Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
RENLEY
The scones have been secured. I had to drive thirty minutes out of the way to get them, but that’s fine.
The house has been scrubbed from top to bottom.
All of Aunt Kitty’s hobby horse obstacles have been removed from the front yard, and I made sure to mow and edge the grass, giving the house an almost brand-new look, especially since I refreshed the mulch in the front planters.
Aunt Kitty has spent a great deal of time creating a tea buffet—as she calls it—so that he has a variety of flavors to choose from. And to my horror, she added a basket full of Cadbury chocolate.
Listen, you can’t win them all. She put away the hobby horse stuff; that’s all I could ask for at this point.
Satisfied with how the house looks, I head across the street to my friend Tilly’s house. I texted her last night asking her if I could use some of her linens and finer China, and she was more than willing to help out.
I cross the quiet street and think about how I’m going to present myself. He’s going to be here in about thirty minutes and I’m nervous.
So nervous.
We really need this money and this entire situation almost seems too good to be true, so I’m on edge.
I knock on Tilly’s front door and it takes her a few seconds, but when she opens the door, she has a huge smile on her face. “Ahh, give me a hug.”
She pulls me into a big hug, squeezing me tightly.
Over the last year, Tilly and I have become close. She’s new to town, and most of my friends I grew up with have moved away and I’ve lost touch with them, so when Tilly moved in across the street, I was excited to have our instant connection.
“What’s the hug for?”
“For winning the bid for Rudder’s. Since I wasn’t here for it, I wanted to give you a hug. That’s huge, Renley; they picked the right person.”
Well, at least she believes that.
“Thank you. I’m excited,” I say, attempting to put on a good face despite the nerves running through me.
“You should be. I know you’re going to bring life back to Rudder’s.” She holds the door open. “Come in. I was just finishing up putting together a box for you.”
“Okay, thanks,” I say as I enter her eclectic house.
Tilly is a local artist, selling paintings to tourists for impressive amounts of money.
She does the dot method, meaning she makes small circles all over the canvas and then meticulously fills them in with color, almost like a mosaic.
And when you stand back, a landscape comes into view.
They’re stunning and they sell like hotcakes at the local gallery.
She’s now working on commission only, occasionally creating pieces just for her that she sells in the gallery, but those are few and far between now.
I glance to the right where her living room is supposed to be, but she’s replaced it with her studio.
Stacks of large canvas lean against the wall, light blooms through the curtainless window, and an easel is set up in the center of the room with a stool and paint resting in front of it.
From what it looks like, she’s starting a new painting, working on drawing the pea-sized circles first.
“What do you need all of this for? Are you throwing a tea party that you didn’t invite me to?”
“No.” I chuckle. “I’d never. It’s actually for, well…” I wince and then say, “Can you keep a secret?”
She offers me a stern side-eye. “You know you’re the only one in this town that I care to talk to. Everyone else is rude, boring, or too nosy for my liking. So do I really have to answer that question?”
“Good point.” I wring my hands together and say, “Well, I won the bid for Rudder’s, but when we filled out the application, we said we had the twenty thousand for renovations. Aunt Kitty made it seem like we did. But, uh, we don’t have it.”
“Oh shit, really?” she asks as she folds a tea towel and puts it in the crate she’s preparing for me.
“Yeah, it was a bit of a surprise, and well, long story short, we applied for a financier online and we found one. He’s coming today to the house to talk with us. He’s British, so we thought we would do tea and scones and totally butcher it as Americans.”
“You found a financier? That quickly?” she asks. “Wow, what website did you use? I’ve been trying to find someone to help me open my own studio. Also, he’ll probably appreciate the effort you’re putting into hosting him.”
“I hope so.” I hold out Aunt Kitty’s tablet to Tilly and say, “It’s a website called Financier.” I brought it with me in case she wanted to see what the website was all about.
“Oh, that’s pretty simple.”
“Yeah, see.” I let her take the tablet. “There are all these profiles of people looking to finance your project.”
Tilly examines the cracked screen, struggling for a moment, and then smiles, handing me back the tablet. “Nice try.” She laughs and shakes her head.
Confused, I ask, “What do you mean?”
“Come on, Renley, give me more credit than that.”
She turns away, but I tug on her shoulder. “Wait, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She folds her arms across her chest. “Do you really think I’m going to fall for it?”
“Fall for what?”
