by J. Saman
“I’m scared too,” I admit. “I haven’t cared for anyone in a very long time and the last time I did, it nearly ruined me. I swore it was not something I would ever do again. But I can’t help it with you, and I know you’re the same way with me. Being afraid of this only means it’s real. This is real, Amelia. You and me.”
She puffs out a breath, her body trembling. “I know it is. I feel that too. It’s just…”
“Do you like me?”
She snorts. “Are you twelve?”
“That’s when I first noticed you, so maybe. You’re wearing something fake on your finger and I decided I wanted to give you something real. Something that shows you, that tells you, this thing between us is real. Even if the engagement isn’t. So again, when was the last time someone bought you something just for you? Something special. And I’m not talking about what Layla gets you for your birthday or Christmas. It’s not the same and you know it.”
She swallows impossibly hard, her eyes glittering at me. She takes a hesitant step in my direction. “I don’t know,” she says, her voice cracking.
“Yes, you do.”
“Fine. Never.”
I nod. “Exactly.” I take a step toward her, then another, until I’m standing right before her. “I liked buying you this. In fact, you need to start getting used to that now. I plan on spoiling you rotten, baby.”
She hiccups out a sob, her forehead falling to my chest. I breathe in her scent, and just like every time I’m with her, something within me clicks into place.
“I’m crazy about you. You can’t break my heart. I won’t survive it. You’re so you and I’m still me and I…”
“I won’t break your heart,” I promise her. “And I’m crazy about you too.”
“We have so much to figure out, Oliver. We’re in a real mess of a situation.”
“Do you want to stop?” I ask, my stomach churning at the thought.
“No,” she says quickly, her eyes desperately catching on mine though her voice skips. “No. I don’t. But I don’t see how this ends in anything but disaster.”
“We won’t let it,” I tell her, hoping to hell that’s a promise I can keep when I’m not sure it is.
My lips fall to the top of her forehead as I loop the necklace around her throat, fastening it behind her neck. I release it and she peers up at me through her lashes as my fingers find the diamond now nestled against her suprasternal notch. It sparkles and I smile, feeling so fucking gratified and complete.
“We have two more months to figure this thing out,” I tell her. “Until then, let’s promise each other something. We stop overthinking. We stop overanalyzing. We stop sabotaging this before we even get started. We’ll just take this day by day, moment by moment. Okay? We’ll take the hurdles as they come. Together.”
“Okay. I can try. I’m not very good at that. At this.”
I kiss her. I kiss her hard. Holding on tight. Then I take her down to the blanket and together, we sip champagne. She tells me more about her mom. About how she used to come here with her and how this is the place she still comes when she needs to feel her mother’s presence.
I hold her while she talks. While she cries about her mom—something I haven’t seen her do yet. While she absently plays with the necklace. I hold her and we drink champagne and eventually pick at some of the things in the basket. We stay here for hours, just talking, just staring at the beautiful courtyard we’re in all alone. Our private oasis.
“I love the necklace,” she finally says. “It’s my heart on a chain.”
Fuck. Now my heart is there with hers. “It’s my heart too. For you.”
She sighs, her ear against my chest. Against my pounding heart. Something her hand meets, feeling, testing. Another sigh and she says, “I’ll always keep it safe.”
I know now I never want this to end.
We’ve only been together a couple of weeks and I already know that.
Live in the moment, I remind myself. Day by day, I force through my skull that’s pounding with thoughts I can’t allow to escape. But Amelia is right. We are in a real mess, and this could very well end in disaster. Amelia is different. She. Is. Different. Dammit, she has to be.
I want us to have a real shot at this when a real shot feels nothing short of impossible for us.
For the first time since this whole thing began, I wish I had never put my ring on her finger. Because then I wouldn’t be so scared of this ending and me losing her when all I’m trying to do is keep her for real.
24
AMELIA
It’s one of those picture-perfect spring days that, at present, is making me want to throw up. Oliver and I were forced here today like it’s a prison sentence. Pictures. So, so many pictures. And questions. So, so many questions, most of them very personal.
So, this picture-perfect day is like mother nature flipping us off while cackling.
Bouquets of fragrant flowers in pink, purple, yellow, and red line the paths of the Boston Public Garden. The trees surrounding the pond are the most perfect shade of green. The sky a cloudless blue. The swan boats majestically circumventing the pond are loaded with locals and tourists alike.
And then there’s us.
Stuck taking part in an exposé on our fake engagement.
I pushed back hard against this. The magazine had called me personally no less than five times. More with Oliver and eventually the relentless bastards got his mother involved and here we are.
It’s been four weeks since Octavia’s surgery. Three weeks since she started chemo.
She’s been sick. Feeling the full effects of the treatment. Her hair is gone. Her appetite dwindling. So, for now, there is no saying no to her. There is only making her happy when she feels nothing short of miserable. After all, she is the main reason we’re doing these shenanigans in the first place. Something that is growing more and more confusing and complicated as time goes by.
And now I sound like I’m Sam from Casablanca, but you get what I’m saying there.
It’s no secret Oliver and I are very much together.
