Chapter 19 Imagining Almost Real
IMAGINING ALMOST REAL
Simone
“Get it together,” I mumbled at my reflection in the mirror hanging over my closet door. “It’s like you’ve never swiped right before.”
Confusion spun through me as I stared into my closet.
Most of the dates I’d been offered in the last few years had consisted of little more than invitations to Netflix and chill.
Maybe trivia night with a group, or, if the guy was really interested, a movie followed by a slice of pizza.
All events perfectly served by my collection of thrifted garments and loungewear.
I pulled a vintage Laura Ashley dress out of the wardrobe and held it up to my body.
Nope. Too Little House on the Prairie.
A purple corduroy skirt caught my eye.
Nope, too Barney.
What the heck should a girl wear on a mystery date with her billionaire fake fiancé?
“When were you going to tell me?”
I was yanked out of my musing by my sister’s irritated voice. The door slammed shut behind Selena as she and Kylie entered the apartment.
I’d come home from Brendan’s office to a couple of suitcases in the kitchen and a note left on the counter informing me that Selena and Kylie had moved in and also that she had borrowed some of my clothes to look for a job.
It meant that Kylie had spent yet another day at a pay-by-the-day daycare center, but I supposed it was better than watching TV all day long while her mom hotboxed my bathroom.
Kylie was carrying her backpack covered with Taylor Swift’s face, which she abandoned on the floor before racing to me for a big hug. Her residual milk mustache got onto the brown sweater dress I was currently contemplating.
I didn’t mind one bit as I dropped it onto the bed and swept her into my arms. “Hey, kiddo. I see you brought your stuff. Got everything for your stay here?”
“Yep. Mommy says we’re staying for a long time, but you won’t be here with us. Why can’t you be here with us?”
“Well, I have to go do another job for a while, but I’ll still visit as much as I can. Did you bring Unicorn Tim?”
Kylie had an adorable habit of naming all of her stuffed animals with their animal type first, followed by the most average names on the planet. Brown Bear Jeffrey. Bunny Sarah. Unicorn Tim was far and away the favorite.
“Yep. And Owl Ralph too.”
“Awesome.”
“Ky, go watch TV,” Selena said as she kicked off her—well, my shoes by the door. “Your aunt and I need to talk.”
I gave Kylie a kiss on the cheek, then dropped her on the ground so she could scurry onto my bed and catch up with whatever episode of Clifford was currently on PBS.
Selena joined me at my wardrobe. And based on her expression, she’d undoubtedly read the news.
“How was the job hunt?” I asked.
Selena looked down at the plain clothes she’d borrowed and tried to gussy up. My simple white blouse had been tied just above her navel, and the houndstooth blazer was rolled up at the sleeves. She looked like a middle school student trying to cosplay a “businesswoman” for a TikTok dance.
“How do you think?” She removed the jacket and hurled it on the bench atop the pile of clothes I’d already considered and ruled out for the evening.
I picked it up and rehung it. “Um, okay…but I have to ask: why pigtails for a job interview?”
My sister twirled one of her golden braids around her wrist. “Everyone says pigtails get more tips, so I figured insurance salesmen might like them too. Not when the wife works there, though. Why didn’t you tell me?”
I sighed at my closet. “Tell you what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. About the weather. Or maybe about that giant rock on your finger. You’re getting married?” She whipped out her phone. “Look at that.”
Gingerly, I took it. She’d pulled up an article featuring a picture of Brendan’s sudden “proposal” in his office, a photo clearly taken by someone in the office that someone—Ruth, probably—had provided to whatever tabloid the Blacks worked with in lieu of the photo ops that were supposed to happen today.
Honestly, this was probably better than anything I could have pretended. Him on one knee. Me covering my mouth in surprise.
God, he was handsome with that shock of coppery dark hair and dark green eyes. Better than any Disney prince I’d ever seen.
The shock and happiness on my face almost looked real.
Almost Real could be the title of our entire story.
“Oh,” I said lightly. “That.”
“‘Oh, that,’” she mocked in a high falsetto. “You weren’t going to tell me you were dating the richest man on earth?” She lunged for my hand. “Holy shit, the man gave you a boulder. It’s as big as Taylor Swift’s.”