She gestures to the tablet. “Looking at those profiles for a financier when they’re all looking for fiancées. Nice try.”
My stomach bottoms out. “What are you talking about?”
She studies me for a moment, the humor in her face slightly disappearing as she lifts the tablet up to me and shows me the screen. “These are all profiles of men looking for fiancées.”
“No, they’re looking to invest,” I say with a shake of my head.
Her head tilts to the side. “Are you being serious?”
“Yes. Are you being serious?”
“Uh…yeah. Renley, this is not Financier dot com. This is Fiance-er dot com. You’re on a modern-day mail-order-bride website.”
“No, that can’t be.” I glance down at the screen of the tablet, the fractures making it difficult to decipher the website, but she can’t be serious. I read the top website address to confirm that she’s the one in the wrong. But my eyes seem to play tricks on me, mixing up the letters, because…
No, it can’t be.
I blink.
And blink.
And when my eyes finally settle, dread fills me as I slowly look up at my friend. “Oh my God, I didn’t match with a financier, I matched with a fiancé.”
Tilly cringes. “So you didn’t know then…”
“Does this look like the face of a girl in the know?” I set the tablet down and start pacing around Tilly’s dining room. “Why…why are those two words so similar? Someone is trying to scam small-business owners. That’s what this is, it’s a scam.”
“Not to go against you or anything, but didn’t the profiles of guys telling you all about themselves kind of clue you in?”
“I thought they were talking about their interests so you could find the investor that you best match up with…not so I could marry them! There might have been margaritas involved too. But…but it felt like they were searching for a business partner. Oh God, this is so bad.”
“What about the ring as the icon? That didn’t throw you off?”
I lean against her wall in defeat. “Aunt Kitty said it represented wealth, especially with how big the diamond was on the ring.” I press my head against the wall as a thought crosses my mind. “Oh God! He said he was DTF…we thought that meant ‘down to finance.’”
Tilly lets out a wallop of a laugh. “DTF…girl, that’s the acronym for ‘down to fuck.’”
“I know that now,” I grumble as I start to rub my temples. “I can’t…I can’t believe this. I thought we matched with an investor.”
But the more I think about it, the more I feel like a complete and utter imbecile. Because who mixes up the two?
Sure, I had far too many margaritas—mixed by Aunt Kitty—and her tablet didn’t lend itself to proper reading, and fiancé and financier are pretty close in spelling, especially to someone inebriated by tequila, but by God, Renley. Common sense.
“Sorry to say, but you matched with your future husband. And as we speak, he’s on his way to meet you.”
My eyes widen as I push off the wall. “Oh my God, you’re right.
He’s headed here, to my home…right now.” Without a second thought, I burst out of Tilly’s house and run across the street.
“Aunt Kitty, Aunt Kitty!” I scream, not caring who can hear me.
“Aunt Kitty, he’s a fiancé!” I shout, tripping forward with Tilly trailing behind me.
“Aunt Kitty!” I yell as I enter the house, tossing the door open to find her dressed in a flower dress, heels, and a floral fascinator, all in an off-putting salmon-pink and yellow color combination.
“Dear God, what are you doing?” She presses her hand to her chest. “I almost piddled right here on the floor.”
Catching my breath, I say, “He’s a fiancé.”
“Who is?” Aunt Kitty looks around.
“The guy coming today,” Tilly answers for me as she places her hand on my back.
God, am I out of shape.
That or the adrenaline is spiking just high enough in my body to make my breathing labored.
“He’s a fiancé?” Aunt Kitty looks between us. “Okay…should we make him a card that says ‘Congrats on your engagement’? Let me grab my colored pencils. I can whip something up really quick. Just need some twine, gold foil, and wax.”
“No,” I say, standing straighter now. “The website was for finding a fiancé, not a financier.”
Aunt Kitty looks between the two of us again and asks, “What website?”
“The financier website—it’s not for investors, it’s for people looking to get married!” I yell. I hold the tablet up to her.
Her eyes focus on the screen and, after a few seconds, she chuckles.
Actually freaking chuckles.
“Well, isn’t that funny? What an interesting mix-up.”
Is she serious?
There is nothing funny about this. Absolutely nothing.
On the contrary, it’s actually scary.
Terrifying.
Because there is a strange British man headed to my home right now, looking to marry me.
This is how people are murdered.
Oh God, I’m the clueless one in a horror film. The first to be murdered because I don’t use any common sense.