8. Playing Pretend
Chapter eight
Playing Pretend
Maya
Iwatched Ethan walk away from the booth, his tall figure cutting through the Saturday market crowd with the kind of unconscious confidence that came from years of commanding rooms. My hand still felt warm where he'd held it—a purely strategic gesture that had looked casual and natural despite being completely fake.
Except it hadn't felt fake.
That was the problem.
"Okay, spill." Tessa appeared at my elbow the second Ethan was out of earshot, her green eyes bright with curiosity. "When exactly did you and Corporate Hottie become a thing? Because last I checked, you were planning to go to war with him."
"Can we not do this right now?" I gestured at the growing line of customers. "We have actual work—"
"Don't you dare try to deflect with bread sales.
" Tessa grabbed a box of pastéis de nata and started helping the next customer, but she kept shooting me meaningful looks. "You held hands with him. In public. After calling him a corporate shark. And don’t think I buy that coffee shop story for a second. You would have told me.”
I focused on boxing up a sourdough loaf for Mrs. Curtis, keeping my voice professional. "Things changed."
"Things changed," Tessa repeated flatly. "That's all you're giving me?"
"For now, yes. Just trust me.”
The truth sat heavy on my tongue. I wanted to tell Tessa everything—that it was fake, that Ethan had offered legal help in exchange for community acceptance, that we had one week to pull this off before he left the island.
But the farmers market wasn't the place for that conversation, not with half the island within earshot.
So, I smiled and sold bread and tried not to think about how easily Ethan had slipped into the role of boyfriend. How natural his hand had felt in mine. How his voice had sounded when he said Thanks for giving me a chance, Maya. I know I don't deserve it.
Like he'd meant it.
The farmers market finally wound down around 2 PM.
I'd sold out of almost everything—the Saturday crowd had been hungry, or maybe just curious about the baker who was apparently dating the mainland lawyer.
I'd fielded approximately seventeen variations of "So I heard you and Ethan Caldwell... " with increasingly strained smiles.
Tessa helped me pack up the booth, her silence more pointed than any interrogation would have been. She knew I'd tell her when we were alone. She just wasn't happy about waiting.
We loaded the van and drove back to the bakery in relative quiet, Tessa's purple-tipped hair blowing in the breeze from the open windows. The island looked perfect today—blue sky, sparkling water. Postcard beauty that made tourists fall in love and locals took for granted.
I used to take it for granted too, before I left for Seattle. Now I saw it differently—saw how fragile this beauty was, how easily it could be bought and sold and transformed into something unrecognizable.
"Okay," Tessa said the moment we were inside the bakery with the door locked behind us. "Now you can tell me what’s going on. And don't even think about lying to me, because I've known you since you were sixteen and I can read you like a recipe card."
I leaned against the counter, suddenly exhausted. The performance had taken more energy than I'd expected. "It's fake."
Tessa blinked. "What's fake?"
"Me and Ethan. The dating. The meeting in Seattle. All of it." The words tumbled out in a rush. “He offered to help with my legal problems—all of them, everything with the permits and the property dispute—in exchange for me pretending to date him for a week."
"He what?" Tessa's voice rose an octave. "He asked you to fake date him?"
"He needs community acceptance. Right now, everyone sees him as the enemy, and he can't do his job if no one will talk to him. But if he's with me—if he's dating someone the island trusts—that changes the narrative."
"And you agreed to this?" Tessa looked torn between outrage and fascination. "Just like that? You're going to pretend to be his girlfriend?"
"I need the legal help," I said quietly.
"You know I can't afford a proper lawyer.
The property dispute hearing is in two weeks, and if I lose, I could lose everything.
Ethan knows how to untangle permit issues, how to navigate the bureaucracy, how to build protections I can't build myself. This is my best option."
Tessa studied me with those too-perceptive green eyes. "But?"
"But nothing. It's a business arrangement. Strictly professional."
"Maya." Tessa's voice was gentle now. “This objectively attractive guy is offering to be your knight in expensive Italian leather, and you're going to pretend to date him for a week? You don't see how that might get complicated?"
“Trust me, I know the difference between fantasy and reality. This is a transaction. He gets community acceptance; I get legal help. When it's done, he leaves. That's it."
