Darcy’s referring to Alex Walsh, the photographer she was forced to work with when her boss decided on a whim to buy an art gallery and exhibit his work. She told us all how much she hated him every chance she got, only it turned out she’d been carrying a secret torch for him since they’d shared an incredible kiss in high school—a kiss she’d never been able to forget.
“But you did like Alex, Darce. You secretly lurved him,” Sophie teases as she hugs and kisses an invisible man.
Darcy crosses her arms defensively. “Yeah, well, this is different. Alex and I had history. Erin and Nick Zachary do not.”
“Who knows? Maybe he’ll turn out to be a really great guy,” Sophie offers. “You never know who you’ll end up falling for.”
Sophie may have dated a few frogs before she found her prince, but she knows what she’s talking about. Her boyfriend is living proof of finding a guy where you’d least expect to, and these days she is one loved-up woman.
I bristle at the suggestion. “I can tell you both something right now: there is no way on this sweet Earth I will fall for Nick Zachary.”
“Why does this guy even have to have a fake girlfriend?” Darcy asks.
“How can you not know?” Sophie says. “Have you been living under a very large, very heavy rock, girl? He’s been in the news lately. A lot.”
Darcy shrugs. “I don’t have a rugby-mad boyfriend.”
“Sophie’s right. Most people in the country know about Nick Zachary’s recent incidents. He’s gone from being this guy everyone thought was a decent, straight-up sort of person to being labelled the Wild Boy of Rugby. It is not going down well with Bennett Motors.”
“He’s also called Naughty Nick and Rugby’s Unruly Rebel,” Sophie adds, counting the titles off on her fingers. “Basically, the media’s given him a bunch of predictable and alliterative titles.”
Darcy tilts her head and asks, “Why you?”
“Because I’m an ‘ordinary girl,’” I say using air quotes, “which basically means I’m nothing special.”
“No way, babe! That’s ridiculous. You’re gorgeous and fabulous, right, Soph?” Darcy says.
Sophie gives a vigorous head nod. “Totally.”
Darcy shakes her head. “This, after that funeral disaster date.”
I roll my eyes. “Thank you for the reminder.”
“Oh, forget about it,” Sophie says with a wave of her hand. “Tonight we are going to sing as many ABBA songs as your vocal cords can manage. We’ll show them you’re not some ‘ordinary’ girl.”
The three of us adore ABBA. From their fun, lighthearted disco hits through to their soulful ballads, not a Saturday at Jojo’s goes by without us belting out at least one of their songs. Like my love of designing and sewing clothes, Mom introduced me to ABBA’s music when I was a kid.
A smile bursts out across my face. Forget Nick Zachary and the Hawks, forget grief-stricken guys at supermarkets parading as normal, happy people, forget funeral-inappropriate Adele lyrics. My friends are the best, and I love them for it. “Thanks, you two.”
“How long do you have to fake date him?” Darcy asks.
“My bosses said we would only need to do it for a maximum of two months.”
Sophie lets out a low whistle. “That’s a long time.”
“No, it’s not. It’s fine,” I reply, more to convince myself than anyone else.
“What’s in it for you?” Darcy asks.
“Well,” I begin, excitement bubbling up inside me, “we’re going to get a bunch of media attention, right? That’s the whole point of this. So, I’m going to wear my designs every time we’re seen together and make sure the media knows I’m the one who designed them. That way, I can launch a new career in fashion design.” I beam at my friends in anticipation. After the scary Bennett Motors men had left, Ed took me aside and reiterated that they could find a string of more than willing “ordinary” girls to take my place. Aside from the compliment (ordinary? Thank you so much), I know enough about how the world works to know that being the girlfriend of a famous sports star like Nick Zachary—fake or otherwise—can open a bunch of doors for me. He’s headline news right now, so I’m guaranteed to get seen. I could finally leave my sensible job and pursue my passion of becoming a fashion designer.
Sophie claps her hands together. “Brilliant!”
“Such a good idea, babe,” Darcy says.
I bend over in a bow. “Thank you, ladies.”
