Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Elise
L uc entered the shop at his usual time on Tuesday morning. I didn’t actually see him come in because, thank goodness, two people stood in line ahead of him.
I just… knew it was him.
Sure, sure. Not normal to have a radar for a man like him. Too pretty, too appealing, and evidently, too much of a liar.
Because honestly, who told their family they were engaged to someone they’d barely spoken to?
Our conversation last Friday had been the longest interaction we’d ever had several times over, and the second place went to a few days prior when he’d threatened Callum on my behalf. Any other moments between us had been just that—moments built from seconds, not minutes.
Yes, he came into Glazed for donuts and sat for a little while to eat a few times a week. But we didn’t talk. He ordered, usually using my name once and as few other words as possible. If I hadn’t seen him talking and laughing at Craic during happy hour, I would’ve thought he was shy based on how he behaved with me.
I filled a wax-coated paper sack with Dr. Daniels’s order and handed it to her across the counter. “Have a great day, Doctor. Thanks for confirming donuts are not bad for our health.” I winked at her—the joke tired by now, but why stop?
A smile brightened her already lovely face. “Every now and then isn’t a problem. Moderation isn’t just an old wives’ tale.”
“See you next week,” I said, and she laughed.
“I hear you calling me out. That’s just fine, Elise Cordero. I know where you live.”
She waved as she exited and left me with the next customer. I heroically did not look past this person to get a glimpse of Luc.
The desire to do so gripped me, but I avoided it. My next patron ordered, and I happily filled a box with a dozen donuts, then said goodbye, keeping my eyes on him as he left and not the man now standing directly in front of me.
When I couldn’t justify not looking at him any longer, I met his gaze.
“Hello, Luc.”
His lips twitched, which I did not take note of because I was not looking at his lips. Nay, I was hardly seeing their surprisingly soft-looking shape. I wasn’t noticing the way his bottom lip was a bit fuller than his top one, and how his scruff for today seemed a touch longer than usual, highlighting said unignorable lips.
“I apologize for taking a few days. I would’ve called or texted, but I don’t have your number.”
His gorgeous gray-green eyes didn’t stray from mine and therefore, he held me captive. “Okay.”
“Unfortunately, I’d hoped to dissuade my family from visiting so you wouldn’t have to deal with this mess—this lie I’ve told—at all.”
This lie he emphasized as though I might not know what he meant.
Oh, yeah that. I practically forgot about the whole thing.
“But?” I prompted, needing him to get to whatever bad news I could see written on his handsome face.
“They are coming. And I?—”
“Hey, sorry man, can I just grab a quick half dozen?” John Wallace jogged in, apologizing to Luc as he stepped up to the counter.
“What’s the urgency?” I asked, glad to see my old friend, and frankly, a little relieved to interrupt whatever Luc had been about to say. I didn’t know why he made me so jittery and self-aware, but having someone else here gave me a moment to breathe.
“It’s kind of an anniversary for me and Dahlia. I brought her donuts when we were just starting out—when you were just starting out, too, and—well, anyway, it’s a good day to take a little walk down memory lane.” He smiled and gave me his order.
While I slipped the six donuts into a box, warmth suffused me at the memory. “I remember you ordering them. I was still using the old boxes and twine, right?”
It’d been when I was running the shop part-time for special orders only. I’d do ordering ahead and deliver on certain days, working out the proof of concept and building the addiction to the donuts, so by the time I opened, everyone would desperately need them regularly.
Or so I’d hoped.
People like John and Dr. Daniels and so many other locals kept me in business.
Luc wandered to a table, so by the time I finished with John and wished him luck, I’d regained my equilibrium. I grabbed a glazed donut and took a seat across from him, sliding the pillowy sweet delight his way.
“Merci.”
It shouldn’t have charmed me or sent my pulse racing to hear such a basic word in his native tongue, but it did. Call me a simple woman, but hearing this man speak French gave me a weird thrill. It reminded me I didn’t know him—he wasn’t from here. In fact, he had likely lived at least part of his life in Europe. A vastly different experience than mine, and that was before we ever touched his military service or the fact that he seemed to have a sibling and living grandparents.
Cut to a ship where a version of Luc is wearing a billowy pirate’s blouse open at the chest. Maybe he’s got an earring and hair is long, pulled back in a queue because it would definitely be called that and not a braid in this period piece. He’s holding a swooning woman in one arm, her bosom heaving, and he’s whispering French into the curve of her neck, her collar bone, her breast ? —
Nope. No. Vivid and not a terrible casting, but simply not acceptable territory just now.
“You were saying something before John interrupted,” I said, not sure how to clear my mind of the fog foisted upon it by his single utterance of French.
Goodness help me if he were to actually speak it to me for more than a second. I’d probably expire on the spot.
“Yes. So. I have a proposal for you.”
I chuckled, smiling at his joke.
But he wasn’t smiling.
“Oh, not a pun, then?”
One side of his mouth pulled up. “A missed opportunity I hope you’ll forgive me for. But, no.” The intensity of his gaze settled into mine, and he leaned his forearms, beautifully displayed thanks to the rolled cuffs of his blue and gray plaid shirt, against the table. “I would like you to consider being my fiancée for a while. A temporary arrangement.”
I opened my mouth to speak but promptly shut it when it received the we have no idea what to say message from the rest of me.
“It’s unconventional, I know. I wouldn’t want you to feel like you were lying, so my hope is that we would embrace the temporary but real nature of the agreement, without being personally invested or serious.”
“I’m not sure I’m following.” Read: was definitely not following.
He shifted forward in his chair, straightening his already perfect posture like he was preparing for a presentation. “I propose that you become my temporary fiancée. In name, yes, but also with the idea that we behave as an engaged couple—or, while perhaps without the affections of a real relationship, but with the protection, the care, and the fidelity of one. All outward signs of engagement. And yet, of course, it’ll be fake. No real feelings, no actual commitments beyond the parameters of our agreement. Nothing serious.”
His words plunked down against my skull and slowly seeped in like rain on a parched landscape. The initial resistance I felt to being his actual fiancée was already ebbing, a curiosity for what exactly this would look like rapidly taking root. This would be pretend. Not reality. Entirely fake. Make believe, even.
“So you don’t want to kiss me, but you want to beat up my ex-boyfriend?” I asked, wishing he’d state it clearly.
He coughed and cleared his throat. “For the purposes of this discussion, that is an exaggeration, but not inaccurate. My point is, we would be faithful. In appearances, we would be affianced. I have no desire for anything serious in real life, but that wouldn’t matter in this context. And I would”—he cleared his throat again—“forgive me, I would make it worth your while.”
Cue the record scratch and halt all softening to the subject. “How so?”
“We could agree on an amount that seems fair. I’m happy to pay you for your time as we go, or in lump sums at the beginning and end. We can even?—”
“Can I ask you why you’d suggest paying me for something that seems like a favor?” My cheeks flamed, and the pit in my stomach opened wide, wide, wide.
He couldn’t know how I was scraping by right now, could he? I hadn’t complained about my finances with friends or anyone. It was a point of pride, admittedly to a fault, that I didn’t talk about money with people. When you grew up with a woman who jumped from one man to another following the gravy train, you learned what desperation looked like. I wanted nothing to do with it.
The fact that I’d let Callum into anything regarding money, let alone this business, was the last vestige of pain I felt about our relationship. And this… this with Luc just wouldn’t work.
Before he could speak, I stood and thanked God for a customer approaching the door. I practically ran toward the counter as the bell rang, cutting off whatever Luc might’ve said, and my need to halt the shame spiraling through my chest. Shame and an unreasonable amount of anger, though I couldn’t be sure who it was for.