“I’ll order for you, shall I?”

Portia’s icy, condescending voice froze the air it passed through and pierced my head like a lance. I suppressed my wince and nodded.

The hangover had been almost gone by the time I got to the address Portia had apparently texted me at 11:45 am—too late for me to have made it on time anyway, so I was feeling slightly less guilty about that, but no less apprehensive—but one look at her narrowed blue eyes and somehow, that headache was right back where it had started.

With a power like that, she should really consider becoming a super-villain.

She already had the whole super-villain look down too; a pale silver circlet holding back her pulled-tight bun, a glimmering shawl of finely spun angora like a cape over her tight steel grey dress. She formed an interesting comparison/contrast to the glittering interior of Cask of Amontillado, a restaurant that looked like someone had turned King Midas loose and told him that for every item he turned to gold, he’d receive a complementary steak dinner with a glass of the famous house red.

There were gold columns, gold tablecloths, gold uniforms for the waiters. The guests weren’t literally wearing gold—other than their designer watches and tennis bracelets, of course—but between the designer labels and obviously hand-tailored tuxedos and gowns, it probably would have been cheaper for all of them to have worn suits and dresses stitched out of hundred dollar bills and garnished in diamonds.

…and somehow I had thought I would be able to squeak by with an orange satin-polyester blend sundress?

Damn, but I had to stop accepting invitations from rich people without checking the dress code first.

Portia surveyed me over the sugar-crusted edge of her glass of pomegranate juice, and then turned to our waiter and declared, “The spring salad for both of us, Jacques. Do make sure you use the French shallots this time. And lightly on the dressing, Miss Newman certainly can’t afford any extra calories.”

She smiled in a way that was less like a human smile than a tiger baring its fangs.

“If I’m going to have to put a wedding photo on my mantel I certainly don’t want to have to look at a walrus stuffed into tulle. And there’s simply nothing more embarrassing than fixing ripped stitches for someone minutes before they walk up the aisle; no one’s ever fooled. Have you booked the fittings yet?”

“No,” I said, not sure I could trust myself to utter words longer than one syllable without them turning into ‘No, you unbelievable bitch, please go find some flying monkeys and a girl with a bucket of soapy water to melt you into a puddle of glop, please.’

Portia whipped out her day planner.. “For flowers you’ll need something traditional and classy,” she began, flipping through the day planner and speaking more to its meticulously notated pages than to me.

“Actually, I—”

“We’ll get Silverstein Floral, of course—but you wouldn’t know them, completely out of your price range. Now, venues: the Fairmont is a reliable choice, if a bit predictable; the Presidio or the Jardiniere might be a more original choice. It must look as if Grant is putting some effort into this.”

“Look, you don’t have to go to all this trouble,” I interrupted, stung by the way she had said that last sentence, as if Grant had picked me out of the top of a dumpster on his way for coffee. “It’s—” I waffled for a second, uncertain if I should tell. But if I couldn’t trust Grant’s godmother to keep this secret, who could I trust? “It’s not a, a real wedding. It doesn’t have to be fancy. It’s just a business arrangement.”

“Well, of course it’s a business arrangement, you bargain-basement strumpet,” Portia said without looking up from her day planner, where she was circling some venue names and crossing out others. “Are all whores as naïve as you these days, or were you dropped on your head multiple times as a child?”

She flipped a page, and began neatly printing another list of place names. Meanwhile, my blood came to a nice, roiling boil. Portia didn’t seem to notice.

“Given your entire lack of looks, skills, or suitable connections it was completely obvious that your nuptials were the final ingredient in some harebrained business deal cooked up by Grant in a last-ditch attempt to save the company from his own irresponsibility.”

All that bitchiness and brains, too. Apparently I’d had it wrong before. Portia already was a super-villain. She crossed out a name on the list with particular vehemence, as if she were trying to stab it.

“But just because you’re more suited to a marriage with a divorced ex-con on unemployment benefits, that’s no excuse for getting married in a courthouse like an uninspired civil servant with something to hide.”

“But if it’s not real, why does anything about the ceremony matter?” I protested. “We’ll be just as legally married no matter what we do. I still don’t see why there has to be a big fuss.”

“Of course you don’t,” Portia muttered, almost to herself. Then to me: “If Grant had allowed me to find him a suitable girl with beauty, class, and education, and they had actually fallen in love, and they were actually spending a life together, this is the wedding they would have. And everybody who is anybody in this city knows that.