Darcy grins at me. “Girl, it’s a win-win.”
“Exactly. All I’ve got to do is pretend to like the guy until this whole thing settles down, and meanwhile my new career as a fashion designer will begin.”
“This calls for a bottle of Jojo’s finest cheap fake champagne,” Darcy declares.
“To go with Erin’s fake date,” Sophie adds.
My grin blows up into a fully formed smile. “And my new career.”
With Darcy at the bar, Sophie asks, “When do you start your relationship with the totally hot Mr. Zachary?”
“He’s not that hot, you know. Not in person.”
She raises her eyebrows at me. “Oh, come on. The man’s a god. A rugby god at that in a country obsessed with rugby, no less.” She gets a faraway look in her eye when she says, “He’s got the whole sporty good looks thing going on combined with that bad boy image of his. Really, he’s irresistible to women.”
That darn billboard of Nick with his shirt off flashes before my eyes. “Well, I know one thing for sure. I will have no trouble resisting him.”
“Maybe now,” she leads.
The enormity of what I’ve signed up for fills my brain. I’ll have to spend a serious amount of time with an arrogant, self-interested jock, the kind of guy I cannot stand. But I’m not going to let my dislike of the guy get between me and my fashion goal. No way. “It’ll be fine, and it’s only until the bosses at Bennett Motors are happy he’s back on track.”
"What happened in his life to change him?"
I shrug. “Who knows? All I care about is getting my designs out there.”
Sophie grins at me. “I can see it now: Erin Andrews, fashion designer to the country’s elite.” Her face changes when she adds, “Just be careful, okay?”
“What could possibly go wrong?” I say with a shrug. “And that’s a rhetorical question, before you go throwing disaster scenarios at me.”
“When’s the first public outing?”
“In a couple weeks at the new season Kickoff Party.”
“You’ve got two weeks left of singledom.”
Darcy arrives back at the table, balancing a bottle of sparkling wine and three glasses. “Guess who’s on their way?” she asks as she places them on our table.
“Who?” I ask.
“The guys,” Darcy replies with an excited smile, referring to her boyfriend, Alex, and Sophie’s boyfriend, Jason. “They’ve been at that new superhero movie, and they missed us.”
“The Jason-Alex bromance continues, huh?” I say as I pour the wine into the glasses. The two guys have been as thick as thieves since they met back when all three of us decided to form the No More Bad Dates Pact. Jason may have been initially suspicious about good-looking Alex’s intentions toward Sophie, but once he found out they were cousins, the two of them became great friends.
“Oh, yeah. Sometimes I wonder whether Alex only dates me because we hang out with Jas and Soph so much,” Darcy says.
I shake my head at her. “It’s not that he’s crazy in love with you or anything like that.”
Her face is aglow. “No, of course not.”
“With the guys turning up, I guess once again I’m the sad sack without a date,” I say with a sigh.
“Girl, you’re about to become the envy of every woman in the country. I wouldn’t feel too sorry for yourself,” Sophie says.
“That does not count, and you know it.” I take a sip of my wine. “But really, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for the No More Bad Dates Pact to
work for me. Look at you two. I can’t even get a date. Well, not one that’s either fake or takes me to his girlfriend’s funeral.” I try to keep the self-pity from my voice, but I know I fail miserably. Because you know what? My BFFs are both in love. When is it going to be my turn?
“If the bar is really so low that you’ll date anyone who doesn’t take you to his girlfriend’s funeral or only pretends to be your boyfriend, you’ll have no problem finding a guy,” Darcy says with a laugh. She takes in the look on my face and adds, “Sorry, Erin. Too soon?”
“Waaay too soon.” I shake my head. “I know I said I was never going to do this, but I’ve started to wonder if I should try online dating.”
Sophie bounces up and down in her seat, clapping like an excited toddler promised ice cream. “Let me do your profile, okay? I’ll write you something amazing, and the guys will come from far and wide.” Sophie is nothing if not optimistic.
I screw up my face. “You make me sound like the Pied Piper.”
“That would make the guys rats,” Darcy comments.
