She looks taken aback. Her hand flies to her chest as her eyebrows jump up. Her mouth opens and then closes again, and I immediately regret my outburst.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“No, you’re right,” she says, a little bit more softly. “I’m just… I’m just surprised is all. I didn’t even know you had a boyfriend.”
She frowns and I turn back toward the kitchen to make some coffee. When the machine starts gurgling, I take a deep breath and face her again. She looks concerned. Her eyebrows are drawn together and her lips are pinched so tight that they’re just a thin white line across her face.
“Is this what you want?” She asks. I can hear the pain in her voice.
I hesitate. I could tell her the truth, but where would that get me? She’d never take the money if she knew what I was doing for it, and then this whole thing would be for nothing. And plus, the more people know the truth, the more likely it is that someone will find out, and then, once again, the whole thing would be for nothing.
So I don’t tell her the truth. Instead, I try to smile.
“Yeah, it is what I want.”
It should feel wrong, saying that. It should feel like I’m lying to my mother and lying to myself. But maybe the most surprising thing of the past week is that it doesn’t feel wrong. When I say that I want this, it feels like I’m telling the truth.
And that scares me more than anything.
21
Max
Naomi’s face is plastered all over the newspaper. She looks gorgeous, obviously, but that’s not the point. She shouldn’t be on the newspaper in the first place. None of us should! Why do people care about my engagement anyway? This stinks of a set-up. The photos look almost staged. How would reporters have known we were at the restaurant last night?
“Did you orchestrate that article?” I ask, reading the headline over and over.
I hear my mother sigh through the phone.
“Max,” she starts.
“Did you?”
“You know how the press are.”
“You’re not answering the question.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to tell me if you set this up!” My voice is getting louder, and I pace back and forth in my living room. “Naomi and I were blindsided!”
“I don’t see what the big deal is,” she huffs. “You’d have to announce it sometime.”
“Yes, Mom,” I say, pinching the bridge of my nose. “We would have to announce it. On our terms. Not have it spilled all over the tabloids like this.”
“It’s hardly a tabloid.”
“Mom—”
“Well, it’s done now. Everyone knows. I’m already fielding phone calls from everyone. I’ve got a PI looking into her background. To be honest, that would have been better to get done before the article came out, but that’s okay.”
“You’ve got what?!”
Fuck.
“Well, Max, you didn’t think we’d let you marry just anyone without looking into her, would you?”
“I do not want you to investigate my fiancée!”
“Max, be reasonable.”
I feel like a cartoon character with steam blowing out of my ears. My face feels red and hot. This is infuriating. I take a deep, shaky breath and try to keep my voice steady.
“Mom, stop. I do not want you to put a private investigator on my fiancée! This isn’t about you! This is my life!”
“Oh, grow up, Max,” my mom says, finally losing the mask of benevolence that she wears so well. “Of course this is about us. Who do you think will inherit the company? Who do you think will be representing us from now on? And I know you spoke to your father about your new position! So how could we not investigate her! We’re just looking for skeletons in the closet, Max. If she has nothing to hide, she has nothing to worry about.”
She’s not the one with something to hide. What if they find the contract? What if they find out about the engagement?
“It’s wrong, Mom.”
“Well, it’s too late. The PI is already on it.”
“Call him off!”
“No.”
The word feels like a door slamming in my face. I sink down in a chair, dropping my head in my hand. I hang up the phone and take a deep breath.
What am I going to do? If I fight this too much, she’ll know something is up. I can’t come clean now, because then they would definitely cut me off and fire me, not to mention how they would treat Naomi. All I can do is hope for the best and tell Naomi that we need to be extra careful.
I just need a couple of weeks. Once this acquisition goes through, we can split amicably and I’ll already have the new job. Naomi will get her money and hopefully her mother will recover. My parents will leave her alone, and they’ll have no choice but to keep me as the head of the new division.
All I need is time.
But with a PI snooping around Naomi, how much time do I really have?
What is he going to find?
I brush the thought off as soon as it enters my head. Of course he won’t find anything—Naomi is as straight-laced as they get. Maybe something will turn up about her mother—Naomi said she was a hippie, after all, and that would be exactly the kind of thing my parents would be looking for.
But it doesn’t matter.
I’m not marrying her mother, I’m marrying her.
I tap my phone until Naomi’s name comes up, and my hand hovers over the keys. Should I tell her about the private investigator?
My heart starts thumping and my eyebrows draw together. I should tell her. I should be open with her. But what if that spooks her? What if she backs out now that she knows how serious my parents are?
The PI won’t find anything, so it’s not a problem. He’ll hand my parents a generic report about her college life, her criminal record or lack thereof, and then the report will go in the bottom of a drawer, never to be looked at again.
Telling Naomi about the PI would only worry her more. She’s got enough on her plate between my parents, her mom, and pretending to be engaged to me. When she called me about the news article, she seemed upset. She doesn’t need anything else to worry about. It’ll only upset her more.
My parents are overbearing and intrusive, but knowing just how intrusive they are might be too much for her to handle.