“Now, if you want your little business deal to fall through, by all means, go get married in a Quik-N-EZ marriage chapel in Las Vegas next to a streetwalker and a cheap magician. But if you want Jedediah Jennings to actually believe in your little charade—frankly, the whole thing reminds me of nothing more than a slapstick vaudeville routine—your wedding must be up to Devlin standards.”

Portia gave me a look that suggested—no, that proclaimed from the mountaintops—that when it came to Devlin standards, I was so far below them I couldn’t even see their fossil records.

“It’s a proud name, Devlin. Grant is a direct ancestor of O’Develin Gofraidh, who fought valiantly in the Battle of Downpatrick. Their family tree claims nobles, epic poets, great political leaders.”

“Well, mine might only claim farmers, architects, and bank tellers,” I said, “but here in America we don’t believe in surfing on the glory of our ancestors. We make our own names.”

“What an inspiring speech,” Portia said. “Did you memorize that for your fourth grade civics class?”

She took a long drink of pomegranate juice, staining her lips red as blood.

“If Grant’s parents were alive, they would explain to you exactly how mistaken you are. This was all their job, shepherding Grant and keeping him safe, but—” for a moment I thought I spied an actual human emotion flitting across her face, her lips pressing together tightly, her eyes glistening in the light…and then boom, it was gone. “It’s my job to see that you live up to the expectations the world holds of the name Devlin. Even if only on the surface. That’s all anyone ever sees, you know.”

There was almost a tone of wistfulness in her voice at that last sentence, but then it hardened again.

“It’s a pity you have such an unappealing one. It makes my job of spin-doctoring your little charade so much more difficult.”

I wanted to slap her. I wanted to grab her pomegranate juice and throw it in her face. I wanted to leap up and yell to the whole room what a complete bitch she was, and storm out.

And I couldn’t do a single one of those things.

Because then, I would have proven her exactly right about how low-class I was. Because then, I would have alienated someone who knew my secret and who was motivated to protect Grant, but not me. Because then, there would be no one to help plan this wedding for me, and my own attempts at fancy wedding planning would fail spectacularly, and maybe so would the deal with Jennings.

Because Grant was counting on me to make nice and help him save the company, and I couldn’t let him down.

So I just sat there, feeling incredibly crappy. How had I not realized what I was getting into? Was there any way to escape? Was there anybody who could rescue me?

“My two favorite ladies!”

And then Grant appeared like a Prince Charming with an Aussie accent, a sexy five o’clock shadow, and mud on his thousand dollar hiking boots.

“Grant, dear, where have you been?” Portia said. “You’re tracking mud absolutely everywhere.”

“That would be telling,” he said with a grin, swooping in to kiss my cheek and then trying to give Portia a hug.

Portia fended him off with an icy glare and he just laughed, stepping back and going on: “And you know I can’t let you get a single hint of your birthday surprise. Mind like a steel trap and the determination of a bloodhound.”

I noticed that he forgot to mention the bloodthirstiness of a great white shark, but in the interest of keeping the peace I decided to let this glaring omission pass.

Meanwhile, Portia was once again displaying a level of human emotion that for most people would probably have come off as ‘very little emotion’ but for her was the visual equivalent of a passionate outburst: her lips twitched upward slightly, and the faintest blush colored her cheeks. “Flatterer.”

“Ah, you’ve caught me,” he said, pulling up a chair to sit next to her. “I should have known better than to try to sneak one past you! I’ve only been buttering you up to convince you to let me borrow Lacey and visit your tailor; he would have so many good ideas for outfits more appropriate to her new station.”

New station? I was going to take Grant to a new station and push him in front of a train at that new station if he joined the Bully Lacey For Not Having Any Money party.

Portia appeared torn between her desire to agree that I needed new clothing, her desire to deny me things, and her desire to appease Grant.

Grant took advantage of her struggle to press home his argument:

“You’ll do all of this so much better without us getting under your feet anyway,” he said, rising with a quick peck of a kiss to her cheek. “What was that you always said to me when I was growing up? ‘If I wanted a shaggy ragamuffin underfoot upsetting my plans, I’d have gotten a puppy, so go ask your grandfather if he needs any help.’”

