Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 89238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Gage: Let’s call it a Special Edition Engagement. Same rules?
Elodie: Same, sad rules. But alas, they’re for our own good.
She’s right there too. It’s a bad idea to mess around with your business partner, especially when you already like her. Keeping this attraction on ice is the wise thing to do. It’s the adult decision. The mature choice.
Gage: They are. By the way, what was your idea?
Elodie: Same as yours.
Gage: Kismet.
The real kismet comes when I go back inside to email Felix and see how his other meetings went, and he tells me the place is ours if we want it.
I say yes so fast. When I tell Grams the details as I clean the kitchen, she says, “That cocktail ring she wears might fool a man, but I knew it was costume jewelry when I saw her at the bar. She needs a real ring.”
“Yeah. She will. What’ll that set me back?”
Her eyes flicker with mischief. “It’s free.”
14
THE HAPPY COUPLE
Elodie
There’s a slight October breeze. The morning’s a little warm and a little chilly at the same time. That’s the Bay Area for you. I’m standing on the Embarcadero in Rincon Park, the bay glittering to the right, the Bay Bridge behind us.
Next to us is none other than one of the most social media-worthy sites in the city—Cupid’s Span, a sculpture of a partial bow and a piece of an arrow. Late last night, Gage asked me to meet him here before work and to wear my favorite color. He said his grandmother wants to take pics of the happy couple.
Right now, my temporary fiancé is about thirty feet away, chatting on the phone, his back to me. I kind of want him to turn around, but he’s been busy since I arrived a few minutes ago.
But Margo’s here, decked out in khakis and a lavender oxford cloth shirt, looking grandma chic and no-nonsense as she peers at my outfit. I’m dressed in one of my favorite dresses. Yellow with white polka dots and a halter top that ties at the neck. I have a matching little white sweater on. Well, they did say they wanted photos.
“Just fluff your hair up a little bit right there,” Margo tells me.
I flick the ends.
“Perfect.”
Margo steps away, phone in hand, then stops in her tracks and swivels around. “Wait, doll. Your lipstick needs a touch-up.”
I click open my purse, check my reflection in my phone, and slick some more on, so my lips are nice and cherry red.
“Perfect. Be sure to smack a big kiss on his cheek at just the right moment,” she says then winks and steps back.
“Easy enough,” I say.
Don’t think about how tempted you were when Gage first kissed your cheek on that date.
As I tuck the silver tube back in my purse, Gage turns around, then heads toward me, striding across the grass. The only info he gave me about today was to look fantastic, but that won’t be hard because you always do. Now, I’m waiting for my temporary fiancé to, I don’t know, sweep me into his arms and plant a sailor’s kiss on me.
A girl can dream.
In jeans and a trim black shirt that shows off his ink, the man is hot in a bad boy is a daddy kind of way. Is that a thing? If not, it should be. When he reaches me, his lips crook up. “Elodie, yesterday you said there’s this new thing called being half engaged,” he says, skipping small talk and diving straight in.
I’m all ears, especially since his tone is serious. “I did.”
“But if we’re doing this, we’re going to be all-the-way engaged,” he says with new passion in his tone. “No otherwise, no partial, no halfway about it.”
Out of nowhere, he drops down to one knee. I gasp. My hand flies to my chest. My heart is beating so fast.
He reaches for my other hand. I’m shaking.
“Ever since I met you at the bar, I’ve been captivated by you. You came in and all I could think about was when you would show up again. I knew I had to ask you out. I had to see you,” he says, and that feels all true. “And when you accidentally sent me those love poems, it was like a sign.”
Oddly enough, that feels true, too, even though it’s not. But the way he gazes at me with utter adoration makes my heart stutter. I’m only vaguely aware that from ten feet away his grandmother is taking pictures of us.
“It was a sign for you to ask me out,” I whisper, as if talking louder could break this magic spell.
“I’m so glad I did. Because these last two months with you have been fantastic,” he says.
Wow. He’s doing all the work, crafting the backstory of this fake romance, and I am here for his effort.