We’re as out with our relationship as two people who are dating can be.
Only, we’re not just dating, and this isn’t any ordinary new relationship.
After the night at the museum, things changed for us. We said day by day and moment to moment, but it was like the second he put that diamond on my neck—which I never ever take off—there was no going back. No slowing it down.
We spend as much time together as possible. Sleep at his place most nights since his apartment is closer to Layla’s school than ours, and let’s be real here, the man’s place is a mansion in a building with concierge service. Layla has her own bedroom and bathroom and occasionally Stella comes over and the girls have sleepovers.
We’re the definition of a new couple tumbling fast into serious-town complete with the hot sex and romantic dates. If this were a rom-com, we would have officially hit the music montage of our story.
But it’s not a fucking rom-com.
This is real life, and Oliver and I can only be described as a fledgling romance. How does that work when you’re also selling a lie that you’re engaged? What happens when we decide it’s time to call off the engagement side of things? Does our relationship go with it? Or do we say, hey, guess what, we like each other and want to keep dating, we just don’t want to be engaged anymore? Impossible, right?
But it’s more than that.
Being with Oliver is more than that.
It’s like he took the shell I had been hiding in all these years and not only cracked it open but shattered it. He’s brought me back to life. A life I’m not sure I ever lived until I met him. A life filled with beautiful, wonderful things.
The best of which is him.
I can be myself with him. He sees me for exactly who and what I am, and he actually likes what he sees. Nerdy glasses, crazy red hair, weird Red Sox outfits and insane superstitions, single parent, broke—well, he doesn�
�t know the extent of that and that’s how I intend to keep it. But I’m falling. I’ve fallen. And I have no idea what to do about it.
Especially the deeper this engagement goes.
First step is engagement photos and articles in major publications. The next is an engagement party—we’re fighting that one tooth and nail. Then there’s, you know, actually planning the fucking wedding. Something Octavia keeps asking us to start doing. Something I absolutely cannot under any circumstances allow to happen.
This was supposed to be a three-month business arrangement and only six weeks into it we’re already setting so many fires I have no idea how we’ll ever put them out.
The one bright shiny silver lining to all this, other than how amazing Oliver is to go out with, is that Layla got into Wilchester’s honor’s program, not just the school, which we already knew she was accepted into with her full scholarship. Oh, and Sagginalls has completely backed off. He’s now the model of professionalism.
It’s what I cling to in moments like these.
“Yes, that’s perfect,” the photography director says. “Oliver, keep your hand on her back like that and stare into her eyes. Amelia, tilt your head back just a touch. I want the sunlight to catch your hair. That’s it. Beautiful.” Click, click, click. “After this, will take some more on the bridge and then down by the pond. Oh, maybe some on one of the swan boats.”
“Orgasms,” I grumble through closed teeth so only Oliver can hear, making sure I maintain my smile. “You owe me lots and lots of orgasms.”
He grins wider, a Cheshire Cat leaning in and breaking the pose so his lips can skim my ear. “Whatever my fiancée wants, my fiancée gets. Can we play doctor tonight? I’m dying to give this body a full exam.” His hand covertly skims the side of my breast and my breath hitches, a fresh blush springing to my cheeks.
“Oh, Yes. I think we have to. I haven’t been very good to my body, Doctor. I need you to examine me closely.”
Click, click, click.
I groan. Moment over.
“Tell us how your family took the engagement, Oliver,” the interviewer asks, tablet and stylus at the ready. “After all, you and Amelia hadn’t been dating very long when you popped the question.”
Well, that’s loaded. Thankfully Oliver takes it in stride.
“They love, Amelia. From the moment I introduced her to them, they were even more enamored than I was. They were overjoyed when I told them I proposed.”
“Liar,” I hiss.
He whispers in my ear, “Do you know what’s getting my dick hard right now? Making you come with the vibrator I just purchased for you.”
“You what?”
“You walked into this park in this dress, and I just knew I had to fuck you in it. Lift it up over your ass and sink inside you while taking your new toy against your clit. The second this bullshit is done, I plan on taking you home, slipping you out of these pretty flowers you’re wearing, and then seeing how many times I can make you scream.”
“Oh, god,” I moan against him.
“Such a greedy little girl, Amelia. A naughty woman who needs her doctor to give her a full exam.”
Dying. I’m dying. Oliver Fritz is impossibly dirty, and it seems I can’t get enough of it.
“Amelia, are you okay? You’re all red?” the journalist asks.
“And wet,” Oliver rasps in my ear. “I’d bet my inheritance your pussy is wetter than sin, just waiting for me to dirty it up.”
“I’m fine,” I reply. I’m not fine. I’m nowhere close to fine. I elbow Oliver in the side, making him chuckle. Bastard knew exactly what he was doing with all that. “Just. You know. Allergies?” Yes, that comes out as a question.
“Oh, so sorry to hear that,” the photography director says. “Then maybe let’s move closer to the pond and finish this up?”
“Works for me,” the journalist states, scrolling through her tablet, presumably reading over her notes as we walk down in the direction of the large pond that spans this corner of the park between Arlington and Boylston.
