Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Audra
I’m reviewing seating charts for our fake wedding when the call comes in.
“Audra Gabriel?” The voice is unfamiliar, professional.
“Yes?”
“This is Fletcher Hartley. I’m a... business associate of Reese Ashton’s. I understand congratulations are in order?”
Something in his tone makes my skin prickle. “Thank you. How can I help you?”
“Actually, I was hoping to help you. I’m in the area and thought perhaps we could meet for coffee? I have some information about the Ashton estate you might find... illuminating.”
Every instinct screams danger, but I hear myself saying, “Where and when?”
An hour later, I’m sitting across from a man who looks like he stepped out of a hedge fund catalog—expensive suit, calculating eyes, smile that doesn’t reach them.
“You’re not what I expected,” he says, stirring his coffee.
“What did you expect?”
“Someone more... naive. Less accomplished. Reese usually goes for the sweet, uncomplicated type.”
“You know Reese well?”
“We were at Cornell together. Business school. I was quite surprised when I heard about the engagement. Especially given the timing.”
My coffee tastes like ash. “The timing?”
He pulls out his phone, shows me what looks like an email thread.
“Six weeks ago, when Reese told me about the will situation, I offered to help. Found him a discrete service that provides... temporary relationships. Professional actresses who do this sort of thing.” He scrolls through the screen too quickly for me to read properly.
“He seemed very interested. Was going to set something up, and then suddenly—you appear. Quite the coincidence.”
The blood drains from my face. “You’re lying.”
“Am I? Ask him about the actress option. See if he denies it.” His smile is cold. “I’m just saying, when a man is desperate enough to consider hiring a stranger to play his fiancée, how can you trust that his feelings for you are genuine? Maybe you’re just the cheaper option.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I think you deserve to know what you’ve gotten yourself into. Reese’s a good guy, but he’s also practical. This lodge is his entire life. He’d do anything to save it.” He pauses. “Including romancing his college friend who clearly never got over him.”
“That’s not—”
“Isn’t it? You arrive burned out and vulnerable. He needs a fiancée. Suddenly you’re planning a wedding and playing house.” He leans forward. “I’m not saying his feelings aren’t real. I’m just saying they’re... convenient.”
I stand on shaking legs. “I have to go.”
“Miss Gabriel.” His voice stops me. “I tried to buy the lodge from him. Offered twice what it’s worth.
He turned me down flat. Said it had to stay in the family.
A man who’s that determined... well, just be careful how much of yourself you give.
And maybe ask yourself—would he want you if he didn’t need you? ”
I drive back to the lodge on autopilot, Fletcher’s words echoing in my head. Would he want you if he didn’t need you?
The worst part is, I don’t know.
Everything between us has been tangled up with this arrangement from the start. Every sweet moment, every touch, every almost-declaration—all of it under the shadow of what he needs me to be.
I find Reese in his office, surrounded by paperwork. He looks up when I enter, face brightening in that way that usually makes my heart race. Now it just makes me ache.
“Hey, you okay? You look—”
“I met Fletcher Hartley today.”
He goes very still. “Fletcher called you?”
“He told me about the email. About you looking for an actress. Before I arrived.”
“Audra, that’s not—”
“Is it true?”
He runs a hand through his hair. “Fletcher suggested it. He sent me information about some service, but Audra, I never—”
“So he offered to help you hire someone.”
“He offered. I didn’t ask. I never contacted them. I couldn’t—the idea of faking something that important made me sick.”
“But you did fake it. With me.”
“No.” He’s standing now, moving toward me. “Nothing with you has been fake. The arrangement, yes. The feelings? Never.”
“Easy to say now.”
“Audra—”
“I need some air.”
I’m out the door before he can stop me, walking blindly toward the lake. The sun is setting, painting everything gold, and it’s so beautiful it makes me want to scream. This whole place is beautiful. This whole situation is beautiful. And none of it is mine to keep.
My phone rings. Emily.
“Hey,” I answer, trying to sound normal.
“Don’t you ‘hey’ me. I’ve been stalking your fiancé’s Instagram and I have concerns.”
“What kind of concerns?”
“The kind where you’ve been engaged for three weeks and you sound miserable. What happened?”
The tears come then, sudden and unstoppable.
“Oh honey. Talk to me.”
“There’s this man, Fletcher Hartley. He knows Reese from college. He... he suggested that Reese’s only with me because he needs someone. That I’m just convenient.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Is it? We got engaged after two weeks, Em. Right when he needed—” I stop myself before mentioning the will. “Right when he was going through some family stuff with the lodge.”
