The Wedding Hoax

by Heather Thurmeier

  “It is a business relationship,” Daisy said with conviction.

  Tonya nodded and wandered toward the door. “Are you trying to convince me or yourself? I don’t think either of us are buying it.”

  Daisy didn’t say anything as Tonya left for the night. Instead she focused on her design concept for the newest dress in her more affordable line. But with every stroke of her pencil, her mind grew cloudier. Was it still just a business agreement between her and Cole?

  Lying beside him in the dark each night, waking to him each morning, it didn’t feel like a business deal. It felt like a relationship.

  The thought of walking down the aisle to find him waiting for her made her heart race. In a couple of months, that day would come. Was she ready to go through with everything and pretend to say “I do?” Was she ready for her engagement to Cole to end?

  The idea of waking up alone in her little apartment again in a couple of short months from now made her ache in a way she hadn’t since Cole had broken her heart the first time. She’d sworn to herself that she wouldn’t face the same fate again, but did she really have a choice at this point?

  Every time she woke up to his arms around her, spooning her, she fell for him a little bit harder. Another couple months of that, and she’d be a total goner. Didn’t seem to matter that she didn’t want to be in love with him. Her heart had other plans. And now she was stuck in a relationship she couldn’t get out of before it was too late. By the time she could walk away from Cole, she already knew she wouldn’t want to.

  In short, she was screwed no matter how she looked at it.

  “Hi, Daisy.”

  Daisy shrieked and whirled around on her stool, grasping her pencil in her fist like a weapon. Troy stood in the doorway with bags in his hands. Her grip on her pencil relaxed along with her shoulders. “Troy. What are you doing here?” Apparently Tonya needed a refresher on closing procedure since she’d obviously forgotten to lock the front door.

  He smiled and stepped forward, holding out a bag. “I noticed how much you and Cole are both working lately, and I know I’m overstaying my welcome in the apartment, so I thought I’d try to be helpful and bring you both dinner. I already stopped by Cole’s office on the way over here.”

  She accepted the offering of nourishment, suddenly feeling starved since she’d forgotten to eat lunch and was currently surviving on a diet of lattes and squares of dark chocolate. “Thanks. This is really nice of you.”

  She scolded herself for having made Troy out to be some suspicious bad guy. Bad guys didn’t go out of their way to do nice things. All of his questions about their relationship weren’t invasive or accusatory. They were simply a future brother-in-law learning more about his future sister-in-law.

  “I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I grabbed a little variety.” He sipped on the coffee he’d brought for himself.

  The scent of fresh roasted turkey and cheddar cheese wafted up from the package as she unwrapped the sandwich, potato salad, and a fruit cup. “It looks delicious. Thanks so much.”

  “Listen, I hope I’m not getting in the way of your time with Cole. It must suck to have to miss out on your own engagement because of having to work so much.”

  She took a bite of the potato salad. The cold, creamy texture was pure comfort food and exactly what she needed to revive her for the late shift. “It’s not ideal, but we’re both very busy, and the work needs to get done. Things will settle down after the wedding. I’m sure we’ll get to spend more time together then.”

  She dug into her sandwich, chewing slowly to buy more time before having to talk more. True, Troy was getting in the way of their alone time, but that was a good thing really.

  “You’re welcome to stay as long as you need to,” she said after swallowing.

  “Thanks. Hopefully I’ll be able to go back to my own place soon.”

  She ate for a few minutes, chatting easily with Troy about silly little things: the weather, the latest sports news, and celebrity gossip. On the whole, it was probably the best conversation she’d ever had with Troy. He was easy to talk to.

  “I’m stuffed,” she said, pushing away her food.

  “How was the potato salad? I haven’t had it from that deli before, but I thought it looked good.”

  “It was excellent. Want to try it?” she asked, motioning to the dish.

  He reached across the table for the container. As if in slow motion, Daisy saw him grab the container, lift it, then proceed to drop it in her lap. She yelped as it splattered onto her shirt and pants.