“Oh look,” I remark, walking to the edge of the pond and peering in at the mass of twigs, branches, and debris. “Is that a nest?”
“I think so,” Oliver says. “They do have swans here.”
“Cool. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a swan’s nest.”
“Just be careful. You don’t want to fall in.”
“Ha!” I laugh. “I’m not that clumsy.” But I do take a step closer because I think those are eggs in there.
Squawk! A loud sound to my right startles me so bad, I nearly do fall in the pond. I turn in time to see a very angry swan, her long white neck angled in my direction, her black beady eyes narrowed. Squawk! She honks at me again, only this time louder, and I take a step back because though swans are beautiful, they’re notoriously mean.
“I’m sorry. I’m not going near your nest. I was just looking.” I hold my hands up in surrender, taking another step away.
Squawk!
“Oh boy, you really pissed Mama Swan off now,” Oliver muses, coming to me, his hand outstretched like he’s about to grab me and pull me to safety when the swan yells at him as if to say, back off, pal, this one is mine. “Damn, you seriously made her mad. Come here, Amelia. Slowly though, I think.”
“I’m trying,” I tell him out of the corner of my mouth, hoping she doesn’t hear me and catch on to what I’m planning.
A few more loud squawks with every step back I take, but the more I retreat, the more she advances, waddling her ass back and forth, until she lunges for me like she’s going to try and beak me to death.
“Ah!” I scream, jumping out of the way just in time. I turn and take off running. “I said I was sorry!” I call over my shoulder, only the damn swan is chasing me now, up away from the edge of the pond and back over toward the bridge. “What are you doing? I was an ugly duckling just like you once. We’re kindred spirits. Stop chasing me!”
Oliver is in stitches with laughter, practically doubled over and splinting his side. The photographer—along with plenty of bystanders—are taking pictures and likely videos and yet this damn swan is still in hot pursuit, yelling swan profanities at me as she picks up speed.
“Very heroic, Oliver!”
“Hey, didn’t you tell Layla that a princess has to save herself?”
I did, didn’t I? Crap.
I leap over a small bed of flowering bushes, landing not so gracefully all the while the swan just plows through them. “What do I do?”
“Try reasoning with her,” Oliver suggests, and now the reporter and the photographer can no longer hold back their own laughter.
I circle back around a tree, heading in the direction of Oliver and her nest, hoping she’ll return there if we get close enough. Unfortunately, my heeled foot hits a patch of soft earth and I go slipping and sliding, my arms flailing, before falling back onto my ass into something soft and cold and wet.
The swan sees this as her moment and goes to strike. I toss my arms over my head, letting out a scream, but just as she springs, Oliver picks her up from behind, walking her back to the water, and gently tossing her in the direction of the nest.
“Alright, you’ve had your fun,” he says to her. “Go back to your babies, they’re getting cold without your ass on them.”
Speaking of asses, I have a very bad feeling mine is covered in mud. Unfolding myself, I try to stand, only to slip some more and quickly give up. “Ugh.”
Oliver, the valiant hero who looks a little too pleased with himself, saunters in my direction. “I don’t know what your problem is with her. She listened to me.”
I glance around him and find the swan back on her nest. “The only thing to make this better would be if a bird pooped on my head.”
“Isn’t that considered good luck?” the journalist asks.
“How is anything pooping on you ever good luck?” I retort and she shrugs like she’s actually considering that.
Oliver crouches down in
front of me, using the hem of his shirt to wipe at something on my face. His smile is so big and so bright it could light up the darkest of skies.
“You okay?”
“Grand.” Only I’m laughing now too because I was just chased by a swan in the middle of a photo shoot about my fake engagement. If that isn’t the most ridiculous thing ever, I don’t know what is.
He leans in, kissing my lips and that’s when we hear more click, click, clicks going off.
“Did you get it?” Oliver practically growls in annoyance. I don’t even hear what they’re saying. He drags me up by the arm, checking me over. “You’re a mess. Let’s get you home.”
He glances over at the photographer, director, and journalist. “The interview is over,” he announces.
We thank them and then get the hell out of the park, running down the street, my dirty dress and crazy hair flying behind me. “I can see the headlines now; Fritz’s fiancée gets taken down by swan.”
“Too boring. They’ll come up with something much better than that.”
“Lovely,” I deadpan. “I definitely need a shower, some clean clothes, and a large glass of wine.”
“Done. Oh, and did I mention the vibrator I bought for you is waterproof?”
“No. But you’ll have to show me.”
25
OLIVER
We’re not even three seconds into my building’s elevator and I’m lifting up the hem of her dirty dress, peeling back layers of tulle to find her panties. To say I’m insatiable when it comes to Amelia is an understatement. It’s so much more than I can’t get enough of her. It’s a visceral craving so deep-seated I know in my gut there will be no limit or end.
Never in my life have I felt comfortable letting my hunger out.
With Nora, I was too young. She was the only girl I had ever been with.
With the subsequent women, well, they were fillers. Temporary placeholders. Fluff I never trusted nor dared to let my guard down with.