“Okay, let me ask you something. Do you think Reese is a good actor?”
“What?”
“Like, could he convincingly fake being in love with you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
“Audra, the man posted a photo of you reading yesterday with the caption ‘Morning light.’ Just that. ‘Morning light.’ I saw it because Cosmo sent it to me with about fifteen heart emojis. That’s not convenient relationship behavior. That’s besotted behavior.”
“Or it’s—”
“What? Performance? For who? The trees?” Emily sighs. “Look, I can’t tell you what to do. But I can tell you that running because some jealous asshole made you doubt yourself is exactly what he wants.”
“What if he’s right though? What if Reese only proposed because—”
“Because what? Because he desperately wanted you to stay? Because seeing you again made him realize what he lost? Audra, those are reasons TO believe it’s real, not reasons to doubt it.”
After we hang up, I sit by the lake for a long time, watching the stars come out. Everything feels precarious, balanced on a knife’s edge between real and performance.
When I finally return to the lodge, I find Reese on my suite’s porch, clearly waiting.
“Fletcher was trying to buy the lodge,” he says without preamble. “He’s been pressuring me for months. When I turned him down repeatedly, he started getting creative.”
“Creative?”
“He’s the one who suggested the actress thing.
Sent me links to some ‘discrete service,’ said it would solve all my problems. When I ignored that, he tried to convince me to sell again, said the will was unenforceable.
” He runs a hand through his hair. “And when you showed up and we got engaged, he must have decided to try another angle—you.”
“It doesn’t matter why he—”
“It does. Because he twisted everything to make you doubt us. He knew exactly what to say, what half-truths to tell.” He steps closer, and I can see the desperation in his eyes.
“Audra, yes, he offered to help me find someone to fake an engagement. Yes, that was before you arrived. But I never contacted them. I never wanted that.”
“How do I know that’s true?”
“Because the day you drove up, before I knew you’d help me, before I knew about any of this, my first thought wasn’t ‘there’s my solution.’ It was ‘she’s here. She’s actually here.’ Like something I didn’t even know I was waiting for finally happened.”
“Reese—”
“I can’t prove that my feelings aren’t influenced by the situation. But neither can you. We’re both here, both caught up in this, both feeling things we can’t fully separate from the circumstances.”
“That’s exactly the problem.”
“No, that’s life. Messy and complicated and uncertain.” He takes my hands, and I let him, too tired to pull away. “But what I feel when I look at you, when I touch you—that’s not about the lodge. That’s not about the will. It’s about the way you make everything better just by being there.”
I want to believe him. God, I want to believe him so badly it hurts.
“Fletcher made it sound like you were eager to hire someone. Like you’d already decided.”
“Fletcher says a lot of things. Most of them designed to get what he wants.” His thumbs stroke over my knuckles. “What I wanted was more time. What I got was you. And Audra, fake engagement aside, these last few weeks have been the happiest I’ve been in years.”
“Because you’re saving the lodge?”
“Because you’re here. Because I get to wake up knowing you’re nearby. Because every meal, every conversation, every moment feels like something I’ve been missing without knowing it.”
The sincerity in his voice almost breaks me. But Fletcher’s words still echo in my head.
“I need time,” I whisper. “To think. To figure out what’s real.”
“Okay.” He squeezes my hands gently, then lets go. “Whatever you need.”
After he leaves, I go inside to find my suitcase. I don’t make the decision consciously. But suddenly I’m packing, throwing clothes in without folding, grabbing toiletries from the bathroom.
My hands are shaking, my vision blurred with tears I won’t let fall.
I write a note—cowardly, but I can’t face him:
Reese, I need space to figure out what’s real and what’s just us getting caught up in this elaborate game. The lawyer has enough proof now. You’ll be fine. Tell everyone I had a work emergency. I’m sorry. -S
I leave the grandmother’s ring on top of the note.
It’s after midnight when I slip out. The lodge is quiet, peaceful, everyone asleep. I load my car in the dark, trying not to think about how this place has become home in just a few weeks.
As I drive away, I catch a glimpse of Reese’s window in my rearview mirror. The light is still on. He’s probably reading, or working, or maybe just lying awake thinking about us like I’ve been doing.
Would he want you if he didn’t need you?
Fletcher’s question follows me down the dark mountain road, past the town limits, onto the highway heading south.
The terrible truth is, I’ll never know. We’re too tangled up in the circumstances, too deep in this performance that became real—or was it real that became performance?
Better to leave now, while I can still pretend I have some control.
Better to wonder what if than to know for certain it was never really mine.