Chapter 2 #2
She looks at me for a long time. “I need to think about it.”
Not a yes.
But not a no, either.
Mom doesn’t technically require attendance at Sunday dinner.
She just asks, very pleasantly, every single week, with the tone of voice that makes saying no feel physically dangerous.
Mason is already on the lanai when we arrive.
He’s leaning against the railing with a drink in his hand, talking to Dane, but his eyes cut to us the second we come through the gate. He was at the gala last night: it was his hotel, his event, his staff who watched the whole situation unfold in real time. Of course he’s here.
He looks at Emilia first. Then at me.
Then he takes a slow sip of his drink and turns back to Dane without saying a word.
Noted.
Mom appears from the kitchen like she’s been expecting this moment since my birth.
She kisses my cheek, then turns to Emilia. “It’s so good to have you here properly,” she says.
There’s warmth in her voice. Real warmth.
Emilia smiles back. For a second she looks genuinely caught off guard.
I understand the feeling.
Dinner is, to put it generously, controlled chaos.
Dane waits until the appetizers are cleared before he looks at me across the table. “Walk me through the donor call.”
“That’s technically a private business conversation.”
“You used a rumor to stabilize foundation funding without a board meeting.”
“I let an existing rumor remain uncorrected during a donor call. Slightly different.”
Leah covers a laugh with her water glass.
Sienna is watching Emilia with the expression she gets when she’s already three steps ahead of whatever conversation is happening. Emilia is looking down at the table.
Mason is watching me.
Not aggressively. Not obviously. Just steadily, from the far end of the table, with the patience of a man who’s already decided he’ll get his answer eventually.
“The funding gap closes this quarter?” Dane asks.
“If the current trajectory holds.”
“And Hart?” His eyes shift to Emilia. “You’re aligned on this?”
Emilia looks up. Her voice is even. “I haven’t agreed to anything yet.”
“She’s reviewing the terms,” I say.
“What terms?” Lucas asks. “You make it sound like a contract.”
“If I do it, it’ll be a contract,” Emilia says. “Rules. Timeline. Clear exit.”
“Rules?” Isla repeats, delighted. “You’d put rules on a fake engagement?”
“If there’s a fake engagement,” Emilia says, “there are rules.”
Isla turns to Lucas. “I love her.”
“Isla…” Emilia starts.
“No, I do.” Isla leans forward on her elbows. “Genuinely. You’ve been managing this family’s most catastrophic member for three years and you’ve never once lost it publicly. That’s either love or a personality disorder.”
“Or both,” Lucas offers.
Mom sets down her wineglass. The table quiets. “The program matters,” she says simply. “Whatever it takes.”
Dane nods once. Lucas steals more bread. Leah shifts on her cushion and reaches for Emilia’s water glass by accident, then laughs and hands it back.
Noah still hasn’t spoken.
I notice him watching Emilia say something quiet to Leah. I notice him watching me watch her.
Then he picks up his fork and says, without inflection: “You argue like people who are already sleeping together.”
Total silence.
Emilia’s expression doesn’t move. A compliment, honestly.
Mine does something I’d rather not examine right now.
“Insightful,” I say. “Thank you, Noah.”
“Just an observation.”
Lucas loses it entirely.
The family clears out slowly, the way they always do after dinner at Diamond Head: in pieces, over an hour, with about six goodbye conversations per person.
Emilia is helping Mom carry glasses inside when Mason steps out to the lanai.
I hear him coming. Heavy footsteps. Deliberate pace. The energy of a man who’s been waiting all night to have a conversation with me.
He stops beside me and looks out at the ocean.
Doesn’t say anything for a moment.
That’s worse than if he’d spoken immediately.
“So,” Mason says finally.
“So.”
“You want to tell me what this actually is?”
I keep my eyes on the water. “You heard what was said.”
“I heard what was said.” He turns slightly. “Now I want to hear you say it.”
Mason Hart has been my closest friend for eleven years. I’ve watched him build a hotel empire from one property in Maui. I’ve seen him negotiate with people twice his age without blinking. I know exactly what his voice sounds like when he’s deciding whether to trust someone.
It sounds like this.
“It’s temporary,” I say. “For sixty days. The foundation funding stabilizes, the launch goes through, and we end it clean.”
“Clean.” He repeats the word like he’s testing its weight. “You’re talking about my sister.”
“I understand who I’m talking about.”
“Do you?” He’s not raising his voice. “Because from where I’m standing, you’ve got Emilia walking into a Hale family dinner to sell a fake engagement, and you’re calling that clean.”
“She agreed to consider it.”
“She’s been running your foundation for three years, and she takes that program seriously enough to consider anything that protects it.” He pauses. “That’s not the same as it being a good idea.”
I don’t have a clean answer for that, so I don’t try to give him one.
“Jake.” Mason exhales. “You’re my guy. You know that.”
“I do.”
“Which is exactly why I’m standing out here instead of ending this conversation inside.” He turns back to the water. “Emilia doesn’t do things halfway. You know that, too.”
I do know that. Damn it. That’s the part I’m not thinking about too carefully.
“Sixty days,” I say again. “With rules and a clear timeline. I’m not going to let it become something it isn’t.”
Mason is quiet for a long moment.
“Make sure you know the difference,” he says finally.
I wasn’t expecting that.
He claps me once on the shoulder, brief and firm, and heads back inside before I can respond.
I stand there for a minute listening to the ocean.
Then the door opens again.
Emilia steps out and stops a few feet away. She looks out at the water. “Your mother’s trying not to make it obvious that she’s excited about this,” she says.
“She’s never tried to be obvious in her life. She just is.”
Emilia’s quiet for a moment. “Sixty days,” she says.
I turn slightly.
“We need rules,” she continues. “A list. Nothing physical. Nothing that makes Hale Futures look like a personal project instead of a foundation initiative.”
“Agreed.”
“And when the launch is done, we’ll issue a mutual statement. No narrative that makes one of us look like the other’s PR strategy.”
“Also agreed.”
She finally looks at me. The lanai light is low and she still has that expression on her face, the one I can’t entirely read, the one that’s been showing up more often lately.
“I need you to understand something,” she says. “I’m doing this for the foundation. For the families the program serves.”
“I understand.”
“Not for you.”
“I’m aware of that, too.”
She holds eye contact for another second. Then she nods once, sharp and decisive, and turns toward the house.
I watch her go.
Then I say, quietly enough that it could get lost in the wind: “Emilia.”
She pauses.
“Thank you.”
She doesn’t answer.
But she doesn’t walk away immediately, either.
I turn back to the ocean while the door opens behind me. Sixty days with Emilia Hart is either going to fix everything…
Or ruin it entirely.
Sixty days. What the hell was I thinking?
I’m genuinely not sure what I’m hoping for.