15
Joel stands in my living room, jaw clenched, hands fisted at his side. His body radiates barely contained frustration. “What were you thinking?” he demands.
My fingers twist together in front of me. “I wasn’t.”
“Clearly.”
“I’m sorry,” I confess, feeling two inches tall. “I don’t know what happened... The words just popped out.”
He stares at me, incredulous. “Something like that doesn’t just pop out .”
He’s been pacing for the past five minutes, raking his hands through his hair like he’s trying to physically pull the situation back under control.
My stomach rumbles. It’s well past lunchtime, but food feels impossible. I’m tied up in too many knots to eat.
After my impulsive announcement to Liz and Lucy at the studio, there was no way I could face another second of work.
Tess and Sofia had about a hundred questions lined up, but I told them I needed to go home and lie down.
Maybe, if I was lucky, a miracle would happen and I’d be teleported twenty years into the future, where today would be a distant, faded memory.
My friends were plainly torn between bursting into laughter and staging an intervention.
In the end, they decided I was too much of a mess to interrogate properly.
After extracting a promise from me for a ladies’ night tomorrow, they practically shoved me out the door, looking far too amused for two people who were supposedly worried about me.
Joel, on the other hand, does not look amused. He’s agitated, unhappy, and about a dozen other adjectives I wish didn’t apply to him right now. And it’s all because of me.
Finally, he stops pacing and faces me with a scowl. “Why would you tell the two biggest gossips in Brown Oaks that we’re engaged?”
I clasp my hands tighter. “They were tearing you apart, saying things that weren’t true.
All because they thought you were the reason I was upset on Saturday.
” My eyes squeeze shut for a moment. “I couldn’t stand it.
I felt so awful that I had to say something that would show you in a better light. ”
Joel pinches the bridge of his nose. “Tell me exactly what you said.”
I let out a guilty breath. “I told them that my tears on Saturday were from sheer happiness because you asked me to marry you.”
Disbelief pulls at his features. “And they bought that?”
“They loved it,” I admit. “They thought it was so romantic. And they totally understood why we wanted to keep it a secret for a while.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t believe this.”
My throat is so dry I can barely swallow. I’m desperate to ease the tension that’s swirling thick and heavy between us. “Would you like something to drink? Water? Juice? What about coffee? Do you want coffee?”
“What I want,” Joel says tightly, “is for you to fix this.”
“I want that too,” I say, remorse twisting in my chest. Everything’s spiraled out of control and it’s all my fault. I reach for my heart pendant and hold it tightly. “I want to take back those words more than I’ve wanted anything in my life. But I’m not sure how to fix this.”
“Tell everyone you were joking,” he says evenly, but I can pick up the note of strain in his voice. “Tell them you got carried away or that aliens temporarily took over your body. I don’t care. Just fix it.”
Heat stings my cheeks. “I was only trying to protect you.”
He lets out a harsh, joyless laugh. “Protect me? By announcing a fake engagement?”
“Maybe we need to look at this differently,” I suggest, trying for a positive take. “We already had a fake date, so technically a fake engagement is only one step up from that.”
“One step?” Disbelief floods his eyes. “That’s not a step. It’s five hundred giant leaps straight off a cliff.”
“Well, that seems like a slight exaggeration,” I say stiffly.
“Kenzie, if our fake date failed so spectacularly, think of all the things that could go wrong with a fake engagement.”
He has a point. I chew my lip. “I know I went too far,” I admit in a small voice. “But I felt terrible on your behalf, and I just wanted to help.”
He points a finger at me. “That. Right there. That’s your problem.”
I stare wide-eyed at his finger, as though it holds all the answers. “What’s my problem?”
“It’s why you were so wrecked after the movie,” Joel says, his voice low but unflinching. “You feel everything too deeply. You carry other people’s pain like it’s your own.”
His words hit harder than I want to admit.
Funnily enough, my mom says the same thing, insisting that I empathize with people to an unhealthy degree, soaking up their emotions until I’m drowning in them.
She calls it both my greatest gift and my biggest flaw.
I always thought it strange how two opposing truths can live side by side.
When I glance up, Joel’s expression has shifted. The frustration is still there, but beneath it flickers something almost haunted. He looks like he knows exactly what it costs to feel this way. Maybe because he’s carrying his own weight that he never lets anyone touch.
And then it’s like a shutter comes down over his face, concealing all his emotions. His eyes pin me, dark and flat and cold. “I told you I don’t do relationships.”
“I know you don’t,” I reply steadily. “You made that very clear. And even if you did, I know I’m not your type.”
He frowns. “I don’t have a type.”
“That’s what you told Bobby. But you do.”
A flicker of wariness passes over his features. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t date blondes,” I tell him simply.
It’s true. Kate had pointed it out once in passing, and after that, I started noticing it myself. Brunettes, redheads, women with dark hair of every shade, but never, ever blondes like me.
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t deny it. The silence hurts more than any answer could.
“Look, I know this is all my fault,” I say quietly. “I’m the one who set this mess in motion. When I heard you’d had two bookings cancelled, I—”
Something shifts again in his expression.
