Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 85608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
I had no more expertise in this than an oncologist had in a face lift. And still, I was mad that I’d put myself in this position.
I wanted to avoid the reality of my father’s cancer nearly as much as what had happened last night with Gavin.
Did this mean we were dating? A spike of fear shot through me. I’d told him the truth. I broke relationships, and if we had a real relationship, whether or not the marriage would be real, I was sure I’d hurt him. Of course, he thought the same thing. So, we were at an impasse there.
It was all too complicated to focus on. Last night felt like a fever dream. None of it could have possibly been real. Let alone all of it.
And yet here I was, in Gavin’s apartment, with two missed calls from my mom and a text message from my dad about meeting. It was real. I wasn’t going to wake up to a new world. This was my reality.
“Morning,” Gavin said, jolting me from my spiraling.
“Hey.”
I might have been depressed, but I wasn’t blind. Gavin was wearing nothing but a towel slung low around his waist, and he looked fucking fantastic. Water still clung to his red-brown hair. It dripped into his eyes, and he brushed his hand back through it, slicking it backward.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
I tilted my head to get a clearer view of the eight-pack abs. “Better now.”
He laughed softly. “At least you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”
“Please, humor is all I have left.”
Then, I snatched up his towel and ran across the room with it. Gavin’s jaw dropped, and without warning, he chased after me. There was nowhere to go anyway, but he caught me with ease, slinging me over his shoulder and plopping us both on the bed.
“You’re mischief incarnate.”
“Why, thank you,” I said with a teasing smile.
He shook his head and then dropped his lips onto mine. The moment they touched mine, the rest of the world fell away. It would have been nice to live here in this point of time. To not have to face what was coming after that. I could delude myself about a lot of things, but not that my dad was dying. No amount of freezing time was going to change that fact.
Gavin pulled away slowly, looking down at me with those mercurial eyes. “How are you really?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you still want to go through with this?”
“Do you?”
“Yes,” he said automatically.
I still couldn’t believe that Gavin was suggesting what he’d suggested. A fake engagement for a week to deal with his family was one thing. A real marriage to satisfy my father was something else entirely. We could annul it or whatever … divorce. But he’d taken it a step further. He wanted to try this. Actually try this. Might as well see if it worked while we were going through with it anyway.
Yet, as I looked up at him, I saw a future in those eyes. I saw all those promises we hadn’t quite made become reality. Would it be so terrible? It was certainly terrifying.
But there was something else there. Something … exciting too.
We were getting married one way or another.
Why not see if I could fall in love with him too?
“Then, let’s do it.”
His smile was brilliant as he bent down to kiss me again, sealing our promise.
It was nearly an hour before I got back to my apartment, took my own shower, and was ready for the day. We met my parents at H&H Bagels and broke the news to them. My mom cried. My dad pulled me into a tight hug. This was a big ask, and I had no idea how I was going to pull this off in two months, in New York City.
Back home, we could throw it together, but here?
I knew exactly who I needed to make this work. Now that the train was running down the track, there was no backing out. The engagement ring was on my finger. I was going to have to tell my boss, my friends, and the rest of the world too.
Which meant I needed help.
The SOS went out to my girlfriends that morning, and by the evening, we were all seated around a table at Katherine’s favorite sushi restaurant with sake for the four of us.
“Finally,” English grumbled. “I was wondering if you were going to avoid us forever.”
Lark arched an eyebrow. “So, are we going to get the whole story?”
“You know we do love a Whitley Bowen original,” Katherine purred. Her eyes were as clever as a cat. As if she’d already sussed out what this whole thing was about. Which felt impossible, but it was Katherine. I put nothing past her.
“I didn’t mean to avoid you. It’s been an interesting couple of days since I got home, which was why I wanted to get with you.”