It was a nice wedding, as weddings go. I might be a born romantic about almost everything else, and I’m all for marriage, but for some reason I’ve never been huge on the concept of weddings. They seem expensive and unnecessary to me. Ward and Emma looked happy though, and that’s all that mattered.

“I’m going to go grab a drink,” I told Lucas as we were sitting at dinner. It was the first thing I’d said to him in hours. We’d barely spoken at all since I’d gotten into town on Saturday afternoon.

He nodded distractedly.

This wasn’t going well.

The deal was going to close on Monday. If I could just make it through this weekend, my obligation to Lucas would be over. I would never have to see him again, and I never planned to. But first, I would have to survive this wedding.

I’d already survived the afternoon. Lucas had been adamant from the start about creating visual evidence of our relationship, and it seemed that the approaching Monday deadline had kicked him into overdrive. We took hundreds of posed, cute, couple-type pictures at locations around Austin. I don’t mind being photographed, but this afternoon I smiled so much that my cheeks ached. Lucas could put together months of fake dates with the pictures he’d taken.

All the while, Lucas and I hardly spoke a word to each other beyond what was necessary to take the pictures. I knew why I had nothing to say. Every time I so much as looked at Lucas, I was filled with a sick, tight guilty feeling. Why he wasn’t trying to talk to me was a mystery, but I wasn’t going to question it. I might be half in love with him, but I’d never been anything other than a means to an end for him.

Perhaps he’d decided that he hated me. If he did, I would deserve it for making out with him and then lying to him. He’d hate me soon, I had no doubt of that. As soon as we acquired and destroyed his company, he’d never want to look at me again. I tried to tell myself that he would at least have the money, but I knew that Lucas wouldn’t consider that fair compensation for the destruction of his technology. He chose Azure Group because of our reputation for developing our portfolio companies, not gutting them. Unfortunately, we did plenty of both, but we only advertised one.

“Excuse me,” a voice to my left asked, snapping me out of my thoughts. I turned to see a smiling man rapidly approaching me across the mostly empty dance floor. “I’m Ian. Would you like to dance?”

Fuck no.

I shook my head and forced myself to be polite. I even smiled. “Oh, no thanks. I was just on my way to—”

“Aww come on, Red,” the guy begged, and it was then that I realized he was drunk. Very drunk. As in, he smelled like he’d fallen into a barrel of tequila. His blood was probably flammable.

“Leave her alone Ian,” another man said, grabbing the first by the elbow. “No dancing for you. Water for you. Lots of water.” My rescuer gave me an apologetic look and a rueful smile. “Sorry. Forgive my idiot brother. He’s had a few too many.”

I shrugged. “No worries. It’s a party. I appreciate the rescue.” I turned to go.

“No problem. Maybe once I get him settled, I could get a dance? I’m Ryan by the way.” My rescuer asked. Ryan was fairly ok looking, about my age, and smiling. He seemed normal and well mannered. I wasn’t super attracted to him—I really wasn’t a fan of his facial hair, but he wasn’t hideous. Ordinarily I’d say no to the dance, but at least flirt with him for a minute. But this wasn’t a normal situation. I had a role to play.

“I’m Rae, but I can’t take you up on the invitation. I’m sorry. My boyfriend wouldn’t like it.” I nodded in Lucas’ direction. Ryan followed my gaze. Unexpectedly, he grinned.

“Oh, you’re Lucas’ new girlfriend? It’s great to meet you Rae.” He shook my hand. Ryan must be one of the mutual friends I was here to meet. Next to us, his drunk brother Ian swayed on his feet.

“She’s not. Vicky’s not here.” Ian was slurring pretty badly. He blinked around himself in confusion. A few too many? This guy had clearly gone well beyond that. He was trashed.

“Sorry,” Ryan repeated, looking doubly ashamed that Ian had brought up Victoria. I shrugged, but Ryan was still apologizing. “I need to get him out of here before he embarrasses me. He’s clearly already embarrassed himself.”

I smiled politely. “See you around.” I didn’t get four feet before I was stopped again.

“You’re not Victoria,” Ian slurred at me, using the bizarre speed of drunkenness to dart out of Ryan’s grasp and grab my arm. “You’re way prettier than her. Not nearly as mean, either. Do you sing?”

“Oh no I don’t sing,” I said, trying to buy time until Ryan could recapture Ian.

“You don’t sing, and you don’t dance? That’s no fun.”

“I guess I’m not fun.” I shrugged. Arguing with a drunk was never productive.

“Why won’t you dance with me, Red?” Ian asked again, arching up an eyebrow at me. “I promise I don’t bite.” Ian was good looking, but slurring drunk is never a good look. Ryan was suddenly blocked by a few people wanting to speak with him. I was trapped with the drunk.

Ok enough of this bullshit. My name isn’t Red.

Apparently, I needed to go full New Yorker on this idiot. Not as mean as Victoria? If properly motivated, I had no doubt that I could be way meaner than Victoria ever thought about being. I drew myself up to my full height and put on my patented anti-catcall tone of voice.