“An appropriate metaphor, don’t you think?” I reply.
Sophie reaches out her hand, palm up. “Hand over your phone.”
“You’re going to do it now?”
“There’s no time like the present.”
I pull my phone out of my purse and pass it to her. “Just don’t make anything go live until I’ve given it my seal of approval. Promise?”
Sophie’s already feverishly tapping things into my phone as she replies, “Sure.”
Darcy reaches across and places her hand on top of Sophie’s, who looks up at her. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“What?” Sophie asks.
“Erin is about to be seen publicly with one of New Zealand’s most recognizable sports stars,” Darcy says.
“So?”
“So, she can’t go dating other guys while she’s doing that, and she definitely can’t have an online dating profile. Not if this is meant to seem real.”
Ever the pragmatist, Darcy is the Queen of Logic in our trio of friends. Ordinarily, I appreciate her for it. Now? I wish she wasn’t right, even though I know in my heart she is.
“Oh,” Sophie says as she turns my phone over and places it on the table.
I let out a defeated puff of air. “So that’s it. My dating life is dead in the water until further notice.” I slump in my chair.
Without even the possibility of a date on the horizon, fake dating Nick Zachary just got a whole lot worse.
Chapter 4
It’s Monday morning, and I’m back in the conference room at the Hawks offices with Ed and a smug-looking Nick Zachary. Although what he’s got to feel smug about is beyond me. Despite my new career aspirations, I’m quite certain he wants to fake date me as much as I do him.
We’re sitting at the large, glossy wood table, watching a girl from PR present a strategy for Nick’s and my fake relationship. But by the way she’s flirting with Nick and throwing daggers at me, I’m quite certain she would swap places with me in a heartbeat.
“So, Miranda, what have you come up with for these guys?” Ed asks the tall, slim, blonde girl from the PR department who has never deigned to speak to me, let alone put together a plan for my fake relationship with a rugby hero.
“Well, Ed, my feeling is that we want to take this slowly but carefully. We want the whole thing to be perfectly choreographed so that it’s not only convincing but aspirational too.”
I blink at her. “You want our fake relationship to be aspirational?”
“Well, yes,” she replies as though I’m an imbecile, asking a question as obvious as “Do we have noses for smelling stuff?” or “Do people wear shoes on their feet or their elbows?”
I glance at smug Nick. He’s still leaning back in his chair, an ankle crossed over one of his knees, looking completely unbothered by any of this.
He slides his eyes to mine, and he catches me looking.
I look away immediately.
“We can be aspirational. Right, Erin?” he says.
I turn to him and raise my eyebrows. “Do you know what being an ‘aspirational’ couple means? Because I’m not so sure I do.”
He gives a nonchalant shrug, his lips curved in a hint of a smile, his eyes lit with mischief. “Well, I know what ‘aspirational’ means, so I guess that makes one of us knows what we’re doing.”
My jaw drops open. Is he really mocking me? In front of my boss? “Oh, I know what ‘aspirational’ means, too, thank you very much. I’m just not sure how we’re going be it as a fake couple.”
“For starters, you’re going to look amazing together,” Miranda replies. “Which won’t be hard for you, Nick,” she simpers as she bats her eyelashes at him.
Oh, puh-lease.
Nick smiles back at her. She’s totally his type, and I’m totally not.
“And you, Erin, look exactly the way we want you to look. We want you to be an approachable, relatable, everyday kind of girl. And you’re pulling that off perfectly already.” Miranda smiles condescendingly at me.
“Thank you,” I say through gritted teeth, pretending it’s a compliment when I know it’s so not.
“The aim of this entire plan is to show the world that Nick is not the man he’s portrayed to be in the media. That he can date, well, someone like you,” Miranda continues.
Could this Glamazon get any more patronizing from up there at the top of her high heels?
“I think what Miranda is trying to say, Erin, is that when people see you two together, they’ll realize that there’s more to Nick than he’s been showing the media lately,” Ed explains, ever the sweet, fatherly type he is.
