Chapter Eleven The Client Who Ghosted （and the Sisters Who Didn’t）
Linda
LINDA HAD NEVER been inside a restaurant that served bread with a poem.
But there it was: a small card on artisan paper, printed in gold leaf and tucked beside a single, judgmental sourdough roll.
“In this wheat, a whisper / In this crust, our dreams—”
Linda stopped reading. “This bread thinks it's better than me.”
Across the table, Rhys stifled a smile .
“Welcome to Loam. Where everything’s locally sourced, aggressively plated, and approximately 70% emotion.”
Linda arched a brow. “Did your client request this place specifically, or are they also allergic to fun?”
Rhys tugged at his collar. “Funny story.”
He pulled out his phone, waved it vaguely, then scrolled with the desperate energy of a man trying to conjure text receipts from thin air.
“So, uh. Turns out the client canceled. Last minute. Big family emergency. But hey—no worries. We don’t have to stay. Kind of a relief, right?”
Linda blinked. “Wait. We’re already here.” She paused. Stared. “You wore a tie.”
Rhys glanced down. “It’s technically an expensive shoelace. But thank you.”
She ignored that. “I’ve always wanted to eat here. Just once. It feels like the kind of place that changes your tax bracket just by walking through the door.”
Rhys hesitated. “You sure? I mean, it’s—”
“Yes. I want the bread that thinks it’s better than me. I want the mushroom foam. I want to feel judged by a carrot that was massaged by monks. And if this is on the company’s dime...”
Rhys nodded. “Absolutely. Company’s dime. ”
Spoiler: it was not. Also, spoiler: he was absolutely going to lie to his bank account later and pretend it was self-care.
They ordered. Linda tried not to moan over the starter that had six ingredients but tasted like a forest had flirted with her tastebuds. Rhys looked entirely too smug about his tiny smoked scallop tower.
And just as Linda relaxed—
“Well, well, well.” An unfamiliar voice purred behind her.
Rhys flinched like he’d been hit with emotional shrapnel. “No.”
“Isn’t this cozy,” said Liv, appearing from thin air in a statement coat and chaotic neutrality. “Darcy, look! It’s Rhys and his brunch mate.”
“Girlfriend.” Linda blurted automatically. She knew how beards worked, after all. Unless he told her that they knew he was gay, she was officially in fake-girlfriend mode.
Darcy, trailing behind her in heeled boots and menace, grinned. “Oh good. We can finally meet the girl he’s dating.”
Linda blinked. “I—what.”
“These are my sisters,” he muttered. “They’re twins. In theory. But in practice they’re... this.”
Darcy leaned over the table, her smile weaponized. “We were just passing by, obviously. Totally coincidental. ”
Liv slid into the empty chair beside Rhys without asking. “Don’t mind us. We’ll just order drinks and make everything weird for ten minutes.” She watched Rhys silently beg his sisters to disappear with his eyes alone.
Linda’s brain was doing gymnastics.
Because they thought he was straight. And she was his real girlfriend.
Which meant she had to sell it.
She adjusted her posture, subtly leaned in, and gently touched Rhys’s arm in a way she hoped said “we kiss sometimes” and not “please pretend we’re in love before this implodes.”
Rhys startled like she’d just proposed on live television.
Darcy, sipping her wine with the serenity of someone who delighted in chaos, narrowed her eyes at the arm touch.
“How long have you two been together?”
Linda opened her mouth. Rhys opened his.
Two different numbers came out.
“Three months.” / “Five weeks.”
Silence.
Linda nearly choked on her water. “Three months since we decided we were brunch soulmates, five weeks since we started dating. Uh. You know. Exclusively?” She tried to fix it .
Rhys made a noise that might have been his soul trying to escape through his nose.
Darcy arched a brow. “Brunch soulmate?”
Rhys’s voice cracked. “It’s a, uh, joke. Office thing.”
Linda nodded vigorously. “Yes. Very inside. Very HR-compliant.”
Liv turned to Linda with a look that could skin a man emotionally. “So… have you met Mom yet?”
Rhys looked like he might spontaneously combust.
Linda, determined not to let his "client dinner" unravel into a coming-out-while-fake-dating moment, smiled sweetly and lied like a woman possessed.
“Not yet! But I’ve heard so much about her. From Rhys. All the time,” she added, with the panic of someone who had no idea what his mom’s name was and had committed to the bit anyway.
Darcy blinked. “That’s weird. He never talks about her with his girlfriends. Must mean he’s seriously into you.”
Rhys coughed.
Liv wasn’t done. “Do you love him?”
Linda blinked. “What?”
“Do. You. Love. Him.” Liv said it with the kind of casual menace usually reserved for mob bosses and HR complaints.
Linda’s heart did a weird, traitorous flop .
Rhys, wide-eyed, looked like he was trying to will himself into invisibility.
Linda forced a laugh. “It’s early days yet. But, I really like him. I hope we can see where this leads.”
She was trying to protect him.
He was gay. (Right?)
This was a kindness.
It wasn’t real.
Except Rhys had just looked at her like she’d hung the stars.
Liv leaned across the table. “You know what’s wild? You’re the first one he’s introduced to us.”
Linda froze.
Rhys froze.
Rhys cleared his throat. “Well. First off—I didn’t introduce you by choice. You crashed my date.” Then with a quick aside at Linda, “Which was supposed to be a client dinner. You could have gotten me fired. Second off—Linda’s…” He hesitated. Then looked at her like she was the only real thing in the room. “Special.”
Linda short-circuited.
Rhys’s voice had gone all soft and low and sincere and it was not fair .
Nobody should be able to fake-say ‘special’ and mean it like that. He looked like he wanted to say more. Like something was pressing against the inside of his teeth, waiting to be let out.
Liv grinned. “Oh my god. You’re actually in love.”
Darcy looked from one to the other. “Oh yeah. He’s so gone.”
Linda laughed nervously. “I think we’re skipping steps here. It’s still very new.”
Rhys stared at his napkin like it had personally betrayed him.
Was she pretending well enough to protect him?
Rhys hadn’t stopped looking at her, kept touching the edge of the table, inching his hand closer to hers and then pulling it back, like he didn’t trust himself to reach for it.
Rhys looked at her then, really looked, like he was memorizing the shape of her smile for later. “I don’t want this to end badly,” he said, low. “I just… want it to go somewhere good.”
Linda’s brain went Fake boyfriend. FAKE. BOYFRIEND.
Her heart argued back— but don’t you wish? She smiled, but her pulse betrayed her—fast, chaotic, not fake at all.
Darcy raised her glass. “To the happy couple. I hope you’ll join us for famiHis parents, from what she'd overheard on the phone, practically dripped unconditional love.ly dinner soon.”
Linda clinked it with hers. Smiled like she meant it .
And tried not to wonder what the hell was happening.