Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Pippa
The wind in New York does not mess around.
The second we step into Battery Park, it comes barreling off the Hudson like it’s auditioning for a disaster movie, whipping my hair into my face and slapping it across my lip gloss.
I claw it back, muttering under my breath, but it’s useless.
My hair drags across my face, smearing lip gloss across my cheeks. It is not my finest moment.
I dig in my purse for a hair tie and attempt to put my hair in a ponytail.
The wind fights me at every opportunity, and strands of my hair break free no matter how much I clutch at them.
I dread to think how bedraggled I must look.
Meanwhile, Rhett’s dark hair moves, but settles back into place beautifully.
There is not a strand out of place, like he’s on some kind of secret contract with the wind gods.
He grins at me, plucking one rogue strand from my mouth.
“The ‘wind machine’ look suits you.”
I narrow my eyes. “Wind machine look?”
“Yeah. Very Hollywood.” He sweeps a hand in front of me like he’s unveiling a red-carpet poster. “The windswept heroine who doesn’t know she’s the star of the movie. Mind you, her hair blows out behind her. It doesn’t stick to her face.”
“If I’m the heroine. What are you? The leading man?”
“I’m the sidekick, remember.”
“Sidekick? Are you kidding?” I bark out a laugh. I tilt my head and regard him speculatively. “Actually, I don’t think I have decided what you are yet. The villain or the antihero …”
“Villain or antihero? Those are the options.” He puts a hand over his heart in mock outrage.
“Alright, I’ll reconsider. It’s only a short movie, but there is one other role that hasn’t been filled yet. You may audition for the part of the hero in the next couple of hours.”
He looks clearly pleased, but before he can fire an answer back, a voice booms over a megaphone. “Next ferry boarding for the Statue of Liberty.”
The crowd stirs like a disturbed beehive, backpacks and baseball caps jostling as people funnel toward the line. I grab Rhett’s arm before I’m crushed beneath a particularly determined group of tourists with matching fanny packs.
“Ok,” I mutter, bracing myself. “This is it. We’re going full tourist.”
“Embrace it,” Rhett says cheerfully, steering me into the chaos. “You can’t come to New York and not see Lady Liberty.”
“Lady Liberty and approximately seven hundred strangers who all want the exact same Instagram shot. I thought London was bad for rude tourists shoving their way into things, but it isn’t a patch on this.”
We shuffle through security, which is practically the whole airport experience again, and something I definitely wasn’t expecting.
We have to put our bags on scanners and take our belts off.
And there are no liquids allowed over a certain size.
I suppose it’s reassuring to know everyone else is being checked too and is safe to travel with, but honestly, it feels a bit much.
Still, when in Rome and all that.
Rhett sails through the security check, joking with the guard about how suspicious he looks. I, meanwhile, end up in a fluster with my handbag spilling open, my water bottle rolling away, and the humiliation of having my deodorant confiscated like it’s a lethal weapon.
“You’ve heard of 007. Well, you’re 003,” Rhett teases me, leaning against a post as I storm over to him. “Armed and glamorous.”
“I hope you get stuck next to a hyperactive eight-year-old brat on the ferry,” I grumble, stuffing my bag shut.
“If I do, the joke is on you,” he says smugly as we walk up the gangway. “Kids love me.”
The ferry is already bustling. Families herd children into rows of benches, couples cling to each other for selfies, and a group of teenagers are practicing TikTok dances by the railing.
The smell of salt and diesel hangs heavy in the air, mingled with the faint, tantalizing scent of hot pretzels drifting in from the dockside stands.
I make a beeline for the railing and grip it firmly.
Not because I’m seasick, luckily for me, I’m not, but because the view unspooling behind us is like a postcard come to life, and I don’t want to miss a moment of it.
Manhattan rises up in jagged glass and steel before us, the sunlight scattering off the towers and shining like diamonds.
“Is it worth it?” Rhett asks next to me.
“For sure,” I say, pretending to study the skyline. “But it depends if I make it off this boat without any kid projectile vomiting on my shoes.”
As if on cue, a toddler a few feet away from us makes a suspicious gurgling noise. Rhett slaps a hand over his mouth to hide a laugh, his shoulders shaking. I glare at him.
“If it happens, you’re cleaning them.”
“I’ll buy new ones,” he says instantly. “But only because I like you.”
I whip my head toward him, but he’s already leaning back casually, his sunglasses on, which make his face completely inscrutable and oh, so handsome. My heart stutters anyway.
The statue appears slowly, first a faint silhouette, then a clear outline, and finally, unmistakably, she’s there; impossibly tall and majestic.
Her copper green color stands out against the perfect blue sky.
Her torch is raised in the air like she’s lighting the way just for the rest of us mere mortals.
Everyone rushes to one side of the ferry like migrating birds, their cell phones thrust high. Rhett doesn’t budge. He’s watching me instead.
“Don’t you want to see the statue?”
“I’ve seen her before. I live in Manhattan, remember,” he says. His voice is casual. “And besides, I would much rather watch you see it.”
Heat rises instantly to my face. I laugh it off, flustered. “Wow. That might be the cheesiest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
He shrugs, grinning. “Good thing I don’t mind being cheesy.”