I pulled my hand back. “It’s just a ring.”
“That’s worth the earth.” She pouted. “I didn’t even know you knew this dude. Is this what you meant when you said you had figured things out? Is he your new job?”
“Uh…” I contemplated whether I should tell her the truth or not.
Not. Definitely not.
And not just because the contract prohibited it. As guilty as it made me feel, there was the sad truth that while I didn’t think Selena would Meghan Markle me to the press…I couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t either.
It didn’t matter. I was legally bound to lie anyway. “Kind of, I guess. I just, um, needed to finish negotiating the prenup.”
It was the truth. Sort of.
“You lucky bitch.” Selena was back to scrolling through the article. “How did you even meet this gravy train?”
“Sel.”
“Correction: how did you meet your ‘soul mate’?”
“His dad was a patient of mine at the hospital,” I said, practicing the speech I was going to have to give a thousand times over to Brendan’s friends, coworkers, and family.
Brendan and I had agreed to stick to checkable facts as much as possible.
Maybe love at first sight was a lie, but the rest of the story wasn’t.
If I could convince my twin, maybe this would work.
“I was watching over him when Brendan came to visit. We, um, connected. Quickly.”
At least I didn’t have to lie about that part either.
Especially when I thought about the way Brendan had talked to me in the bar that one night, or when he had kissed me in this very apartment.
The way his palms had molded around my waist, then to my backside while his tongue twisted around mine in a wicked embrace.
Good Lord, the man could kiss. Maybe he had a black heart, but there was a red-hot streak of passion running through him.
Even now, I found myself a bit short of breath.
Selena didn’t notice at all. “I guess that do-gooder crap finally paid off.” She examined another photo. “And he’s hot too? Damn, Simmy, you get all the luck. Money and a bod. He have any brothers?”
He did, but I certainly wasn’t going to mention them. “It’s not like that. I don’t care about his money. He’s a good person.”
Again, not a lie. Not completely. I had made a deal with Brendan for his money, yes, but I hadn’t initially talked to him because of it. Or let him kiss me because of it.
Or kissed him back, now that I was actually admitting things to myself.
He had tasted like strawberries. The sweet, small ones that fruit for a week at the beginning of June.
“Come on. You don’t like the money even a little?”
I ignored the question as I pulled out another dress from the back of my closet.
“Is that Mom’s?”
I turned around, the dress held up to my body. “Oh, um. Yes.”
The royal blue silk floated to my knees and was sprigged with white flowers. Not the fanciest thing in the world, but one of our mother’s favorites.
Selena studied the dress for a moment. “That’s the dress Mom wore on her first date with Daddy.”
“Oh, huh. You’re right, it is.” I did my best to pretend I wasn’t aware of that even though it was why I had tried on literally everything else in this closet until now.
When we were growing up, there had been a Polaroid pinned to our fridge showing our parents on that night.
It was snapped in the back of Dad’s old pickup when he took Mom to a bonfire party on a neighbor’s farm.
The fire had played off her laughing features and cast her caramel-colored hair with gold.
She had looked so beautiful, and both of them had looked incredibly in love and happy.
Something about wearing the dress tonight for a fake date felt very wrong.
And yet, right too.
It was all very confusing.
Selena’s blue eyes met mine, an uncanny mirror full of new awareness. “Wow. You must really be in love with him if you’re going to wear that.”
Something thick was lodged in my throat. But everything—everything—I was trying to do for my family relied on this moment. I didn’t want to lie to my sister, my twin. But I had to in order to save her.
It was that simple.
“Yeah,” I said just as softly. “I am.”
It wasn’t as hard to say out loud as I’d imagined.
In fact, it was downright easy.
Don’t fall in love, Brendan had said.
I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t.
Not that I even knew what that felt like.
But he couldn’t kiss me again the way he’d done twice now. Even if the contract said it was allowed.
“Mom would be so happy for you. You know that, right?”
“Oh.” Another pang of guilt thrummed through my stomach. “Right.”
