CHAPTER NINE

“So how about those Mets?”

As the elevator doors spread open on her floor, I guide the conversation away from that practice session on her couch. The final practice session. No more kissing rehearsals. Too dangerous.

“They’re having a good season,” she says as she yanks her purse strap higher on her shoulder, not entirely taking the bait.

“Good pitching will do that for you,” I say, pressing the button for the lobby and wondering when was the last time that we talked about baseball to cover up an uncomfortable moment. She’s a hard-core fan, due in no small part to the fact that she regularly crushes it in her fantasy baseball league. I’ve often told her if our bars fizzle, she should be a general manager, but she just laughs and tells me baseball is her love so she wants to keep it pure.

Right now, it’s not pure. It’s a goddamn metaphor for a true awkward moment. “Are you still killing it with your lineup?”

She turns to me, her brown eyes intensely serious. “I meant it earlier when I said no dating this week. I need to know that you’re okay with that. Not even after hours.”

And we’re done with the baseball bullshit.

“Of course,” I say quickly, tugging on my tie and acting offended. “I can’t believe you think I can’t manage a week without sex.”

She shakes her head as the elevator chugs down. “This might seem silly to you, since this is a pretend relationship, but after what happened with Bradley…”

“Charlotte, I swear. I’m on the wagon for the next week,” I say, holding up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

“You were never a boy scout.”

“True. But I also don’t cheat, whether I’m in a fake relationship or a real one.”

She arches an eyebrow. “Have you ever been in a real one?”

“Sure. And by real, you mean the type of relationship where I know her last name, right?” I say, deadpan.

She crosses her arms. “Let me amend that. Have you ever been in a relationship that lasted longer than a fortnight?”

I make a snooty sound. “Fortnight. Aren’t you fancy?”

“And Amanda from college doesn’t count.”

“Why not? I went out with her for four months. But yes. I have,” I say, though I’m pretty damn sure I haven’t. But my ability to sustain a long-term commitment isn’t the point of this conversation. The point is whether my dick practices serial monogamy. “And I’ll keep it in my pants for the next week, like I said I would. While we’re at it, the same goes for you.”

“You don’t even have to worry about that.”

“You mean this isn’t going to cramp your style?” I ask, as the elevator slows at the lobby.

She scoffs. “Like that’s possible.”

“No hot dates on the agenda for the next week?”

She raises her hands and lifts all ten fingers. “It’s been ten months for me,” she says sharply as the doors whoosh open.

We walk across the lobby and onto Lexington, where the Uber car I ordered is waiting. I open the door for her, and she slides across. I follow her, and we buckle in. Things feel normal again between us, like we’ve slid out of the tunnel of awkward, and it’s now just us.

“Ten months without a relationship, you mean?” I ask, since I know she hasn’t been involved with anyone since the split. But come to think of it, she hasn’t mentioned any dates either. Even though she doesn’t kiss and tell, she still probably would have said something if she’d had a good date.

She shakes her head. “No relationship. No dates. No kissing. Nothing.”

Ten months without sex. That’s like a lifetime. Not sure I’ve gone more than ten days. Maybe fourteen tops, but that was a rough two weeks. She must be working her toys hard.

Ah, fuck. Now, I’m picturing Charlotte in bed with a purple vibrating rabbit, legs spread, hand working the ten-speed controller, breath coming fast.

Thanks, brain, for putting that fantastic image in my head to derail any intelligent thought.

Some days I wonder how men get anything accomplished at all with sex on the brain constantly. In fact, I wonder how men have ever gotten a single thing done across the whole vast expanse of time. It’s a miracle we manage to tie our shoes and comb our hair.

Then it hits me. That kiss on her couch. That kiss on the street. Those were the first kisses she’s had in nearly a year. My kisses. It makes me kind of happy that I’m the first guy she’s kissed in a long time. Even though it makes no sense that I’d be glad about that. It also doesn’t make sense that a dose of possessiveness over Charlotte courses through me, too. I don’t want anyone else to kiss her.

I mean, not for the next week, of course.

That’s all this possessiveness is about.

“By the way,” she says as the car arrives at the store, “how does this end?”

“Us?”

She nods. “The fake engagement.”

“I guess we have a fake breakup,” I say, even though I hadn’t thought out the end of this. Maybe because I hadn’t scripted the beginning either. It’s all been me flying by the seat of my pants.

“At the end of the week?” she asks, as we reach the gleaming glass doors of the New York institution that’s been part of my life for as long as I can remember.

“Yeah, a real fake breakup,” I emphasize, before I buy her the ring to seal the deal. A ring that has an expiration date, just like this fake affair that we’ve now planned the ending for.

The real ending.

* * *

Things I learn about Charlotte in the next hour at Katharine’s:

She likes holding hands.

She likes snaking an arm around my waist.

She likes running her fingers through my hair.