I click my phone’s screen off and slide it back in my pocket.
Once the decision is made, it’s easy to rationalize it to myself. I stand up, grabbing my keys and heading out the door. I dial Naomi’s number on the way out.
“My mom set up the photo shoot outside the restaurant,” I tell her, closing my apartment door.
“What?!”
“I know,” I say as my chest squeezes. “I’m sorry.”
“You really need to stop apologizing for things your parents do.”
“Sor—I mean, you’re right.”
Naomi chuckles, and then sighs. I imagine her biting her lip and staring off out the window. Maybe she’s scratching the back of her head like she does when she’s deep in thought.
“Oh well, it’s done now. My mom knows about the engagement.”
My jaw drops slightly as I press the elevator button. “Oh. How… is she okay with it? Does she know, or she just knows?”
“She doesn’t know. If you know what I mean.” Naomi laughs. “She thinks it’s real. She’s getting her head around it.”
“What did you tell her.”
“I told her that I wanted to marry you.”
And do you?
The question jumps to the tip of my tongue just as the elevator dings open. “I’m about to get in an elevator, I’ll call you later.”
“Alright. We got any other public appearances coming up?” I can hear the grin in her voice.
“Not that I know of,” I chuckle. “I’ll try to get a heads up if that ever happens again.”
“Thanks.”
The elevator beeps as I hold the door
open, and I let the words tumble out of my mouth. “You wanna hang out sometime? I mean like, dinner? Friday?”
“Your parents want to grill me some more?”
The elevator is beeping constantly now, with the doors banging on my arm as they try to close. “No, just me and you. As an apology for yesterday.”
Naomi sighs. There’s a pause, and then she chuckles. “What the hell, sure. Friday it is.”
“I’ll pick you up at your place.”
I finally drop my arm and let the doors close. I can’t keep the smile off my face. I’m going on a date with my fiancée.
22
Naomi
The questions are incessant. At work, Julia is wide-eyed. When, how, where did my engagement happen? I cringe, hating the lies that I have to tell.
I definitely didn’t think this through.
Somehow, I thought that this engagement thing would just be an easy pay check for me. I thought I’d agree to it, meet his parents, and get paid.
That hasn’t exactly happened. I’ve gotten paid—at least that’s gone to plan. Max is prompt. The transfer came through the day after the news story about our engagement. But other than that, it’s been anything but easy.
We’ve been ‘engaged’ for less than a week and there’s already been two news articles about us, two evenings with his parents, and now my mother and my boss are asking all kinds of questions.
At least Meg and Ariana know the truth. I don’t think I’d be able to manage lying to them.
“You didn’t notice anything between them?” Meg says when Julia stares at me. “They’ve been flirting for weeks!”
“Right, okay,” Julia says. “But flirting isn’t exactly the same things as getting engaged!”
“It’s happened pretty quickly. I didn’t think it would be so public.”
“Naomi, this is highly unprofessional!”
“I’m sorry.”
Julia stares at me, and then glances at Meg. She shakes her head. “I just don’t… when… how…”. She frowns, and my heart thumps.
Is she going to fire me?
Finally, she just looks at her own engagement ring and takes a deep breath. “I’d better be invited to your wedding.”
Meg winks at me and puts her arm around Julia. “Of course you’ll be invited to her wedding. Think of all the hot, single, rich bachelors that will be there!”
“I’ll be married by then, Meg,” Julia says, wiggling the fingers of her left hand at in front of her face. “You literally just went to my bachelorette party.”
“I know,” Meg laughs, leading her away from me. “But a girl can look, can’t she?”
She glances over her shoulder and I mouth the words ‘thank you’. Looks like I won’t get fired after all. It’s a good thing Julia is in the middle of her own wedding craze, otherwise she might be less forgiving.
Clients ask me about it, and my mother calls me again in the evening to make sure I’m okay. The stress is building inside me, and I find myself looking forward to Friday.
To my next fake date with my fake fiancé, although it doesn’t feel as fake as I thought it would. The more I tell people that we’re engaged, and that I’m happy, the more it feels real.
“Do you love him?” My mother asks over the phone. I’m glad she’s not standing in front of me, because my eyes widen and my jaw drops. My mouth goes dry.
I clear my throat.
“Obviously, Mom, come on.” I bluff. “I gotta go anyways. When is your next doctor’s appointment? I want to come with you.”
She takes the bait, changing the subject and I breathe a bit easier. When I get off the phone to her, I call her bank and arrange a payment for her mortgage. I’ll pay off the missed payments and the next six months-worth of mortgage payments, and then I’ll give her enough for the first six months of her treatments. That should take the pressure off, and she can focus on getting better.
By the time I’ve transferred the money to the bank and transferred money for my mother’s treatment, more than half of the engagement money is gone. I take a deep breath, hanging up the phone and dropping my head in my hands.
The reality of our situation comes rushing back to me.