Just like last time, I thought to myself.
"If you say so." Tessa didn't sound convinced. "But for the record, the way he looked at you at the farmers market? That didn't look fake."
My stomach did an uncomfortable flip. "He's a lawyer. He's good at performing."
"Maybe. Or maybe you're both playing a game that's going to blow up in your faces.
" Tessa grabbed her bag. "I'm going home before I say something you're not ready to hear.
But Maya? Be careful. You've spent seven years building walls to protect yourself.
Don't let some guy with a guilty conscience knock them down just because he's offering to save you. "
After she left, I stood in the quiet bakery, surrounded by the familiar smells of flour and yeast and possibility. My sanctuary. My legacy. The thing I'd sacrificed everything to protect.
And now I was gambling it on a fake relationship with the boy who'd once tried to destroy it.
I spent the rest of Saturday afternoon doing the bookkeeping I'd been putting off—invoices, expense reports, the financial calculations that always made my chest tight. The numbers didn't lie. I was barely breaking even, and one major unexpected expense would tip me into the red.
Like, for example, the legal fees from fighting a property dispute I didn't have the resources to win.
My phone buzzed. A text from my mother: "Call me when you get a chance, querida. I have some news."
I dialed immediately, grateful for the distraction.
"M?e? What's going on?"
"Maya!" My mother's voice was bright with excitement. "I'm so glad you called. I have wonderful news—David got promoted! We're moving to Seattle at the end of the month."
My chest tightened. I loved my stepfather, and I was genuinely happy for them. But Seattle was five hours away by car and ferry—close enough to visit, far enough that I'd be completely alone on Lopez Island.
"That's amazing! Congratulations."
"Thank you, querida." She paused. "I know this means I won't be able to visit as often. But maybe... maybe this is good timing? You could come to Seattle more. Visit. See old friends from Canlis. Remember what you're missing."
The implication was clear. My mother still thought I'd made a mistake coming back to Lopez Island. That I'd given up my real life—my important life—for nostalgia and obligation.
"I have a business here," I said quietly. "I can't just leave for weekend trips to Seattle."
"I know, I know. But Maya, you're so talented. What you're doing at that bakery—it's wonderful, but it's also limiting. You could be working at Canlis again, or apply to open your own place in a city where people would appreciate what you can do—"
"People here appreciate what I do."
"Of course they do, I didn't mean—" She sighed. "I just want you to be happy. Truly happy. Not just... stuck."
After we hung up, I sat in the quiet office, staring at the photo of my grandfather on the bookshelf.
"Am I stuck?" I whispered. "Or am I exactly where I'm supposed to be?"
He smiled at me from the frame, eternally patient, eternally kind.
I thought about what Ethan had said this morning: Showing up when you work hardest. Being there for the unglamorous parts. That's what people do when they care.
My mother had never shown up at dawn. She'd never understood why I'd choose a small island bakery over a prestigious Seattle restaurant. She loved me, but she didn't see me—not really.
But my grandfather had. He'd seen me completely, understood my choices, valued what I was building.
And now Ethan Caldwell was offering to protect it.
Sunday passed in the usual rhythm of baking and cleaning and prep work for the week ahead.
I tried not to think about Monday morning, about Ethan showing up at 6:30 AM like we'd agreed.
Tried not to wonder what we'd talk about, how we'd act, whether the performance would feel as natural as it had at the farmers market.
Monday morning, my alarm went off at 3:45 AM as always. I went through my routine—jeans, CIA shirt, hair in a messy bun—and headed to the bakery in the dark.
By 6:15, I had the first batch of bread in the ovens and was starting on croissant dough when I heard the knock at the back door.
I opened it to find Ethan standing there in dark jeans and a navy henley, holding two coffee cups from the island's coffee shop. He looked different without the suit—younger, less polished, more like the boy I remembered.
"Good morning," he said, offering me one of the cups. "Large oat milk latte, right?"
"How did you know my coffee order?"
"I asked Tessa yesterday." He stepped inside when I held the door open.
"You didn't have to do that."
"Yes, I did. This is part of the arrangement—showing up, making an effort, looking like I care." He glanced around the bakery kitchen, and something shifted in his expression. "It looks different than I remember. Bigger."
