Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
NORA
Oh no. Oh no, no, no.
I swallow the words and give Pansy a tight smile as I push away from Cormac. “Pansy, can we have a private word?”
I have no clue which magical “private words” would iron this out, but I have a few seconds to figure it out.
Cormac shifts his weight between his feet as she enters the room in a cloud of floral vanilla. His nose wrinkles. “Oh, does that mean I should…you know.”
I smile sweetly at him. “You can leave, Cormac. We’ll see you out there. Try not to trip my mom on her way down the aisle.”
He gives me an inscrutable look. “I’ll be standing at the front. I’m the best man.” He takes a step toward the door but hesitates. There’s genuine concern on his face when he adds, “Are you okay, Nora?”
No.
“Of course.”
He leaves the office, shutting the door behind him, and my gaze skates back to Pansy, who’s still staring at me. There’s a knowing glint in her tepid blue eyes.
“Marco’s fake,” she says after an excruciating twenty seconds of eye contact. “You made him up.”
My heart starts racing. She’s going to force José to quit. She’ll back him into a corner, and he’ll leave, and everything in my life will go to shit…
The business will go bust, and I’ll probably never get to speak to him again. She’ll plant one of those tracking chips in his neck, and she’ll know if we’re within fifty feet of each other.
She angles her head to one side, studying my face.
“You’re nervous.”
“I’m never nervous,” I bluster, feeling sweat bead at the back of my neck.
“You’ve been lying to everyone.”
“Oh?”
“You made up Marco because you don’t want people to know you’re dating your brother.”
“Excuse me?” I blurt in genuine shock. “I don’t even have a brother.”
“Cormac,” she says with a knowing smile, gesturing toward the door.
Her words hit me like a physical blow. “You think I’m dating Cormac?”
She stuns me by stepping forward. For a second, I think she’s going to attack me, but then she wraps her arms around me.
It’s like getting a hug from an android who has never hugged anyone before in her life.
To be fair, I’m not much of a hugger, so I don’t have a lot of experience to compare it with, but it is awkward. “Your secret’s safe with me, Nora.”
I’m about to tell her off when it hits me…
If Pansy thinks I’m secretly dating my stepbrother, I won’t have to find a new boyfriend and parade him around the brewery. Because she’ll think I’m having secret dates with Cormac. No one will have to know the truth. He’ll be my fake boyfriend for an audience of one.
My internal Jiminy Cricket chirps to life, the annoying little bastard.
Okay, fine. Cormac deserves to know. It obviously wouldn’t be cool for me to drag him into this mess without his permission, especially after our talk today, but I’ll figure out a way to make it worthwhile for him. There must be something he wants.
Heart racing, I edge back and give Pansy a brave smile. “Yeah, okay, but Cormac and I have to keep it quiet for obvious reasons.”
“Of course,” she says, her tone placating. “Does José know?”
“No, only you.”
This answer clearly pleases her. “I’ll have to tell him, of course. I couldn’t keep something this big from him.”
I bow my head, pretending to be penitent. “Yes, I’d never ask you to do that.”
She smiles at me, and it pleases me immensely that lipstick has rubbed off onto her right front tooth. “I’m so glad we had this talk. You don’t need to pretend with me anymore. We can talk about anything.”
I’m tempted to ask if that includes the creepy texts I’m ninety-nine percent sure she was sending me last year.
They stopped right after I told José about them, go figure.
He called it a coincidence and insisted they had to be from my ex-boyfriend, Jonah, the bag of tools who’d dated me and three other women at the same time. But José was giving Jonah too much credit.
When men turn stalker, they show up outside your window late at night or steal your underpants. Women are more cunning.
“Me too,” I tell her. “I want to be friends.”
I feel awash with shame, because it comes out too easily. My dad’s a good liar too. He lied his way into staying in a marriage that lasted decades longer than it should have.
My mother washed his clothes, cooked him meals, and bought him thoughtfully selected presents for every major holiday and birthday. He took everything she offered and gave her nothing but BS and gaslighting in return.
Then again, she probably should have known better.
Not only were there several glaring signs that he was a disrespectful prick, but he was basically a professor of untruths.
One of his most popular classes was the Psychology of Lying, no joke, and now that he’s been disgraced in academic circles for seducing students, he has a radio podcast about the same thing.
I sometimes have the displeasure of hearing his voice when I’m channel surfing in my car.
I don’t want to be like that asshole, but can we really escape the influence of the people we surround ourselves with?
I’m not a liar. Usually. But sometimes I find myself exhibiting my dad’s other habits—like carrying on rhetorical conversations out loud or “cleaning” by shoving everything into the closet. So why not this too?
Pansy smiles, showing me that lipstick-stained tooth again. I nearly feel guilty enough to warn her about it when she says, “I’ll bet your parents would be really upset if they found out. It’s almost incest.”