It might be difficult. It might be public, and it might be uncomfortable, but it’s necessary. There’s no way I could afford almost two hundred thousand dollars out of pocket, just for my mom’s mortgage and the first six months of her treatments. Who knows how much ongoing treatment will cost after she goes through the original chemotherapy and radiation? If she needs to have an operation, how much does that cost? And if anything goes wrong?
My mind starts doing circles around me. I take a deep breath, closing my eyes and letting the tears gather behind my eyelids.
I shouldn’t panic. We have money now—we have a buffer. She’s out of trouble for the moment, and she can focus on getting better.
I jump when my phone rings. “Mom,” I say. “What’s going on, is everything okay?” We’d just hung up less than an hour ago.
“Did you pay off my mortgage and deposit money into my account? I just got the notification from my bank.”
“I told you I would help you, Mom.”
“Take it back.”
“What?!”
“I will not have you putting yourself into debt for me. Take it back and return it to whoever you borrowed it from.”
“I didn’t borrow it, Mom.”
“So where did you get it?!”
“I’ve… I’ve been saving,” I lie. I cringe.
“You’ve saved almost two hundred thousand dollars?!”
“I…”
“You should be buying a house or something! Not wasting it on me!”
“It’s not wasting it, Mom.”
“Does this have anything to do with that engagement of yours? Is he buying you?!”
That one hurt, because that exact thought has crossed my mind. My mother is way too smart.
“No! Mom! Please, just focus on getting better. I’ve been working as a physio for almost a decade! Is it that impossible that I would be saving? What does it matter how I got the money?”
“It matters because that kind of money doesn’t just fall from the sky, Naomi. I will not let you put yourself in trouble for me. I’ll manage, one way or another. Mrs. Yates just told me she’d let me pick up hours at the hotel to clean, and…”
“What, after your chemo appointments? You’ll just go straight from the hospital to the hotel? Come on, Mom.” I hear a deep, raking breath, and I soften my voice. “Let me help you.”
“You remind me so much of your father sometimes.”
My heart starts thumping. She never talks about my dad.
“What? Why? I thought he left you before I was born.”
“He did, honey. But he’s the type of man that would do things on impulse without thinking of the consequences. Good and bad things. It’s part of the reason he was so attractive, and part of the reason he was so successful. It’s also why he left us.”
My throat tightens. This is the most I’ve heard her talk about him, ever. I don’t even know his name.
“Who is he, Mom?”
A sob sounds over the phone and my chest squeezes. My heart is thumping, and I feel like I need to know. I’ve had this hole in my past for so long, this question mark that never went away, and now, with one simple name, my mom could change it all.
“Mom?”
“Just forget about it, Naomi. He’s no good.”
“Why don’t you let me decide that? Don’t you think I deserve to know?”
“It’s better this way. Why would you want to know the man who left us?”
My heart shatters all over again. It’s the same pain as when I was a little girl who didn’t understand why I didn’t have a daddy. It’s the same pain of watching my friends hug their fathers and knowing I’d never feel that. It’s the same pain I saw in my mother’s eyes every time I asked.
And that pain silences me now. With everything
going on, it just doesn’t seem like the right time. I’m not sure I can handle another shock. But is there ever a right time for this kind of thing?
I sigh.
“Okay, Mom. I love you.”
“Love you too, honey.”
I hang up the phone and clutch it to my chest, closing my eyes and breathing deeply. Questions swirl around my mind about my past, my mother, my father, about Max, and the cancer. I wonder if anything I’m doing is right, or if it’ll all blow up in my face.
Then, my phone buzzes with a picture from Max. I open it up, and see the top of a wine bottle. Max is holding the corkscrew above it, grinning at me.
Feeling fancy.
Tears cloud my vision and I cry for a few moments, staring at his goofy face as emotions jostle inside my heart. I shouldn’t like him as much as I do, but I can’t help it. Before I can answer, another message comes through.
Wish you were here to enjoy it with me.
My heart melts, and I type out an answer before I have time to think of the consequences.
Me too xx
I press send and my heart does cartwheels. I shouldn’t be getting closer to him. I know that, but right now, it’s the only thing that feels good.
23
Max
When Naomi answers the door, I push a bouquet of flowers toward her.
“These are for you,” I say. A smile lights up her face and she takes the bundle of flowers, shoving her nose into it and inhaling.
“They’re gorgeous, Max,” she smiles. “Thank you. No one’s ever gotten me flowers for a date before.” She nods toward the door. “Want to come up while I put these in some water?”
“Sure.”
My heart hammers while we go back up the creaky stairs to her apartment. The wallpaper is peeling along the stairway, and there’s a faint smell of mildew, but apart from that the building looks clean. Naomi unlocks two deadbolts and opens the door to a tiny one-bedroom apartment.
The furniture is cramped, and there’s not much room to move between the living room and the tiny kitchen, but I can see Naomi’s touch everywhere. There are pictures of her and her mother, her friends, posters of anatomy and textbooks about physical therapy. There’s a yoga mat laid out next to the couch, and a screen with a laptop hooked up to it.
Mr. Right: The Complete Fake Engagement Series Page 10