"I expanded the kitchen five years ago. Better equipment, more capacity." I took the coffee, grateful for something to do with my hands. "Thank you for this."
"You're welcome." He set his own coffee down on the counter, watching me return to the croissant dough. "Can I help? Or would I just be in the way?"
The question surprised me. "You want to help make croissants?"
"I want to learn what you do. If I'm going to convince people I care about you and this bakery, I should probably understand what happens here." He paused. "Unless you'd rather I just sit in the corner and look decorative."
Despite myself, I smiled. "You can wash your hands and help with the laminating. Do you remember anything from twenty years ago?"
"I remember that Manuel was very particular about technique." Ethan moved to the sink, rolling up his sleeves. "And that everything had to be done at the right temperature or it wouldn't work."
"Good memory." I gestured to the dough. "Croissants are all about layers—butter, dough, butter, dough. The laminating process creates the flaky texture. It requires precision and patience."
"Two things I'm actually good at."
We worked in silence for a few minutes, falling into a rhythm. Ethan followed my instructions carefully; his movements deliberate and controlled. Lawyer hands, I thought—used to signing documents and typing briefs, now carefully folding butter into dough.
Ethan's hands stilled in the dough. "I need to tell you something."
"What?"
“Of course I remembered you. You had a crush on me. Back then.” His voice remained quiet, each word carefully measured.
“I want you to know I never mistook it for anything but what it was—a fourteen-year-old's admiration for someone your grandfather had decided to save.
Who happened to be a very good-looking eighteen year-old.
I was too consumed by my own anger that whole year to really register it at the time.
But looking back now, I remember it, and I never want you to think I didn't take your grandfather's trust seriously.”
He looked down at the dough beneath his hands.
“So when I say I should have said goodbye properly—that's not about you. That's about me being too ashamed of what I'd done to face either of you honestly before I left.”
The confession settled between us, heavy and difficult to absorb.
“You left because you were ashamed.”
“Yes.” He shook his head. “Because staying meant being, for the rest of my life, on this island, the boy who'd broken your grandfather's windows.
I wasn't running from either of you. I was running from who I'd been.
I just didn't know how to separate the two back then.” His hands resumed their slow, steady rhythm, but he still wouldn't meet my eyes.
“You weren’t even that good-looking. And I'm not fourteen anymore," I said quietly.
"I know." He finally looked up, his blue eyes meeting mine. "But that doesn't change the fact that I should have said goodbye. That I should have thanked your grandfather properly. That I should have—"
My phone buzzed violently on the counter, the sound harsh in the quiet kitchen. I glanced at the screen and felt my blood go cold.
An email from Gerald Hutchins, my neighbor. Subject line: "Final Offer—Sale Must Close by February 28th."
I opened it with shaking hands.
Ms. Romano,
My investors have accelerated their timeline. They require building possession by the end of Sweetheart Week (March 8) to move forward with development plans. I'm authorized to offer $450,000 for immediate sale—20% above market value. This is a limited-time offer that expires in seven days.
If you decline, the property dispute will proceed to litigation, and I'm confident the court will rule in my favor regarding the easement. You'll lose access to your parking area and delivery access, making business operations impossible.
This is your best option. Take it.
—Gerald Hutchins
I read it twice, then handed the phone to Ethan without a word.
He scanned the email, his jaw clenching tighter with each line. "When is Sweetheart Week?"
"It's the island's biggest tourism event. Runs February 28 through March 8. Every business competes for vendor contracts, special events, it's..." My voice trailed off as the implications hit me. "It's in less than three weeks. And I was just approved for the main vendor contract."
"They want your building before you can capitalize on the revenue." Ethan's voice was cold, professional. "They're timing this to maximize your vulnerability."
"Can they do that? Just... accelerate the timeline?"
"They can try." He set down my phone carefully, like it might explode. "But this changes things, Maya. One week isn't going to be enough time to build the legal protections you need. Not if they're moving this fast."
My chest felt tight. "So, what do we do?"
Ethan looked at me, and I saw something shift in his expression—determination replacing uncertainty.
"We go to war," he said quietly. "And we make sure they regret underestimating you."