  “Shit. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened. It just slipped out of my hands.” He stood at the table and handed her a stack of napkins. She used them to collect the chunks of potato from her clothes, but the rest needed water.

  “I’ll be right back.” She left him to clean up the mess on the table and floor and headed for the bathroom. Water did little to clean her clothes, but she did the best she could with paper towels and the air dryer. Five minutes later, she emerged from the bathroom mostly clean but smelling like a picnic gone wrong.

  As she walked back into the workroom, Troy walked out of her office, gently closing the door behind him. She frowned, annoyed that he wouldn’t think twice about going into her private office.

  “What were you doing in there?” she questioned.

  He turned, looking a little like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming semitrailer. “I was looking for a towel or something.”

  “Nope. I don’t keep towels in the office since I don’t usually need them.”

  “I should go,” he said, grabbing his coffee and turning toward the door.

  “That’s probably a good idea. I really need to get this stuff finished for the night. Thanks for bringing me dinner. It was really nice of you.”

  “Yeah, sure. Before I forget, I found this in the guest bedroom, and I thought it must be yours.” Troy opened his hand revealing her locket on a silver chain. “At least I thought it was yours. Doesn’t seem like Cole’s style.”

  “Thanks,” she said, swallowing the lump of worry in her throat. There was something about the way he looked at her that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. “It must have fallen off when I was in there…cleaning. I-I thought the latch was coming loose but forgot to check.”

  He nodded and handed her the locket. “I regularly find things in the nightstand drawer that I lost while cleaning. Weird.”

  “Yep. Weird.” Daisy said, shoving the locket into her pocket. “I’ll see you back at the apartment later. Or tomorrow. Or whenever.”

  He gave her one more evaluating look before he disappeared through the door without another word.

  Daisy followed his path a moment later, making sure the door was solidly locked before returning to her table. It was nice of Troy to bring her dinner, but something about his visit seemed off. More than anything, Daisy wanted to believe Troy was trying to be a great brother-in-law by keeping her fed, but she couldn’t stop the tingle of unease creeping along her spine in his presence.

  …

  The newest article for Exclusively Yours lay on the boardroom table. He’d painstakingly gone over every single aspect of the spread, from the font size and style to the lighting adjustments needed on the photos. This one would be perfect. It had to be.

  Lately it seemed like no matter how hard Cole tried, he kept failing to make solid decisions about how he wanted these last few articles to appear in the magazine. Every time he almost had it, thoughts of Daisy would distract him. As good as things were going with the magazine and subscriptions, it was terrible trying to work with only half of his brain available.

  He’d been working later and later each night as stress to get this issue done and out the door mounted, which also meant he’d been seeing less of Daisy. That hadn’t helped with his distraction at all. Instead, he’d found himself constantly wondering what she was up to, how her boutique was doing, and whether or not she was struggling with their upcom
ing nuptials. At the start of every day, he woke to find Daisy cuddled in his arms with no recollection of how she got there but enjoying it nonetheless. Every night he climbed into bed beside her only to find her already asleep and finding himself wishing she wasn’t. He missed talking to her. Missed hearing the attitude in her voice when he said the wrong thing and annoyed her. He missed the sexiness in her eyes when she flirted with him.

  He’d shut himself away in the boardroom at eight that evening after everyone else had gone home. It was a last-ditch attempt to focus on the layout long enough to make the final decisions. He figured without the distraction of staff around him, he’d be able to give into his thoughts of Daisy, work through them, and then finally move on. So far it wasn’t working.

  But with every detail he approved, the pit in his stomach grew.

  He was getting married. To Daisy. Soon.

  There was a time, not so long ago, when even the mere mention of a wedding or any commitment was enough to give him heart palpitations. But recently he’d noticed that thinking about Daisy and the wedding didn’t make him want to flee to a foreign country to get away as much as it used to.

