Chapter Twenty-Two
Cate
Okay.
Okay, okay, okay.
Deep breaths, Cate. Deep breaths. You’re not having a heart attack. This is just anxiety. Regular, garden-variety, my-boss-just-told-his-ex-wife-I’m-his-wife anxiety.
Totally normal. Happens all the time.
People go from secret hallway sex to fake marriage every day, right?
RIGHT?
I couldn’t breathe.
The dish towel in my hands had somehow become my only tether to reality, and I was gripping it so hard my knuckles had gone white.
Or maybe they’d always been white. Maybe I’d died somewhere between “Don’t talk to my wife like that” and now, and this was just my anxiety-ridden ghost trying to process the afterlife.
Gabriel was staring at me.
His jaw was tight, his shoulders tense, and he had that look—the one that meant he was trying to figure out how to fix something. How to control the situation.
Good luck with that, buddy. You just told a lawyer that I’m your WIFE! A lawyer who is definitely going to investigate that claim. A lawyer who is going to find out that we are NOT married, and then what? Then WHAT?
“Cate.” Gabriel’s voice was calm. Too calm. The kind of calm that doctors used right before they told you that you need surgery. “Let me explain.”
“Explain?” The word came out as a squeak. “Explain what? That you just committed—what is that, perjury? Fraud? I don’t know the legal term, but I’m pretty sure lying to a lawyer about being married is illegal.”
“I didn’t lie under oath.”
“Oh, well, that makes it better!” I was spiraling. I could feel it happening... that familiar sensation of my brain detaching from my body and launching itself into the stratosphere. “We just casually lied to your ex-wife’s attorney. No big deal. Happens every Tuesday.”
“Cate.”
“We’ve been having sex for a week, Gabriel.
ONE WEEK. And now I’m your WIFE?!” My voice was getting higher.
Louder. “We haven’t even had the ‘what are we’ conversation!
We haven’t talked about being exclusive!
We haven’t—” I stopped. Because suddenly, horribly, I realized something. “Oh my God,” I whispered. “Megan.”
Gabriel’s expression shifted. “What about Megan?”
“She’s upstairs. She’s upstairs right now, and her mother just showed up—her mother who abandoned her, and now there’s going to be a custody battle, and we just LIED about being married, and what if, what if this makes things worse for her? What if Tonya uses this against you? What if...”
“Cate.” Gabriel crossed the room in three strides, his hands coming up to grip my shoulders. “Breathe.”
“I can’t breathe! I’m too busy being your FAKE WIFE!”
His mouth twitched. Almost a smile.
Almost.
“Don’t,” I said, pointing the dish towel at him like a weapon.
“Don’t you dare smile right now. This is not funny.
This is the opposite of funny. This is a disaster.
This is—this is like when you’re making a soufflé and you open the oven too early and the whole thing collapses, except instead of a soufflé it’s your ENTIRE LIFE. ”
“Are you comparing our situation to a soufflé?”
“YES! Because that’s what my brain does when it’s panicking!
It makes food metaphors!” I pulled away from him, pacing.
“We’re screwed. We are so, so screwed. That lawyer is going to investigate.
He’s going to find out we’re not married.
And then what? Then Tonya gets ammunition for the custody battle. Then you look like a liar. Then—”
“Then we get married.”
I stopped pacing, turned around, and stared at him. “I’m sorry,” I intoned. “I think I just had a stroke. Because it sounded like you just said—”
“We get married.” Gabriel’s voice was steady. Certain. Like he was suggesting we order takeout instead of proposing a solution to the felony we’d just committed. “Legally. As soon as possible.”
Nope.
Nope, nope, nope. This is not happening.
This is a fever dream. I’m still in bed. I never woke up. Gabriel never kissed me in the hallway. His ex-wife never showed up. And he definitely, DEFINITELY did not just suggest we get married for real.
“You’ve lost your mind,” I said flatly. “You’ve actually, genuinely lost your mind.”
“I’m being practical.”
“PRACTICAL?” My voice cracked. “Getting married to your nanny—who you’ve been secretly sleeping with for a week—to cover up a lie you told your ex-wife is not practical. It’s INSANE!”
“It solves the problem.”
“It creates new problems! SO MANY NEW PROBLEMS!” I was gesturing wildly now, the dish towel flapping like a flag of surrender.
“What about Megan? What do we tell her? ‘Hey, sweetie, your dad and I got married super-fast because he accidentally called me his wife in front of your mom’s lawyer.’ That’s totally not going to confuse or traumatize her! ”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened. “We’d explain it carefully.”
“There is no careful way to explain this!” I threw my hands up. “And what about after? What happens when the custody thing is resolved? Do we just... stay married? Get divorced? Pretend it never happened?”
“We’d figure it out.”
“Figure it out? FIGURE IT OUT!” I was pretty sure I was having an out-of-body experience.