“Exactly. He may have been dating girls who look like, well, me, if I may, Nick,” Miranda says as she throws him another one of her smiles. He returns it once more, which makes my eyes do a full-circle roll. “With you on his arm, the public will see he’s more than just gorgeous girls and parties. He has a heart.” She places her hand over her own for emphasis, if indeed there is even one in her chest. “He can fall for, well, you.”
I glower at her. It’s safe to say Miranda Allen is off my non-existent Christmas card list now (because, really, this is the twenty-first century, and I think other than Grannie and my great aunt Grace, who make a huge song and dance about how difficult it is to write their mountain of cards each year, no one sends Christmas cards anymore).
Nick clears his throat. He’s barely suppressing a laugh, his eyes dancing again.
I shoot him a withering look and turn back to Miranda. “Shall we move on with the plan?” I say through gritted teeth.
“Yes, let’s do that, Miranda. Excellent idea, Erin.” Ed beams at me encouragingly.
“Of course,” she says. “As you know, we’re due to launch you as a couple next Friday night at the new season Kickoff Party. Before then, we need you two to be seen in a few places. Cafés, walking along the beach, that kind of thing. Low-key, casual. The optics will be fantastic. You could start today.”
Wait, what?
“No time like the present, right, Miranda?” Ed says cheerfully, and I blink at him.
Now? Today? I am so not ready for this.
“I’ll arrange for some of my people to take some candid snaps of you looking happy together, and we’ll get them up on social media,” Miranda says brightly.
“Not the Hawks’ accounts, though,” Ed says.
“Oh, no, of course not,” she says with a shake of her head. “I’ll feed them to some influencers. They’ll get the message out about Nick’s new relationship fast.”
“I can do beaches and cafés,” Nick says as he stretches even further back in his seat and laces his fingers behind his head. “You up for it this afternoon, Erin?”
“No!” I say with a little too much gusto. I bring it down a notch from white hot panic to only mild concern. “It’s just that I’m really, really busy with work right now.”
Ed’s bushy salt-and-pep
per eyebrows ping up to meet his non-existent hairline. “You are?”
“I’ve got my monthly report to prepare, which is due in…three weeks,” I say.
Ed smiles at me indulgently. “Erin, I’m quite certain you’re capable of writing your monthly report in less than three weeks. If you have any other commitments, I can find someone else to cover for you. This is important.”
“Well, there’s—” I rack my brain for another excuse, but all I come up with is, “—all that filing I need to get done.”
“Filing?” Nick says with a chortle. “Wow, you really don’t want to go out with me this afternoon, do you?”
“That’s not true,” I reply, although it is. “I’m just a little taken aback it’s all happening so fast, that’s all.”
“No time like the present,” Miranda quips.
My mind whirs as I try to think of another excuse. Sick grandmother? Sudden migraine that’s going to last for several weeks? Invasion by Australia?
I slump in my chair. I got nothing.
“That settles it then. Nick and Erin will be spotted doing everyday types of things today,” Ed announces.
“Like grocery shopping, picking up the dry cleaning, that sort of thing?” Nick asks.
“Maybe a little more glamorous than that,” Miranda replies with a giggle. A giggle, really? “Erin? What do you like to do on weekends?”
“Oh, well, I go to this fantastic karaoke bar with my girl—”
“No freaking way,” Nick interrupts with a shake of his head. “I am not going to some karaoke bar. If I want to hear songs being sung badly, I can get that in the locker room.”
“We don’t sing badly,” I protest, and then I think of Sophie Howler Monkey McCarthy and add, “well, most of us, anyway.”
“It’s clear karaoke is off the agenda then,” Miranda says. “What else do you like to do?”
“Well, one of my BFFs works at a high tea place, and I like to visit her there and eat all the delicious food,” I say, referring to Sophie. She’s worked at Cozy Cottage High Tea for a while now and loves her job, despite her family putting pressure on her to “do something important.” I mean, what can be more important than cake? (Okay, I know a lot of things can be more important than cake, but it’s easily in my top ten. I’m nothing if not a committed cake-aholic.)
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