“Listen up oxygen thief,” I told him, “I can explain it, but I can’t understand it for you. I do not want to dance with you. Now, you are going to stop touching me right now, or I’m going to kick you in the shins so hard your grandchildren will have bruises.”

His eyes widened, his hand disappeared, and he quickly followed suit while apologizing profusely. In fact, several other men who had been near me also vanished. When I tried, I was almost too good at sending men running for the hills in fear. I was disturbingly good at being man repellant. It was no wonder I was single.

I shook my head in bemusement and went back to my table. I no longer wanted a drink.

When I returned to my table, Lucas introduced me to his friend Cole and his girlfriend Kate. They were both phenomenally attractive, as well as extraordinarily tall. I blinked at them in amazement. They were like a pair of pretty giants.

“It’s really nice to meet you Rae,” Cole told me, shaking my hand awkwardly around Lucas’ back. His hand totally swallowed mine up. “It’s not every woman who can put up with Lucas.”

I smiled sweetly. “Aww. He’s not that bad.”

Cole smirked. “Sure, he is,” he replied. “But luckily for you, you only have to pretend to like him.” His voice was teasing.

I blinked. Lucas told them about our agreement? My gaze darted from Cole to Kate to Lucas, who nodded. This wasn’t our arrangement. He wasn’t supposed to tell people.

“Oh, um, yes.” Feeling exposed and uncomfortable, I smiled politely. Now that my cover had been blown, I had no idea what to say to Cole. What do you talk about with the friends of your fake boyfriend? I certainly had no idea. So, I didn’t say anything. My food, which had been lovely, no longer interested me either. I pushed the remains of my chicken around my plate to give myself something to do. An awkward silence descended on our table. I was sure Lucas and his friends were all staring at me, but I couldn’t bring myself to look up.

“Do you like Austin much Rae?” Kate asked after a few minutes. “I imagine it seems boring to you compared to New York.”

I looked up at her in surprise. While I’d been staring at my plate full of cold, uneaten chicken, Lucas and Cole had disappeared. It was just Kate and I at the table now. She looked at me curiously. Her accent said she’d grown up in Texas.

“Actually, I like it here a lot. The people are nice, the weather is pretty, and the food is really good. I grew up in New York so it’s probably less exotic to me than it would be to someone who moved there.”

Kate’s beautiful face was wistful. She had incredible sapphire blue eyes. “It must have been an exciting place to grow up.”

I bit my lip, suddenly transported to my childhood. I was sitting in my third-grade class during 9-11 and feeling the shock waves through the ground. “A bit too exciting sometimes but yeah.” I paused. “Growing up in New York makes you feel like you live in the center of the world.”

“You really like Austin? When I moved here it was like coming to the big city—I’m from a suburb of Dallas. But I bet Austin seems like a small town to you.”

I shrugged. “I like it here. It’s not too small, you know. I’ve been thinking about moving for a while. At first, I was thinking about Seattle or Denver, but maybe Austin would be better.” Although it would mean leaving Azure Group, I was becoming increasingly restless there anyway. The idea of destroying Lucas’ company had made me seriously reevaluate what I was doing with my life. There had to be something better out there.

“I love New York, but I don’t think I could live there,” Kate confessed. “I like to see the sky. And there are too many people there for me. Plus, I’m afraid of heights and all the buildings are much too tall.”

I grinned at her. “It doesn’t seem like it would be a good fit for you. New York definitely has its drawbacks.”

“Rats?” She asked, looking around carefully as if one might be attending the wedding as an uninvited guest.

“Are you asking about the rodent or the human variety? Because we have plenty of both. I’ve dated a whole bunch of the latter.”

“Me too. They’re a menace.” We exchanged a smile. “Have you ever seen pizza rat in New York?” she asked. I laughed.

“I see pizza rat or one of his family members almost every single day.” I thought about the rat traps currently sitting on the floor of my apartment and shuddered. “I’m waging a war against one of pizza rat’s second cousins and his twenty kids right now in my kitchen.”

She shivered dramatically and giggled. “Gross.”

“So gross,” I agreed. “They say there are as many rats as people in New York. There are almost more rats in New York than there are people in Australia.”

We both cringed and then giggled.

“Well when you put it that way, Austin does sound pretty good.” Kate smiled. “We do have a lot of bats here though. They’re sort-of like rats, I guess. But with wings.”

“Oh Jesus, that actually sounds worse. Denver, here I come!” I imagined a winged pizza rat awkwardly trying to fly around with his slice of pepperoni. No thanks.

Kate shook her head. “No way. Bats are the best. They eat bugs.”

“So, what you’re saying is that Austin has a lot of bugs and flying rats?” I countered with a smirk. “You’re really selling it to me here.”

She smirked back at me. I sensed a kindred spirit. “You’re a tough customer Rae. I like you, but if you ever want to buy some lingerie, let me recommend any other store in town but mine.”

Before long, Kate and I were laughing uproariously and getting along great. She was funny. And she knew a surprising and impressive amount of bat trivia. Everything was looking up until I remembered that Kate wasn’t really my friend any more than Lucas was my boyfriend. My smile fell off my face.

I was really getting sick of all the lies.