“And he’s a literal billionaire? Simmy, you’re finally going to get your bakery. Or, you know, hire someone to do it for you. Oh my God, we’ll never have to worry about money again!”
It was disturbing how quickly she went from “you” to “we.” I wasn’t exactly surprised. But it didn’t mean I liked it.
“You know…it’s a family business.” I didn’t want Selena to get any ideas. “Brendan’s not as wealthy as it might seem. It’s his dad who holds the purse strings.”
Maybe that was true. I almost hoped it was.
No such luck.
“You’re wrong about that.” She was already back on her phone. “I mean, yeah, Niall Black is one fat cat, but all his kids are loaded. Looks like your boy has at least five billion of his very own.”
I choked. “Five what?” I turned back to the mirror before Selena could see the nausea sweep across my face.
“Yep, according to Google.” When she caught my eye in the reflection, there were dollar signs blazing in hers. “Whatever you asked for in the prenup wasn’t enough.”
“I told you, it’s not about money.”
It was entirely about money.
It also made sense now why Brendan was so concerned with security. He was the extremely wealthy son of one of the richest men on the planet, an obvious target for all sorts of ne’er-do-wells.
The urge to be alone with my thoughts overwhelmed me. Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to have the space to process, since my sister had wedged herself in front of me, her arms crossed, her feet planted, waiting.
Finally, it dawned on me what she was waiting for.
“Look, Sel, I didn’t ask for a big prenup.”
I wasn’t about to tell my sister just how much money I had negotiated from Brendan. Her face was next to the Urban Dictionary’s entry for “give them an inch, they take a mile.”
But I could relieve her immediate stress. “I did, however, ask for enough to cover your situation with the Huntingtons, remember? And I’m going to cover your rent here until you get back on your feet and pay for school and a nanny for Kylie if you need it.”
Her mouth dropped. “You’ll cover your niece but not your own sister?”
“My niece is not an adult fully capable of getting a job and taking care of herself.”
“But—”
“No,” I cut her off quickly. In the back of my mind, I saw Brendan nodding with approval, almost as if he were sending me advice on how to invoke my own dark persona when the need arose.
“I’m giving you enough to get out of a sticky situation, but you need to figure out your life, and that doesn’t mean by mooching off my fiancé.
Just because I agreed to marry Brendan doesn’t mean he’s giving me a ton of money. ”
“Not yet.”
“Not ever,” I snapped back. “I’m not going to take his money.”
The lies were flowing freely now, the words silkier than the dress I was holding.
“Anyway, you’re going to have my apartment to yourself, remember?” I said. “Stay away from the Huntingtons, try to find a real job, and I’ll figure out some childcare while I’m gone, okay?”
Her jaw worked a moment while she processed. Eventually, though, she landed on her original complaint.
My sister was nothing if not persistent.
“I still can’t believe you didn’t tell me anything at all. It’s like I don’t even know who you are anymore.”
She flounced into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine, but her words echoed as I changed out of my robe and put on my mother’s dress. The truth was, less than a week into this arrangement, and I wasn’t sure I knew who I was becoming either.
Either way, Selena could be as angry as she wanted to be. I didn’t care. The fact that she’d not even said ‘thank you’ after I’d solved her money problems was not lost on me.
I sighed and considered the dismal contents of my closet. I had a dress to wear tonight, but there was still the question of what else was coming with me to Brendan’s apartment.
Maybe a shopping trip was in order after all. And he had given me credit cards to use for it, right?
But first, I had to handle this date.
I turned back to the mirror and really looked at myself in the blue dress. Considering how closely Selena and I resembled our mother, it really did fit me like a glove.
I imagined Brendan’s face when he saw me in it. The glint in his eyes when his big hands might slip around my waist and touch the soft fabric. The rumble in his throat when he told me how beautiful I looked.
It wasn’t real. None of this would ever be real.
But my imagination didn’t care, and apparently, neither did the rest of me. Because as those images floated through my head, a smile spread across my face before I could help it.
Just like in the original photo, there was happiness there in this dress, maybe even with the man who was going to see it.
And I didn’t have the heart to let it go.