She’s quite handsy when we’re playing pretend—it’s downright impressive, her commitment to method acting.

She also has impeccable taste and selects a princess cut two-carat diamond set in a platinum band. “This is the ring I’ve always wanted,” she declares to Nina, my dad’s right-hand woman, and I swear Charlotte’s going to float away on a cloud of happiness. The woman absolutely sounds like a blushing bride-to-be.

Nina smiles brightly. She’s tall and neatly dressed in a silk blouse and gray skirt, and her brown hair is swept into a bun. “Then let’s make sure the glass slipper fits you perfectly,” she says, and disappears to the back of the store to have the ring sized.

“You’re a pro,” I say once Nina’s out of earshot. Charlotte waves a hand dismissively, and I tell her, “No, seriously. You’re going to be accepting an Oscar soon for nailing the role of ecstatic fiancée.”

She drags her fingers along a glass case and shrugs, like her performance is no big deal. “I like diamonds. That makes it easy for me.”

“Ah, so this is Honest Charlotte in action? And Honest Charlotte loves jewelry?”

She nods. “Honest Charlotte adores princess-cuts and platinum. When my friend Kristen got engaged last year I was thrilled for her, and couldn’t stop staring at her princess cut diamond. It was gorgeous, but more importantly, she’s so happy, and she’s madly in love. Being elated over an engagement ring isn’t an emotion I have to fake,” she says, meeting my eyes. I can see her sincerity written in them—in this moment, those brown eyes are completely guileless.

She loves the idea of being committed. Maybe not to me. But just in general.

The truth of that emotion is almost too big for me. I gotta go for a joke. “What if it were a pinkie ring, though? What if I wanted to get you a gold pinkie ring with a big, fat rock? Would that fit your style?”

She leans in closer and wiggles her eyebrows. “Thanks for the hint, snookums. Now I know just what to get you for a wedding gift.”

Nina returns to tell us the ring should be ready in fifteen minutes. “Thank you. I can’t wait,” Charlotte says, and now I know she means it. She’s telling some sort of truth to Nina.

But I’m lying, and that makes me feel like a bit of a schmuck. I’ve known Nina for years, and she even babysat for Harper and me when we were younger. She was my dad’s first employee when Katharine’s started as a small boutique off Park Avenue. A sales clerk, she worked her way up over the years, rising to VP as that one shop grew into an international business. My father has often said that Nina and my mother have helped him make most of his important business decisions in the last thirty years. They’re his key advisors.

“I’m so thrilled for the two of you, and I’m so glad you’re the woman who brought him to one knee,” Nina says to Charlotte, who looks away. Nina rests a hip against a display case of diamond tennis bracelets and turns to me, gently swatting my arm. “I still can’t believe you’re getting married.”

“I have to pinch myself too, just to remind me that it’s all real,” I say, and pinch my forearm, doing my best to ignore the nagging seeds of guilt. I can’t let the lying eat away at me. It’s all for a good cause, and no one is getting hurt. Besides, I’m not the first dude in the history of the world who needed a fiancée, stat.

“I can remember when you were a wild five-year-old boy like it was yesterday,” Nina says, nostalgia glimmering in her eyes.

“I can’t believe my dad actually let me visit the store as that crazy five-year-old boy,” I say, flashing back to all the hours I’ve logged in this upscale joint. I know the place inside and out. Five floors of sophistication, glitter, and glamour. Diamonds sparkle behind gleaming glass showcases and atop marble pedestals, and the burgundy carpet is so lush you want to curl up and sleep on it.

Or run circles on it, which is what I did as a kid.

“You were so wound up,” Nina says, shaking her finger at me. She smiles, and her gray eyes crinkle when she does.

“How wild was he exactly?” Charlotte asks. I detect a note of mischievous curiosity in her tone. She casts a quick glance at me, and I know what she’s doing—fishing for fodder to tease me with at some unsuspecting moment.

Nina laughs delightedly as she answers. “Little Spencer was a handful. Once, when his mother was visiting relatives out of town, Spencer’s father brought him into the store an hour before opening, and this little devil child immediately started zipping and zinging around all the cases,” she says, weaving a path in the air with her hands to demonstrate.

I cringe, as Charlotte laughs. “I can picture that perfectly.”

“Oh, that was only the start of the havoc he tried to wreak. He knocked over a case of rubies once during one of his marathon laps around the store. Another time, he snagged the velvet lining from a display case, and turned it into a cape,” she says, and Charlotte’s lips twitch in amusement. “But,” Nina says, narrowing her eyes and holding up a finger, “I had a solution.”

“Benadryl?” Charlotte asks playfully, then squeezes my hand.

I groan inside, knowing what’s coming.

“Oh, I wish I could have gotten him to nap while his father was busy in a meeting. Instead, I went to the fancy pet accessories shop down the block, bought a leash, and attached it to the loops of his corduroy pants.”