“It’s not like he and I grew up together,” I say heatedly, as if I really am in love with Cormac and would defend our inappropriate relationship with my life.
“Oh, I get it.” She broadens her smile. “But I can understand why you wouldn’t want them to know. It would be embarrassing for everyone involved.”
I tilt my head, focusing on that tooth, because it’s the only thing that’s keeping me from snapping. “Sure.”
“I’d never tell, of course. But…you know…friends show support for each other, that’s what I always say. Did José happen to mention that I’ve started my own interior design company? I’m calling it Pads by Pansy.”
I’ll give my father this much—
If I hadn’t inherited Vernon Leigh’s ability to lie with a straight face, I’d be laughing my ass off right now.
I take a deep breath. “Pads by Pansy. That’s an interesting name.”
“I like the alliteration.”
“Aren’t you worried people will think you’re talking about sanitary products?”
She lifts her chin, her blond curls bouncing on her shoulders. “No one uses pads anymore. They’re so last century.”
Tell that to all the women with pelvic floor issues.
“Well, that’s super cool, Pansy,” I say, “but I have to get out there to check on my mother. I’m her maid of honor.”
She reaches for my arm and digs her fingers in so I don’t go. “I thought maybe I could do some decorating for you. José told me you’d hired someone else, a friend, but we’re friends now, aren’t we?”
Ah, here it is.
She thinks she knows my deepest, darkest secret and wants to use it as a bargaining chip. I’d like nothing better than to tell her off. She’s an asshole, and so undeserving of José it physically pains me to be in the same room as them when they’re together.
The thing is: I need her to believe she has the upper hand.
I give her a slight nod. “Why don’t you send me your portfolio for—” I allow myself a microsecond pause “—Pads by Pansy. And we’ll go from there. But I really do have to check on my mom.”
Her smile purses to the side. “So she won’t guess you were making out with your stepbrother in a back room?”
I pretend to laugh, but then it hits me—
Pansy didn’t know I was in here. Was she trying to sneak into my office, or did she hear us talking and decide to eavesdrop?
Either way, there’s no way in hell I’m giving this woman a hall pass to sift through my papers or spit in my water bottle.
I gesture at the door. “Let’s head out there together.
They haven’t started serving the Ginger Ever After yet, but I’ll set you up with some. ”
It’s a special ginger beer I made for my mother’s wedding—with a hint of raspberry, her favorite berry. My new brews are always inspired by something in my life, although admittedly this is the only new flavor I’ve felt inspired to make for months.
“I’m so glad we’re going to be friends,” Pansy says, finally heading for the door. “I really didn’t want to have to make José quit the brewery.”
I make it to the door first and squeeze the handle so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter. “This place is important to him, Pansy.”
“So am I,” she says with that pink tooth.
So am I, my heart wants to echo.
I may not be in love with José Cruz, but he’ll never just be some guy to me. And I make a pledge to myself: no matter what happens, I can’t let him marry this horrible woman. I absolutely cannot.
The door flies open, nearly knocking me in the face.
“Oh,” Hannah says, “sorry.” Then she sees Pansy and shoots me a quizzical look. Probably because she knows I hate Pansy with the fire of a thousand suns and would never invite her for a private sit-down in my office unless I intended violence.
“Why are you wearing a tux?” Pansy asks coldly, planting a hand on her hip as she eyes my friend’s pin-striped tux and pinned-up red curls.
“I’m a groomswoman.” Hannah checks out Pansy’s pink dress. “Are you a flower girl? They didn’t tell me they were bringing one in.”
Pansy rolls her eyes before gluing them to mine. “That was a nice talk, Nora. We’ll have another one soon.”
She flounces off with a swish of her skirts, and Hannah, who stepped inside, slams the door behind her. It nearly tears off some of the taffeta, making Pansy squeak.
I smile at my friend. “Thanks for that.”
“What did she want, anyway? More nebulous threats? Drunken rants? Bon Jovi sing-alongs?”
“She wanted to talk about Marco.”
“Oh, did THIRD CHOICE show up? I didn’t see him out there, although to be perfectly honest, I have a vicious hangover. I—”
“No, he’s not coming. Look, I’ll tell you everything, but I have to go see my mom.”
Her grimace says it all.
“What happened?” I ask, my heart thumping fast. My mother is a woman who takes care of everyone else and puts herself last. Today is her wedding day, dammit, and it will go off without a single hitch. “Did Cormac do something?”
Suddenly, my mind fills with images of Cormac carting his dad off in a literal shopping cart.
“No,” she says. “He’s out there with Travis and the guys, but he is acting a little weird. Did you have a talk with him too?”
“Yeah,” I say, rubbing the throbbing part of my head. “And I’m sorry to say I’ll need to do it again, after the ceremony.”
Hannah wrinkles her nose. “Is now a good time to tell you that the hairdresser I recommended gave your mother and the other bridesmaids beehives?”