  He outlined the bouquet pictured on the bottom left of the page—a mixture of roses and peonies wrapped in lace with trailing ribbon streamers. Not at all Daisy’s style. Yet that’s what she’d picked for their wedding. She’d picked it from a book of examples at the florist after less than five minutes of looking. But when they’d wandered out of the shop, she’d stopped to smell the orchids, her fingers gently caressing the delicate petals.

  He’d taken her to dinner for her birthday the year they’d been together, and the restaurant had been filled with orchids of every color. Mixed with the candlelight on each table and the soft ambient music, and it had been a night out of a movie. She hadn’t been able to stop talking about it for weeks.

  He smiled at the memory of tucking an orchid into her hair behind her ear as they made their way out of the restaurant that night. Later they’d barely made it to her bed before the orchid was on the floor with the rest of their clothes. It was the first time he’d been with her when it had felt like something more than sex.

  But that was a long time ago, and he didn’t feel that way anymore.

  “Nice to see you looking so happy and content, Son.” His father’s voice echoed in the quiet room, interrupting Cole’s thoughts. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that look in your eyes before.”

  “Hi, Dad. What are you doing here?” Cole couldn’t help but feel a little suspicious at the motive behind his father’s unexpected visit.

  “Just came to see how you’re doing. Heard you’d been keeping late nights at the office.” His father joined him at the table and leaned over the magazine layout, evaluating it. “Now I see why. Eventually this wedding madness will end.”

  “Yep. Not long now.” Cole felt his throat get tight at the thought of his impending wedding drawing ever nearer. It would all be over and done with soon. His time with Daisy would be done with soon, too. The finality of their agreement made his chest ache. Six months had sounded like eternity when he’d signed those contracts. Now it felt like a second. “So what can I do for you today, Dad?”

  “I read the quarterly report, and I liked what I saw. I thought for sure it was headed down the shitter, but somehow you’ve managed to turn it all around. I didn’t think you could do it, but you have. So far at least.”

  “Thanks, I think,” he muttered quietly in utter shock. Was that a compliment?

  “Now if only you would end this marriage mistake before you make it. Maybe I would actually be able to believe you could make sound decisions and trust you with a bigger magazine.”

  “Are you giving me an ultimatum?” Surely he’d heard his father wrong. The guy was against marriage, but he wouldn’t take things that far, would he?

  “Ultimatum is a loaded word. This is more as a show of good faith that you know what it takes to make sound business decisions.”

  “How well I run my magazine has nothing to do with my feelings for Daisy.” He didn’t even know what his feelings for her were, so how could they possibly affect his work? One minute he was sort of looking forward to the fake wedding, then the next he was dreading her leaving him when the arrangement was over. What the hell did that mean?

  “Promise me you won’t make the same mistake I made. Secure your financial future, and if the girl wants to hang around for a while, fine, but for God’s sake, don’t make it permanent.”

  His frustration skyrocketed. Being pushed around and strong-armed by his father all the time was really getting old. “And what if I do make it permanent? What then?”

  His father sighed. “Then I’ll have to assume my lessons over the years fell on deaf ears. I’m not sure I can count on someone who doesn’t listen to the wisdom they’re given.” He patted him on the shoulder and headed for the door. “Get your head out of your ass and do what’s right for the magazine, for our family.”

  “What if I find a way to be successful at both?” Cole offered, feeling desperate.

  “If you’re stupid enough to go through with this mistake, I’ll give you one month to prove me wrong. But while you’re on your honeymoon, you should probably polish your résumé while you work on your tan. I can’t float dead weight for long.”

  Even if he wanted to do what his dad suggested and back out of the wedding, he couldn’t.

  Soon Daisy would walk down the aisle in a dress she didn’t really want to wear, holding flowers she couldn’t stand, to say vows she had no intention of keeping. Then they’d both collect their checks from Mason and walk away from each other, no worse for wear and a hell of a lot richer, just as they’d planned.