He smiled in fond recollection; I internally raised an eyebrow that he could smile in fond recollection at what was seemed to be basically a fancy way of saying ‘you’re an annoying little brat; fuck off into the sun.’

“You always took such good care of me. I always know I can count on you.”

Portia dithered, at least as much as an iceberg can dither. “Well—”

“Thanks, Portia! You’re a doll!” Grant grabbed my hand and swept me off my feet, simultaneously kissing Portia on the cheek again. “We’ll see you later!”

And we were out the door and into the bright sunshine before she could say another word, and I was almost dizzy with delight. Grant’s car might not have been a pumpkin carriage, but I could not have been happier to get away from his godmother.

* * *

We were at the Japanese tea garden of the Golden Gate Park, gently sculpted bonsai trees scattered artistically amidst elegant shrubs, bright pink blossoms, burbling brooks, simple yet striking bridges, and resplendent pagodas. It was almost deserted, everyone else seemingly still at their indoor lunches as we walked through greenery so carefully cultivated it almost seemed to be a temple. It was a beautiful yet strangely still place to find in the midst of a bustling metropolis, so serene, so utterly at peace.

It was basically the exact mirror opposite of how I felt.

“I can’t do this!” I finally blurted when I realized that Grant was just going to keep walking in silence unless I said something. “Really, I can’t do this. No one could do this; I thought I could, but this—this is just—this is so much more than I realized!”

“Breathe, Lacey.” Grant took my hands, his thumbs rubbing gently over my skin in soothing circles. “We’ll get through this. Look at me.” I did, and oh, big mistake. Those eyes, deep sapphire pools that the designer of this garden could only have dreamed of making. “Breathe. There you go. We’ll get through this.”

“How?” I asked his eyes plaintively.

He pulled me into a big bear hug, his strong arms reassuring around me, and rubbed my back. “You’re a capable woman,” he said softly into my ear. “I’ve seen you at work. This seems insurmountable, but you’ll break it down into its components and tackle them one by one. Before you know it, you’ll have conquered them all.”

His hot breath on my ear was doing all sorts of things to my heart rate and my ability to concentrate on his actual words, and I fought against melting with my most potent weapon: sarcasm.

“Wow, have you looked into becoming a life coach?”

He pulled away slightly, which was good, right? That’s what I’d wanted him to do. So why did it make me feel so bad?

“Lacey…” He was coming over all wounded now, the manipulative bastard. Eyes like a puppy dog that had been told that Petco would no longer be selling squeaky toys.

“Why I am doing this anyway?” I snapped defensively. “This is so you. You expect everyone to do things for them, and somehow they just can’t say no and before they know it it’s yes-sir-Mr. Devlin, and would you like three mints on the bedside table!

I just can’ t believe I let myself get sucked into this when I’ve been seeing you do it to everyone else for all these years!”

Grant’s eyes had gone steely, battleship grey-blue. “I’m sorry this is such a hardship for you.”

Whatever he was thinking was locked up tight now behind those high cheekbones and blank eyes and crisp, perfectly polite and noncommittal voice.

“You said last night that this was to be purely a business arrangement. Are there any terms we could renegotiate to sweeten the deal?” he asked.

“I seriously doubt it,” I muttered, swiping my foot along the perfectly smooth slate grey pebbles of our path.

“Come now, Lacey,” he said. “Don’t be shy. Surely there’s something you want?”

“I want a goddamn time machine so I can go back and make sure I avoid this in the first place,” I grumbled.

“Well, I don’t believe that I have any DeLoreans in stock at the moment, but how about half a million dollars?”

It was so absurd that I burst out laughing.

I don’t mean a dignified little chuckle, elegantly tossed off like a refined Victorian lady expressing her amusement at a witty remark by Elizabeth Bennet before taking another sip of finest Darjeeling tea, pinky extended, of course. I mean gut-bursting, high-pitched shrieking, guffawing, snorting like a horse with a sinus infection.

And then I noticed that Grant wasn’t laughing along with me.

“Wait,” I gasped—partly from surprise and partly from still having trouble breathing after laughing so hard, “you’re serious?!”

Grant looked about as offended as if I’d suggested that Australia was basically the same thing as New Zealand.

“I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t sincere.”

