Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Soren
“What is it now?”
I say it too casually, like I haven’t been side-eyeing her for the last ten minutes, while she mutters under her breath and huffs into her phone camera like it’s going to solve whatever problem she just encountered.
I’ve seen Winnifred spiraling before, but this .
. . this is Winnifred ten times more—well, her, and I have absolutely no idea how to stop this.
She’s squirming like the jet cushions were upholstered in bad decisions, stabbing at her phone like she’s taking down a rival lifestyle brand one post at a time.
She doesn’t answer right away.
Instead, she chews her lip and glances at me with that half-horrified, half-determined expression she gets when she’s about to overcommit to a very bad idea. Which means something profoundly ill-advised is coming.
“I wish I could say that this falls apart the second your mom asks me what your favorite color is,” she says finally.
I blink.
“That’s the emergency?”
“It’d be an emergency, but there are a lot more pressing issues,” she corrects like she’s logging the event into her personal threat matrix. “You don’t know my colors, and we need to spin this so the animosity between our families isn’t a big issue between us. You’re setting me up for failure.”
I open my mouth. Pause. Realize I’m about to guess something wildly wrong and possibly insulting. “Your favorite color is bubblegum pink.”
“Wrong.” She crosses her arms. “It’s warm mauve with soft terracotta undertones. Honestly, I thought you were better than basic pink.”
“What the hell is terracotta if not a dusty version of orange?” I mutter.
She gasps like I just told her I mistreat animals for fun.
Why did I think dragging Winnifred to my sister’s engagement was a good idea?
A well-placed lie could’ve saved me. Not from hell, obviously—but definitely from this.
I don’t even know what this is or how to categorize Winnifred when she’s falling apart because she has lost control of her life.
This is fine. Everything’s fine. I take a deep breath and smile because what else is there to do?
“You think this is funny,” she says, narrowing her eyes.
“No,” I lie, grinning. “I think it’s deeply alarming that my fake girlfriend is treating this like a DIY romance boot camp.”
She doesn’t answer. Instead, she reaches for a pink pen and a journal—where did she even get that?—and scribbles something. Probably a list titled ‘Reasons Soren is Emotionally Unavailable and Also Wrong About Colors.’
“This is serious,” she mutters. “You don’t know my allergies, my love language, or what fictional couple I model all my relationships after.”
I sigh. “None of this is going to come up. No one’s going to ask which couple you think we’re supposed to be—just smile and act like you don’t hate me. We’re not Elizabeth and Darcy or whatever tragic pair you’ve been romanticizing since puberty.”
“I’m a Scorpio rising with a Capricorn moon,” she says like that explains everything. “People always assume I’m halfway through some epic heartbreak. Also, people can always tell when someone’s modeled their love life after Anne and Captain Wentworth.”
I stare at her because I’m not sure if she’s really quoting some Jane Austen couple—no one should judge me, I took English more than twenty years ago—or a movie I have never watched. She stares back. Neither of us blinks.
Winnifred watches me like she’s waiting for my brain to catch up with her train of thought.
“Persuasion,” she says, sighing like my ignorance physically pains her.
“They were in love. She gave him up because her family pressured her. He left, made a fortune, came back years later—furious, heartbroken, still in love. It’s about regret.
Redemption. Longing that gnaws at your ribcage. Honestly, it’s basic literacy.”
I open my mouth. Close it.
She crosses her arms like she just won a duel, and I didn’t realize we were sword-fighting.
And maybe she did. Because I’m still here. I’m not walking away or making an excuse. I’m not even pretending to fall asleep—which, frankly, would be the logical move. Though, I never do run away when she takes our conversations two snarks up and hands me my ass because she’s not letting things go.
That’s always been our dynamic since she moved next door. She hijacks the conversation, spins it into something weirdly poetic and mildly combative, and then leaves me sitting in the wreckage, wondering how I lost.
God help me, if I’m not careful, I might end up married to this woman because she’s going to convince me that’s great for some aesthetic or another.
Focus, Soren Thorn. If you don’t, this woman is going to flip your entire life upside down and convince you it was the best life choice.
“Okay,” I say finally, resting my head against the seat and closing my eyes. “Hit me.”
“What?”
“Quiz me. Prep me. Let’s do your fake-girlfriend boot camp—we got four hours to prep. But keep it quick—I’d like to mentally prepare myself to survive dinner with my mother tomorrow without spontaneous combustion.”
