Someone or me ?
The pang in my chest becomes unbearable, the throb impossible to ignore.
After spending all this time wondering why I wasn’t good enough to make him stay, I feel devastated. Deceived. And most of all rejected twice over, because for some reason, I wasn’t an ideal choice for his plan.
My heart feels like it’s being torn apart once more, and the dull throb in my chest whenever I think of Lorenzo transforms into a full-blown ache that can’t be ignored.
“Lily?” Willow asks, yanking me out of my spiral.
“Yeah?” I ask, shaking my head to clear it.
“Do you want to take a seat? You look a little pale.”
I take her up on the idea and have a seat on one of the counter stools beside her.
She shoots me a grimace. “I’m sorry for freaking you out. I didn’t mean to throw all that at you.”
I reach for my wine and take a long sip. “No worries.”
“Speaking of worries, could we please keep the whole fake-fiancée scandal between us?” She picks at a random cuticle. “I don’t want to get into any trouble, and if Lorenzo found out I told you…”
He’d what? Get mad at her? Try to silence me with a bribe or an NDA? I wouldn’t put it past him to fire Willow either, and I like her too much to let that happen.
“Of course,” I reassure her. “I have no interest in making your job any harder.”
The stiffness in her spine lessens a bit. “Thank you.”
I bump her shoulder with mine. “No worries. Your secret is safe with me.”
“Okay, enough about me. Tell me what’s up with you.”
I open my mouth to share my concerns about Rose & Thorn’s future, but then I slam it shut. After tonight’s revelation, I’d rather stick to easy topics because my heart can’t take any more.
It’s easier to pretend the shop I love—the shop I’ve poured years of my life and personal savings into—isn’t about to be torn down and rebuilt into some luxury commercial building.
Just like it’s easier to pretend Lorenzo didn’t spend two months talking to me solely because he was looking for a fake fiancée.
It’s not the right choice, but I want to continue pretending for a little while longer. Tomorrow I plan on talking to Willow about the shop, but tonight…
I’m choosing to forget.
I do my best to ignore all thoughts about Lorenzo, the dating app, and my daunting future. It takes a few glasses of wine, but now that I’ve got a good buzz going, I’m no longer worried about anything but what song Willow wants to play next.
Or I wasn’t until someone knocks on Willow’s front door.
“Who’s that?” I ask, my brows rising at the sound of the heavy pounding.
She gets up from the couch and checks the peephole. “Shit!”
“What?” I ask.
“It’s Lorenzo,” she whisper-shouts.
I walk up to her side. “Tell him to go away.”
“My car is parked outside, so he knows I’m here.”
My sluggish brain forgot about that. “So? Establish some boundaries!”
“I know you’re in there, Lily, and yes, I can hear you,” Lorenzo says on the other side of the door.
“He’s so annoying,” I say.
“I heard that too.” His voice is muffled by the door between us.
I roll my eyes.
Willow snorts.
“Open up,” he commands.
“Say he needs to come back tomorrow,” I push. “We’re having a girls’ night.”
“And I’m having an emergency,” he replies.
Willow grimaces at me while she slides the dead bolt. “Sorry.”
“Is it too late to sneak out the back?” I ask before she turns the knob.
“With the amount of wine you drank, I’d feel responsible to stop you.” Willow opens the door with a laugh. “Lorenzo! Fancy seeing you here.”
“Lily,” he says, his gaze instantly connecting with mine like we’re the only two people in the room.
It does something funny to my stomach, and I welcome the warmth that comes with his attention, right until it turns to a boil when I remember I’m supposed to hate him right now.
My common sense must have disappeared along with my inhibitions because I stupidly ask, “Are we back to pretending we know each other tonight?”
Willow stares at me with wide eyes. “What?”
“You’re drunk,” Lorenzo replies.
“Not nearly enough to deal with you at this hour.” I hold my glass up higher.
The wine sloshes around, sending a few droplets down the side of the glass.
I’m quick to lick them up, all while locking eyes with Lorenzo.
He holds my stare for a second before his hot gaze drops to my mouth, and I soak up his desire with a smirk.
Who knew a thirty-dollar cabernet turned me into such a seductress?
“I’m taking you home.” Lorenzo reaches for the glass, but I pull back.
“No. I’m not ready to go yet, but when I am—which I’m not—I’ll request a rideshare.” That sounded much clearer in my head than out loud.
His laugh has an edge to it. “That could take at least an hour.”
“Better than suffering through ten minutes in your company.”
“Um…” Willow’s gaze flickers between us. “I take it you two don’t get along?”
I turn to Willow and smile through the pain. “Remember that fake fiancée Lorenzo was looking for on the Eros app? You’re looking at her.”
Willow’s eyes go wide with shock.
Shit. Did I say that?
One glance at Willow has me thinking, Oh God, you totally did.
Lorenzo’s cold stare makes me shiver.
Willow crumbles from the pressure and throws her arms up. “It was an accident! I swear!”
He squeezes his eyes shut and mutters “Cazzo” I under his breath. The Italian curse word sounds undeniably sexy coming from him, and my stomach flutters.
Must be the alcohol.
“How do you accidentally admit something like that?” he asks.
Willow looks over at me with panicked eyes.
“I’ll fix this,” I whisper to her, but I’m not sure she believes me—or, more so, believes it’s possible to rein in Lorenzo’s anger.
“You know what? I think Lorenzo’s right.” She turns to him. “You should take Lily home because she’s clearly had way too much to drink.”
With a half smile, half flinch, she snatches the wineglass from my hand, hands me my purse, and pushes me outside before shutting the door behind me.
Damn.
The last person I want to drive me home is Lorenzo, but if it means fixing my slipup and saving Willow’s job, I’ll do it.
Here’s to hoping I don’t break down crying in the process.