  That would secure his future, wouldn’t it?

  Regardless of what happened between him and his father, Daisy was leaving him soon, and he was supposed to be happy about it. But he wasn’t so sure that’s how he felt anymore.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Daisy stood before the full-length mirror not believing her own reflection. A bride.

  But not a real bride. No, Daisy was about as far from a real bride as she could possibly be. She was a symbol of marriage, but she certainly wasn’t a real bride.

  A real bride was happy on her wedding day. A real bride spent hours fretting over every little decision from the flowers to the dress to the favors and the food. Daisy had spent minutes simply picking whatever option went best with the color scheme Mason had said was the most popular in the online poll. A real bride walked down the aisle to the man of her dreams waiting for her. She was not a real bride in any of those ways.

  Except maybe that last one.

  But only if she wanted to admit it to herself, which she didn’t. She wouldn’t allow herself to entertain the notion that Cole was the love of her life.

  Because he wasn’t. She couldn’t let him be.

  Sure, she’d realized her feelings for Cole were stronger, deeper than she’d thought when they went to see her mom. And sure, she did love him. But was he actually the love of her life, the man of her dreams, the only one she wanted to spend her life with? The man she wanted to build a future with, start a family with?

  She bit back the tears stinging her eyes. She wouldn’t ruin her makeup over him.

  It didn’t matter what she felt for him now. The deal was done, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  She’d watched helplessly as he’d been distracted and stressed at work as the wedding day neared. If she hadn’t been sure of his feelings for her before—or lack of feelings, more accurately—this last month had made them crystal clear. Work was his focus, not her.

  That was the only future Cole wanted.

  He didn’t love her. He couldn’t wait for their wedding hoax to finally be over so he could go back to his real life.

  The last couple of months, he had left for work early each day, stayed late each night. The only time he’d shown her any affection was when his brother was around,
turning it on and off like a damn light switch. Daisy’s switch had been flipped so many times recently, she feared her bulb would burst at any moment. She just prayed it wouldn’t be during the ceremony or reception.

  “You ready?” Tonya asked, adjusting Daisy’s veil.

  “As ready as I’m going to be.” Daisy squared her shoulders. Today would undoubtedly be one of the longest of her life. Not only did she have to pull off the wedding they’d been working toward for so long, she also had to say “I do” to Cole. Her Cole.

  And then she’d have to say “good-bye” to Cole. Her Cole.

  A lump formed in her throat, and she blinked away the tears pooling in her eyes. Luckily, anyone who saw her cry today would believe they were tears of happiness. No one would ever know it was actually her heart breaking. Again.

  “Hey now.” Tonya hugged her tightly. “What’s going on with you? You should be thrilled that this is almost done. That you almost have your life back, right?”

  Daisy nodded and dabbed at her tears, unable to form words with the pain weighing on her chest. She couldn’t meet Tonya’s eyes. She’d see the truth and Daisy wasn’t ready to share the truth with anyone yet. She could barely face it herself.

  “You don’t want this to be over, do you?” Tonya asked, gently.

  She should have known her friend would figure it out. Daisy shook her head once.

  “You’ve fallen for him again, haven’t you?”

  She nodded and bit her lip, the taste of lip gloss hitting her tongue.

  “Stop biting your lip. Now’s not the time to ruin your makeup.” Tonya applied a new coating of lip gloss, fixed her veil one more time, and handed her a tissue. “Listen to me. Remember why you did this to begin with. It wasn’t to marry Cole for real. He’s a bachelor. You know he’ll never settle down with one woman. He’ll never want a family like you do. And you don’t need him anyway. This was a business arrangement and nothing more. You’re feeling caught up in all this wedding stuff as much as any bride would be. But you’re not any bride. You’re a smart, savvy businesswoman, and no one, not even Cole, is going to take that away from you. Got it?”