“Gabriel, we haven’t even figured out what we ARE.
We’ve been sneaking around for a week. A WEEK.
We have sex in closets and at three AM in your kitchen, and we’ve never once talked about—about feelings, or the future, or whether this is even a RELATIONSHIP. ”
Something flickered across his face. Too fast for me to read.
“You’re right,” he said quietly.
I blinked. “I’m... what?”
“You’re right. We haven’t talked about it.” He took a step closer. “So let’s talk about it now.”
Oh no.
Oh no, no, no.
This is worse than the marriage suggestion. This is the feelings conversation. I am not equipped for conversations with feelings right now. My brain is still processing the fake wife thing. I can’t handle feelings AND fake marriage in the same five-minute span.
“I—” My voice came out strangled. “I don’t think now is the best time.”
“When would be a better time?” His eyes were locked on mine. Intense. Unwavering. “After Tonya’s lawyer investigates and finds out I lied? After she uses it against me in court? After I lose custody of my daughter?”
His words hit like a punch to the gut.
Megan.
This wasn’t just about me and Gabriel and whatever complicated, undefined thing we had going on.
This was about Megan.
About keeping her safe. About making sure she didn’t end up with a mother who’d abandoned her for a year and only came back when it was convenient. “That’s not fair,” I whispered.
“No,” Gabriel agreed. “It’s not. None of this is fair. But it’s the situation we’re in.”
I sank onto the couch, the dish towel finally falling from my hands.
Think, Cate. Think.
What are the options here?
Option one: Tell the truth. Admit we lied. Gabriel looks like a liar in court, possibly loses credibility in the custody battle, and Tonya gets exactly what she wants.
Option two: Fake it till we make it. Pretend we’re married without actually getting married. Except that requires a marriage certificate, which we don’t have, and lying to a lawyer is definitely illegal; plus, I do NOT look good in orange jumpsuits.
Option three: Actually get married. Legally. For real. To cover up the lie. Which is INSANE, but also... might actually work.
Oh my God, I’m actually considering this.
I’m actually sitting here, thinking about marrying my boss—who I’ve been sleeping with for a week—to help him win a custody battle against his ex-wife.
This is my life now.
This is what I’ve become.
“Cate.” Gabriel sat down beside me, close enough that I could feel the heat of him.
“I know this is a lot. I know I’m asking something impossible.
But I need you to understand. I can’t lose Megan.
I can’t let Tonya take her. She abandoned her.
She left without a word, and Megan cried herself to sleep for months.
And now she just shows up, acting like she has a right to—”
His voice cracked.
Just slightly.
But enough.
I looked at him. Really looked at him and saw past the controlled exterior. Past the surgeon who always had a plan. Past the man who’d kissed me in the hallway and made me come apart on his kitchen counter.
I saw a father who was terrified of losing his daughter.
Damn it.
Damn it, damn it, damn it.
“If we did this,” I said slowly, carefully, “it would have to be... temporary. Right? Just until the custody thing is resolved.”
Something flickered in his eyes. “Right.”
“And we’d have to tell Megan something. We can’t just—we can’t lie to her.”
“We’d tell her the truth. An age-appropriate version of it.”
“And after?” I forced myself to ask. “After the custody battle is over, what happens to... us?”
The question hung in the air between us.
Gabriel’s hand found mine, his fingers threading through mine with a certainty that made my chest ache.
“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “But I know I don’t want to lose you either.”
Oh.
Oh no.
He did not just say that. He did not just make this even more complicated.
My heart was doing something weird. Something that felt suspiciously like hope mixed with terror mixed with the kind of reckless stupidity that makes people do things like marry their boss to help with a custody battle.
“This is insane,” I whispered.
“I know.”
“We’re going to regret this.”
“Probably.”
“I can’t believe I’m even considering—”
The sound of small feet on the stairs made us both freeze.
“Cate?” Megan’s voice drifted down. “I heard yelling.”
Gabriel and I stared at each other, and I realized, with a sinking feeling of inevitability, that we were out of time.
Whatever we decided, we had to decide it now.
“We’re fine, baby!” I called up, my voice only slightly strangled. “Just... talking. I’ll be up in a minute.”
Silence.
“Okay!”
Her footsteps retreated.
I turned back to Gabriel.
“If we do this,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper, “we do it right. No more secrets. No more sneaking around. We tell Megan—carefully—and we figure out how to make this look real. Because if Tonya’s lawyer investigates and finds out this is fake, it’s over. For both of us.”
Gabriel’s hand tightened on mine.
“Agreed.”
“And we need a plan. A real plan. Not just... let’s get married and hope for the best.”
“We’ll figure it out. Together.”
Together. The word settled over me like a blanket. Warm and terrifying and impossibly complicated.
I took a deep breath.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay?”
“Okay.” I met his eyes. “Let’s do this. Let’s get married.”
And just like that, I went from secret affair to fake wife.