Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
But a full week after Rebecca rang our doorbell, he’s still pretending I don’t exist, and … time’s up. I take control of the situation.
The Saturday morning following church with my mom, I find Colin on the couch in the living room reading a William McKinley biography all casual-like, as though he’s not a man with a wife and a fiancée.
“Can we talk?” I ask.
He looks up, his gaze going slightly wary as he carefully places a bookmark between the pages and sets the book on the coffee table before gesturing for me to sit in the chair across from him.
“So,” I say, sitting and crossing my legs. “Do you want to go through the whole song and dance of me explaining what I want to talk about, or do you want to just skip that part and dive in?”
“She’s my partner at the firm,” he says, apparently going with option number two. “Her name is Rebecca Hale, and we’ve been working together for four years.”
“And sleeping together for how much of that time?” Whoops. That didn’t come out quite how I meant it to, but I don’t backtrack. I really want to know the answer.
“We became, ah, involved, about a year and a half ago.”
Nope, I lied. I didn’t want to know.
“Involved,” I repeat. “That’s a nice euphemism.”
“Don’t,” Colin says a little sharply. “Don’t pretend that you and I have a real marriage and that we haven’t had an agreement since the very beginning.”
“I wasn’t!” I say. “I know we never promised fidelity in this whole arrangement. But I don’t understand why you wouldn’t have just told me that you’re engaged. Isn’t that sort of a crucial detail in your life? In our life, since—like it or not—you’re stuck with me in a big way for two more months.”
He sighs and drops his head forward, and in spite of myself, I feel almost bad for him, especially when he lifts his head and looks a little … lost.
“Honestly? I didn’t know for certain that I was engaged.”
“That’s …” Huh? I search for words. “That’s definitely not what I expected you to say.”
“I know. None of this is expected.” He crisscrosses his fingers and looks at the floor.
When he lifts his head, he looks calmer. Slightly.
“Rebecca’s known about the arrangement between you and me from the beginning. After we became … close, I told her the full story. About my green card, about your inheritance, everything. I wanted—needed—her to understand why she and I needed to be discreet. She was fine with it. Things were fine. Until a couple of months ago.”
“What changed?” My reigning theory is possession by a dark spirit, though evil twin body swap is also a contender.
“Her birthday. She turned thirty.”
Ah. I hate to have anything in common with her, but I have to admit I sort of understand. I’d be lying if I didn’t have some pretty intense my eggs are rotting and my life has been a total waste moments when I came up on my thirtieth.
Many of those thoughts, interestingly enough, had to do with this man here, and the worry that I’d given the prime of my life to a man I didn’t even know at the expense of finding The One.
But at least Colin and I, on some level, can take some accountability for our situation. We got ourselves into this mess when we said our vows and again when we signed that damn prenup without reading it carefully.
Poor Rebecca—yeah, I hear it, and I can’t believe I’m saying it either. She simply made the mistake of falling in love with an Irish guy, and not at the time in his life when he’d been hard up for a green card.
“Let me guess,” I say with a small smile. “Rebecca’s biological clock started ticking louder, and with it her marriage timetable?”
“That about sums it up. She told me I could marry her, or she’d find someone who could.”
“Whoa,” I say, my sympathy for Rebecca evaporating. “She gave you an ultimatum.”
“Come on,” he says, giving me a look. “You can’t blame her. In a year and a half, I couldn’t even take her on a proper date. Any time we went to a restaurant, we had to pretend we were colleagues.”
“Yes, I’m sure everyone bought that.” I don’t even try to hide my sarcasm.
“Look,” he snaps. “I tried. I’ve been trying to do right by her, and by you—”
“By me! You’ve treated me like a pesky fly since I walked into the apartment, and you didn’t even tell me the entire situation!”
“You’re right,” he says, digging his hands through his hair. “But it’s like I said, I haven’t known where she and I stand. She barely speaks to me at work unless she has to.”
“What changed? How’d she go from ‘put your babies in me’ to not speaking?”