We spill out with the crowd onto Liberty Island, funneled along the pathways by surging people all around us. The statue towers above us, vast and solemn, the folds of her robe gleaming where the sun hits them. Rhett insists on a selfie.
“Evidence of us being a real couple,” he says, pulling me into his side.
His arm is warm across my shoulders, his cologne clean and faintly citrusy.
The camera on his cell phone clicks just as he whispers, “Say fake marriage,” and I burst out laughing mid-shot.
He shows me the picture, and my jaw drops at how bad I look.
Not only am I laughing in a way that makes my eyes squint almost shut, but my hair is also every bit as mad as I imagined it to be.
“Delete it,” I order, laughing despite my horror at the picture.
“No chance.”
I lunge for his cell phone, but he holds it high above my head, infuriatingly calm.
“This one’s a keeper. It’s natural. Candid. The fans will love it.”
“What fans?” I demand.
“The fictional fan base I’ve decided we have,” he says, pokerfaced. “The ones obsessively tracking our whirlwind romance.”
“Right.” I cross my arms. “Will they also be told I nearly murdered you immediately after this was taken?”
“Yes, and they’ll think it’s endearing.”
He winks at me and tucks his cell phone safely away.
“A-hole,” I mutter.
He laughs. “If you’re going to swear, then you should do it properly. Asshole. That’s how you say it.”
I turn away from him in disgust.
We wander around the island, drifting past groups clustered around tour guides waving little flags.
I catch fragments of the history they are discussing, the significance of broken chains at her feet, and how the original copper used to shine like a lucky penny before the weather turned it green.
Apparently, her face was modelled on the sculptor’s mother’s face.
A lie, no doubt, but tour guides have to earn their keep too.
Finally, we board the ferry for Ellis Island.
Ellis Island has a completely different atmosphere.
The building is beautiful, but solemn, its vaulted ceilings echoing with the footsteps of the generations who have come before us.
We float in hushed tones through the exhibits.
Families stare out at us from sepia-toned photographs, the children clutching battered suitcases, the women in kerchiefs, and the men in flat caps, all with eyes full of hope and exhaustion.
“Can you imagine?” I whisper, my fingers grazing the cool marble of the wall etched with names. “Leaving everything behind on the promise of a better life, stepping into this hall not knowing what comes next?”
“It must take some serious guts,” Rhett says softly. His voice is different here, quieter. Thoughtful. There is something unspoken under it, but he doesn’t elaborate, and I don’t push.
We wander into the Registry Room. It is a vast space with arched windows flooding light across tiled floors.
Children’s laughter rings oddly in the cavernous hall, mingling with the ghosts of history.
It’s moving, in a way I didn’t expect it to.
My throat feels tight, and I have to blink hard as we step back out into the bright sunlight.
“Are you ok?” Rhett asks gently.
“Yeah,” I say, smiling faintly. “Just … it’s a lot that place, isn’t it.”
He nods. “Yeah. It is.”
The ferry ride back is calmer, the crowd less frenzied.
People have become more subdued after the visit to Ellis Island.
We snag a spot near the rail, watching Manhattan inch closer with every roll of the water.
Rhett slides his sunglasses back on with maddening ease, like he’s in an ad campaign, and I try very hard not to stare at the sharp line of his jaw, the way the sunlight brushes over his cheekbones.
And then, casually, he detonates a bomb.
“I hope you’re hungry, because we’re having lunch with my parents when we get back to the mainland.”
I spin around so fast I nearly knock into him. “Excuse me? I thought you said we were having lunch with your parents, but you can’t have said that because even the idea of it is crazy.”
He’s maddeningly relaxed, leaning against the rail, his lips turned up into that smile he has that makes me half want to smack him, and half want to jump his bones.
“Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”
“Fine? Fine? Do you hear yourself?” My voice pitches high, but I don’t care.
I need him to see how crazy his idea is.
“You can’t just spring parents on someone, Rhett.
Jeez. Meeting the parents is a big milestone.
Meeting the parents is like a relationship level one-hundred and fifty.
And even in our fake relationship, we’re barely at level five. ”
He chuckles, which only makes me glare at him harder.
“Relax. They’re not dragons. They’re nice. You’ll like them.”
“I actually like dragons, but that’s not the point,” I reply. My pulse is galloping. “Meeting your parents is a serious business. They’ll know instantly that I’m a fraud.”
“They won’t,” he says. “Why would they?” His tone is maddeningly even. “And even if they do, that’s the point.”
I blink. “The point?”
“Practice,” he says simply. “You need it. My friends will spot a phony a mile off. This way you can rehearse with low stakes.”
“Low stakes?” I squeak. “Lunch with your parents is not low stakes.”
“Yes, it is.” He grins, tilting his head, completely at ease while my insides dissolve into panic soup. “Think of it as a dress rehearsal for the wedding. If they suss out it’s fake, we’ll come clean, and we’ll all just laugh about it, but you’ll know where you went wrong.”
My jaw drops. My brain shorts out. I find it hard to believe they’ll find it funny. Rhett just shrugs as he leans casually against the railing with the skyline glinting behind him, as if he hasn’t just casually detonated my entire morning.
And that’s where my sightseeing morning ends, with Rhett tossing out a nuclear bomb disguised as an offhand comment.