I made my way down the windy streets of Chicago and stepped into one of my favorite coffee shops. It was a cozy little place that had been owned by the same family for generations, and it still had the best brew on this side of town.

There was no better cure for a chilly winter’s day away from my wife.

“Hey hey, Mr. Hawthorne,” one of the baristas who knew me greeted me with a friendly smile. “The usual?”

“You know it, Brian,” I replied with a curt smile.

While I waited for my order, I peered out the glassy window. All I could think about was how much I wished I could show this place to Haley.

I had to clear my mind of all this crap. I had barely been back in Chicago for a day on my usual business, but more and more, the time I spent away from her ate away at me. I thought about calling her to check on how things were going at the Peppertree, and between those times, I thought about bringing her up to Chicago and showing her around.

I loved our wild, lust-crazed sex sessions, and every time I thought about that curvy body growing a bump with my child, I wanted her right then and there. But the more time she spent in my mind, the more I wanted something more with her.

This was a fake marriage, I reminded myself. Those words, fake marriage, kept popping up in my head like stop signs. The more they did, the more they pissed me off.

I got what I wanted in life, always. What I wanted was sex and an heir.

So, why did I have to keep telling myself that was all I wanted?

“Mr. Hawthorne?” the barista repeated, and I snapped out of my trance to turn around and face him. He was holding out my coffee with the usual gruff smile on his face.

“Oh, right. Thanks, Brian, put it on my account.”

“Already taken care of, sir.”

I left a $100 in the tip jar and started to head for the exit when I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket.

It was my mother.

I furrowed my brow. She usually didn’t call unexpectedly, but it wasn’t too out of the ordinary. I had always been on good terms with my mom, and after Dad passed away, it only made all of us siblings closer to her.

“Hey, Mom,” I greeted her. I took a seat at the bar by the window instead of going outside. There were enough people in the cafe to give me some white noise, and it was a little quieter than the wind and traffic outside. “What’s up?”

“What’s up?” she snapped, and I stiffened. I knew that tone well. “I should be asking you what’s up, Chase Hawthorne!”

I furrowed my brow. “Is...am I missing something?”

“I don’t know, but I’m apparently missing an invitation to the wedding you just had!”

My face went pale. How on earth did she find out about that? I clenched my jaw. She kept abreast of a lot of my business ties, so it probably got to her through the grapevine without too much trouble. I should have thought of that.

“Ah, that,” I started, trying to think of a string of excuses. “Okay, first of all, I promise you I didn’t intentionally leave you out. Nobody was invited, it was a quick, private marriage. Kind of a spur of the moment thing.”

“That’s not like you at all, Chase,” she pointed out, but there was a resigned tone in her voice. “What on earth would possess you to do something like that with a relative stranger?”

“She’s not exactly a stranger, actually,” I corrected her with a smile. “Do you remember Haley, the girl I was seeing back in college?”

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

“Really?” she mused, suddenly sounding a little less scornful. “Hm. I always did think she was a sweetheart, I never understood why you two broke up.”

“Me either,” I confessed, and that much was actually true. “We met over some business deal, we kind of reconnected, and...well, one thing led to another.”

My mom sighed deeply, but she didn’t sound like she was furious anymore, which was about as much of a victory as I could hope for in this situation.

“Well, you’ve always had your father’s good instincts, I can’t deny that. It sounds like you know what you’re doing, even if I still think it was a little hasty. Still, I can’t believe you wouldn’t even bother to invite any of the family. I’ll tell you what--I’m going to throw a reception for you two.”

My eyes went wide. “Mom, that’s really not necessary.”

“Oh, it is,” she affirmed in a warning tone. “If we can’t at least be there for the ceremony, I want everyone to have some excuse to meet the mother of my future grandchildren. Besides, I want to see how that little girl has grown up since college.”

I thought hard and fast for a moment. I could probably worm my way out of this if I tried hard enough, but then it occurred to me that something like this would absolutely help the marriage seem more legitimate. It was hard to sell the idea that I had just married on a whim and not invited anyone, when I came from as powerful a family as I did.

A hasty reception after a hasty marriage, though, was a little easier to make the relatives happy.

“Okay, I think we can manage that,” I agreed at last.

“Good. I’ll start setting things up,” she chimed, that same old energy I knew so well in her voice. “A lot of the family is in town already for another get-together, so I can have things ready next weekend.”

“Next w-” I nearly choked on my coffee, eyes going wider. “Does it need to be that soon?”

“Did your wedding have to be this soon?” she fired back, and I knew she had me.

“Alright, fair enough, Mom.”

“I’ll send you the details as soon as I have them,” she chimed again. “See you soon, hon.”

As soon as she hung up the phone, I stared at it ruefully. With everything else that was going on with the renovations on the other resorts besides the Peppertree, setting this up last minute and finding time for it was going to be a challenge, to say the least.

And I hadn’t even told Haley yet.

Deliver bad news early and often was a philosophy that had served me well in the past, so I called up Haley immediately as I swirled what was left of my coffee around in my cup.

“Hey,” her voice purred the moment she picked up the line. That voice made my heart skip a beat.

She didn’t have to talk like that when we weren’t together. There was no chance we were about to try for the baby that held this fake marriage together, so there was no reason for her to get me turned on like that.

“You enjoy tormenting me like that when I can’t get close enough to tear your clothes to shreds again?” I murmured in a low whisper, making sure nobody in the shop was in earshot.

“Maybe I do,” she teased. “How else do you expect me to get you to hurry back here?”

I cocked a smile and opened my mouth to say something back just as teasing, but I paused and took a breath.

“Actually, you’re going to be the one coming to me, this time.”

It was her turn to pause. “What do you mean?”

“We’re having a wedding reception.”

“Come again?” There was some sudden anxiety in her voice.

“I don’t like the idea either, but my family found out about our wedding,” I explained. “They’re upset that nobody was invited, so they want to have this so I can introduce you to the family and let you meet everyone.”

“Oh my God,” she groaned, and I could hear her put her elbow on her desk, and I could picture her resting her head in her hand. “Chase…”

“I know.”

“Chase, that’s going to make things so much harder for the divorce,” she complained, and she had a point. “I cannot tell you how much I hate disappointing people. This is just going to be us lying through our teeth to a room full of your family.”

“They’re nice enough people. And you definitely won’t be the only divorcee-to-be in that room.”

She groaned, obviously not comforted by that.

“I’ll tell you what,” I offered, using the most reassuring tone I possibly could. “If you do this with me, I’ll pull some of the best designers I have from my other projects and assign them to the Peppertree for the year. These are top-notch architects from the Sorbonne in Paris. What do you say?”

There was a long pause from the other end of the line. I felt bad for Haley that she couldn’t drink at a time like this.

“Deal,” she agreed at last.

I smiled. “The plane will pick you up on Friday.”

“I want some good in-flight food,” she warned me, and I grinned.

“Deal.”