For half a second, I let myself get lost in the fantasy. Half a million dollars…that kind of money didn’t just buy you new things, it bought you a whole new life. A whole new life of taking only jobs that fulfilled me and not living in fear of destitution if I was fired, of paying off my student loans with a single click of my computer mouse—or better yet, with the thud of a suitcase of bills on the desk of the financial aid officers who had declined my application for a reduced interest loan with smirks on their faces: watch her, she’ll drop out in a year when she finds out how hard the courses are anyway.

I could see it all now: the grateful smiles on the faces of loved ones as I paid them back for all the faith and love they had shown me: I could send my parents on a trip to meet the Dalai Lama and do service work in Tibetan orphanages; I could launch Kate’s lingerie business with a single cash gift. I could establish scholarships at Stanford for all the other girls like me with smarts and determination but no money, and a whole world ready to tell them they weren’t cut out for it, wouldn’t make it.

And in that bed, at least for a few months, there would be Grant Devlin, Grant Devlin with his strong muscular arms and his firm well-shaped legs and that ass just begging to be grabbed as he plunged deep within me, his voice shaking with passion and then muffled as he claimed my lips, his eyes burning with need as he groped my bare breasts and ground his hips against mine, the rasp of his stubble against my soft skin sending me into ecstasy—

“Well? Will that be sufficient? You could possibly haggle me up to a full million.”

And his voice brought me back to reality, and to the fact that I would never be able to let myself take that payment from Grant. Because taking that money would mean giving up my pride, and that was the one thing I could never afford.

“No money,” I said. “It feels tacky. I’d rather have rules than cash. If you’ll stick to them.”

“I’ve heard rules were made to be broken,” Grant said with a wicked grin, and my brain decided to make a flash-cut right back to my fantasy, only now I was tied to the bed, Grant hovering above me with that same wicked grin as his hand traced a line down my chest, dipping between my thighs and—

“Not these rules,” I squeaked through a throat suddenly very dry.

Grant deployed another of his Threat Level Red pouts. “Oh, very well. Can you elaborate on exactly what these rules will be?”

I took a second to look around the park at the artistically twisted pine branches and meandering pathways, thinking hard. These rules had to be reasonable, but ironclad. No loopholes for Grant ‘Pouty Lips’ Devlin. Or for my own idiotic heart.

“We have a month-long engagement. Portia does all the wedding planning and I get to stay the hell away from her and her stare of death. As soon as Jennings signs the papers, we have an amicable breakup so boring the paparazzi start weeping in despair.”

“Well, that all sounds very—”

“I’m not done,” I said, heart hammering. What if he didn’t agree? “And this last part is non-negotiable. We’re telling my parents.”

Grant’s face creased in puzzlement. “But why…?” And then understanding dawned, along with a soft smile, almost of wonder. “You want to be honest with them.”

“They’ll pretend,” I promised him. “But I can’t lie to them. I can’t make them so happy about this and then rip it away from them. They’ve worked too hard for me—”

“Lacey!” Grant held up his hand, still smiling. “I’m not objecting. I’m only surprised. I shouldn’t be, though; this is just like you.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “A pretty girl, a head on her shoulders, and now a real sense of family. How do you manage to keep wrong-footing me?”

I leaned back into his shoulder, relaxing. “So you agree to the terms?”

“They sounds simple enough.”

As if anything could be simple with Grant.

“Thank you,” I said, and wrapped my arm around his waist. Purely to help keep my balance as we resumed our stroll, and to present the perfect picture of a happy couple in case any press were lurking in the bushes. Not to feel the ripple of his muscles under my hand, or to pretend that this was all real.

“I would like to give you whatever you want,” he said, not looking at me. Looking instead at the silhouette of the red and green and gold pagoda, its lines and curves the only thing above the trees against the blue sky, as if we had left San Francisco and were walking in a world of our very own.

And I knew what I wanted. Of course I did. I’d had it planned out ever since I was a little girl. College, a career, and a man who loved me—not this man, this entitled, arrogant asshole. But this man could help me get the rest of those things. And it would all be so simple and easy then—

If I could just stop wanting Grant too. If I could just stop wanting those strong arms around me, those soft lips on mine. If I could just stop wanting that look, when his stormy blue eyes suddenly turned soft and delighted because I had surprised him—that look, when I could almost convince myself he loved me, not just the challenges I threw his way.

I ached with how much I wanted to just turn to him, right then and there, and tell him how I felt—

But sometimes you want things you can’t let yourself have.