Charlotte’s hand flies to her mouth, and I drop my forehead to my palm. There it is. The story I will never live down now. I don’t know what’s worse—the leash or the corduroy.

“You walked him around the store on a leash?” Charlotte asks, taking her time with each word, wonder in her voice.

Nina nods, proud of her solution. She pats the side of her leg as if she’s giving a dog a command, then emits a low whistle. “C’mere boy,” she says, laughs shuddering through her. “He loved it. He took to it like a little Cocker Spaniel.”

“Amazing. Almost like he’s got a little bit of dog in him just waiting to come out,” Charlotte says, shaking her head in amusement.

I roll my eyes as the women continue their banter.

“But don’t they all? Men, that is,” Nina says.

Charlotte nods. “Good thing I like dogs.”

“Besides, it was either leash him up, or risk this little hellion breaking all the diamond cases. He’s mellowed over the years though. In a good way,” Nina says, patting me on the cheek. “And he’s mellowing in an even better way now, isn’t he?” she says, directing the last words to Charlotte, who gulps and seems to tense. Her eyes widen, and I freeze.

Shit.

This is it.

This is when Charlotte chokes.

“Wouldn’t you say so?” Nina continues, prompting Charlotte, who’s stock still.

Red starts to streak across her cheeks, and she’s about to word-vomit the truth. To blurt it all out in one big, fat confession tied up with a white bow of ridiculous. She might have aced the jewelry selection, but that was easy for her sparkly, jewel-loving heart. This is the hard part, and it shows. Oh crap, does it show in the terror in her eyes.

Her lips start to move, but no sound comes. I squeeze her hand, a reminder that it’s her turn to speak. But if she can’t form words, I’m going to need to step in. Somehow, she manages a nervous smile, then she winks at Nina, and at last speech returns. “Actually, he’s still a hellion. So if you held onto that leash, I might be able to put it to good use.”

Nina tosses her head back and cackles. She drops a hand on Charlotte’s arm and whispers, “Oh, I do so love the naughty energy of the newly engaged.”

She excuses herself to go check on the ring, and Charlotte shoots me a look. “Thought I was going to blow our cover, didn’t you?”

I hold up my thumb and forefinger. “You were this close to giving it up, weren’t you?”

She arches an eyebrow. “Maybe I wanted you to squirm.”

“You evil woman,” I say with narrowed eyes.

She dances her fingers up my arm. “Or perhaps I was just processing the fantastic image of you being on a leash,” she says, looking like the cat who didn’t just eat the canary, but feasted on the bird’s whole damn family. “You do know that was basically the best ammunition ever that she just dropped in my hand. The Spencer on a Leash tale. But it got even better when she called you a Cocker Spaniel,” she says, the corner of her lips quirking up in a “gotcha” grin.

“What can I say? I guess I was a dog even then.” At least I can breathe easily again.

“Do you still like it? Being walked on a leash?” she says, egging me on.

“Is this your way of asking me to participate in kinky, dirty things?”

“No. It’s my way of asking how far this fantastic story extends so that if I want to mention it while we’re at the bar, or out with Nick or Kristen, or your sister, that I get it right,” she says, miming walking a dog.

But that’s not how I see things going. Not at all. Just so she knows how I like these scenarios to play out, I lean in closer, brush her hair away from her shoulder, and whisper, “If anyone’s getting tied up, it’s you. And it won’t be with a leash. It’ll be with a scarf, or stockings, or that black hot-as-fuck thong you put on because I made you so wet you had to change. I’d wrap it around your wrists, nice and tight, then pin them behind your back until you beg me to touch you.”

Her breath catches.

She trembles, and a shiver runs through her body. She grips the front of my shirt, her fingertips curling around a button. And holy fuck… she likes the idea of being tied up. I can feel it in the air. In the way protons and electrons are buzzing. In the sexual energy that’s radiating off her body.

I inhale.

It smells like chemistry.

And I have no clue what to make of it.

I don’t even know why I just said that, since I’m not supposed to be thinking about screwing her, let alone tying her up.

Good thing Nina returns moments later with the ring. “A rush sizing job for my most special customers,” she says with a smile. Charlotte holds out her hand, and I slide the diamond onto her ring finger, meeting her eyes for a second. I try to read them, to see if she thinks this is as surreal as I do—me, the New York City playboy, putting a ring on it.

Even a temporary one.

Maybe this is weird for her too.

As I study her face, I can’t tell at first from her serious expression how she’s feeling to wear an engagement ring for the first time. Then I see it in her big, brown eyes, as a flicker of sadness passes over them. My heart lurches, and I figure she’s remembering that ten months ago she was about to be engaged to a man who wound up breaking her heart.

Good thing I won’t be the one making her look that way ever. I don’t have the power to hurt her like that.

I drop a quick kiss on her cheek, then hand over my platinum card and spend close to ten thousand dollars on a ring. When we go to work that night, she doesn’t wear it.