“Don’t forget the vineyard.” She gives me a flat look, unimpressed by my apparent optimism. “We had a deal, Soren. I bring my best performance to this ‘fakey special,’ and you don’t crash it with half-baked improv.”
“The plane is landing in Boston,” I start, shifting into logistics like it’s a shield. “We’re booked at the Merkel Hotel through Sunday. We’ll be driving in and out of Winterberry Cove.”
It’s not that I’m hiding details. I just . . . don’t usually do the whole share-your-life thing. Solo mode is my comfort zone. This is new terrain.
“We’re not staying in town?”
“Do you want to stay in town?”
There’s a beat.
Then she lights up like someone handed her a glitter cannon and a completely irresponsible amount of craft supplies. “Not at all.”
I raise a brow. “Really? If you want to visit your family—”
“I have no interest in running into anyone who remembers what I looked like with braces and bangs,” she cuts into the conversation. “Nor do I want Mom to find out I was there . . . like, ever.”
“Noted.”
She grins. “Finally. You’re taking this seriously.”
“This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.”
She ignores me—shocker—and starts rapid-fire questioning. “Favorite song?”
“Anything that isn’t in your breakup playlist.”
“Wow. Hurtful. But fine. Dream vacation?”
“I don’t dream.”
She scribbles something furiously. “Okay, so we’re going with Arctic Pole. Broody, cold, and distant. It fits your brand.”
“I’m not a brand.”
She doesn’t dignify that with a response. Instead: “Most irrational fear?”
“You, in a craft store.”
She makes a loud, judgmental hmmph sound and keeps writing.
“Pet peeves?”
“People who talk through movies, people who clap when the plane lands and people who pretend brunch isn’t just a late breakfast.”
She looks up at that. “Okay, that’s fair. But if you insult brunch again, I’ll tell your mother you’re planning to propose over bottomless mimosas.”
I exhale slowly through my nose. “You’re evil.”
“I’m disciplined,” she says sweetly.
There’s a pause. She’s still scribbling. Her shoulders start to relax. Her hair’s falling into her face in that half-messy, half-perfect way she insists is unintentional, even though I’ve seen her redo it three times in one morning. I let the quiet stretch between us for a beat.
“You don’t have to work this hard, you know,” I say, softer.
She doesn’t look up. “Yes, I do.”
It’s not performative. Not this part. She’s not spiraling for attention. She’s building armor. One backstory bullet point at a time. I get it. I do the same thing—only mine involves sarcasm and shutting down before anyone gets too close.
The questions come quick, intrusive, and relentless—each one more personal than the last. Favorite pet names. Cringe-worthy high school stories. Our fake origin story. Whether we’ve ever been on a couples’ retreat.
Somewhere between listing my top three embarrassing medical moments and agreeing on a fake anniversary, a tea service appears.
Then dinner—light, but as usual, it’s good.
I pretend not to notice the way she lights up at the chocolate truffles—the ones I specifically asked my assistant to include while I requested she prep the jet for me.
It lasts almost four hours. Somewhere in the middle, she kicks off her shoes.
Sips tea with one leg tucked under her. I pretend I’m not watching how her expressions shift when she’s thinking too hard.
She pretends she’s not noticing how I answer her questions, like I’m memorizing the way she asks them.
Eventually, we’re quiet.
“So,” she says, voice deceptively light, “in this backstory, did we fall in love slowly, over years of bickering? Or was it one of those enemies-to-lovers fireworks situations where we kissed once, and the world caught fire?”
I lift one brow. “You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”
She shrugs, but her cheeks flush. “I like good structure. Sue me.”
I lean in, elbows on my knees, and meet her eyes fully.
“It was slow,” I say. “Annoyingly slow. You snuck up on me. One sarcastic, very snarky comment at a time.”
She goes very still.
“Ugh,” she says after a beat. “That was almost sincere.”
“I’ll do better next time,” I murmur, but I’m still watching her.
The pilot’s voice comes through the speaker. “We’re starting our descent into Boston. Please prepare for landing.”
She pulls away first. Back to her list. Back to her safety net of structure and sarcasm and curated chaos.
But for a second, I saw it—the crack in the armor.
The flicker of something I’ve never seen in my life, and it scares me more than anything she’s ever told me since she moved next door to my house.