I suck in a breath. “Wait. Were there more cancelations?”
His jaw flexes. “Don’t worry about it.”
“That’s a yes then.” Dismay surges through me. “I can’t believe people can be so petty. This is your reputation. Your business. It’s not fair.”
Something terrible flashes in his eyes. “Life isn’t fair, Kenzie,” he snaps. “Or have you been so sheltered that this is the first time you’re realizing it?”
I flinch, absorbing the blow. The moment of silence between us feels endless and fills every corner of the room.
“I’m sorry.” His voice is rough with remorse. He briefly touches my arm, before withdrawing his hand. “That was unfair and cruel. And I never want to be cruel to you.”
“Maybe I am sheltered,” I concede, “but that doesn’t stop me from caring about people, especially when they’ve been wronged.”
There’s a grim edge to his tone. “I told you; I don’t care what people think of me.”
“So you’ve said. But what about Kate?”
He stills. “What about Kate?”
My stomach knots, but I don’t back down. “Do you care what people think of her? Because whether you like it or not, in some people’s eyes, she’s guilty by association. Tess told me clients have cancelled on her too.”
I glimpse the impact of my words. Joel has always had a soft spot for Kate. I used to think it meant he had a thing for her. But now, looking at him, I realize it’s not that at all. He knows something of her past. Maybe not all of it, but enough to know how much damage was done.
Joel might be many things—guarded, distant, impossible to read most of the time—but when it comes to Kate, he’s protective to a fault.
“I didn’t know about her cancelations,” he tells me in a low voice.
His phone rings. He pulls it out of his pocket, glances at the screen, and grimaces. Then he stabs the Ignore button and puts the phone away, tension pumping off him.
“Farah,” he says with a sigh, in response to my questioning look. “She left me a voicemail this morning.”
“You don’t have to tell me—”
“She wanted to know if it’s true,” he cuts in. “If I’m really engaged to you. And if not, whether she still has a chance.”
Heat rushes to my face. “Oh.”
“She doesn’t give up easy.”
I can hear the tightness at the edges of his voice. “What are you going to tell her?”
He takes a long time before answering. “I don’t know. If I deny it, the gossip only grows. You’ll look like a fool, and I’ll look like a liar.”
His phone rings again. “It’s Kate.”
“Go ahead, take it,” I say quickly.
He answers, his tone clipped. On the other end of the line, Kate is clearly talking non-stop. Joel’s responses are short— uh-huh , yeah , understood —but the tension in his shoulders tells me the conversation is anything but casual.
When he finally hangs up, he exhales heavily. “Kate says her phone’s been ringing off the hook all morning. We’re fully booked for the next two weeks.” He drags a hand down his face. “She says it’s all because of our news.”
My eyes widen. “Does she know it’s fake?”
He nods. “She knows. Tess filled her in. But you should’ve heard her.
She sounded so excited. Looks like your fake engagement is actually boosting the business.
Someone posted about our engagement on the Brown Oaks Foodie Facebook group, and now every café, bakery, and restaurant in a twenty-mile radius wants to book us.
” His mouth twists, as if he hates even saying the words.
For a moment, he just stands there, caught in some internal battle.
When the silence stretches, I say, “Look, I’ll tell everyone I made up the engagement. I created this mess, so I should be the one to make it right.”
“If you go back now and tell everyone it was a lie, I don’t know.
..it feels like the town’s wrath will double.
And I can’t let Kate take that hit.” He rolls his shoulders, like his shirt has turned into a straitjacket.
“Like I said, I don’t give a damn what this town thinks of me.
But Kate’s worked too hard to crawl out of what she’s been through. I won’t let my name drag hers down.”
My throat tightens. His protectiveness for Kate is fierce enough to fill me with both jealousy and admiration. “What are you saying?”
He studies me, unreadable, then lets out a reluctant breath. “I’m saying we leave things be. For now.”
It takes me a second to process what I’m hearing. “You want to go ahead with the fake engagement?”
“Yes. We play along until things calm down. Until the gossip dies down and Kate’s calendar fills back up.
” His shoulders bow. The weight in his eyes is heavier than I’ve ever seen it.
“We’ll keep this...stupid fake engagement going.
For Kate. For the business. And maybe for my sanity, if it keeps Farah away for a while. ”
A wave of relief crashes over me, quickly followed by guilt. “Okay,” I whisper. At this point, I’ll say yes to pretty much whatever he needs if it keeps matters from getting worse. Since I’m the one who lit the match, it feels only fair I help contain the fire.
“But we keep it lowkey,” he says, fixing me with a stern look. “No grand gestures. No drawing attention to ourselves. We don’t hang out more than is strictly necessary. I want this whole thing flying so far under the radar it practically disappears.”
I’m nodding along eagerly, like one of those bobbleheads Lisset likes to collect. “Absolutely. I can do that. Low-key. No drama. Total stealth mode.”
“Then we part amicably,” he continues.
“We tell everyone we get along better as friends.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “No more crying in public.”
“No more sad movies then,” I counter.
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
But when he turns to leave, it doesn’t feel fine at all.