Page 30 of Strictly Pretend

Never answer a phone when the caller withholds their number. I should know better than that, especially since I’m currently avoiding not one but two men. Both of whom I’ve kissed. But it’s the shop phone ringing and Grandad is talking to a customer, so I snatch it up and hit accept as I speak into the mouthpiece.

“The Vintage Verse, Emma speaking. How can I help you?” It’s been two days since Brooks Salinger descended on the shop and I haven’t spoken to him since. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of even thinking I’ve been considering his suggestion. Because it’s stupid. And the thought of being that close to him for four days is disarming.

“Is this Emma Robbins?” a female voice asks. It sounds familiar but I can’t quite place it.

“Speaking. Can I help you?”

“Don’t hang up. It’s Jemima. Mia’s cousin.”

Oh. My stomach tightens. It’s one thing having Will calling me. Quite another having the woman that Will cheated on me with calling at work.

I feel stupidly violated. Which is weird because I’m over it. I really am.

“Are you there?” she asks when I don’t reply. I take a long breath in, my mind whirring in about thirty different directions.

“How can I help you?” I repeat. Grandma taught me how to answer the shop phone when I was little. I loved helping when she and Granddad were working. My mom would drop me off while she caught up with old friends.

Later, when I came to live here for good, I’d get off the school bus right outside the building and run in, ready to hang out with them for a couple of hours before we all went home for dinner.

It’s Jemima’s turn to take a long breath. “Will’s been trying to contact you,” she says. “But he tells me you won’t answer his messages or return his calls.”

“I have nothing to say to him. Or you.”

“He’s not trying to get back with you,” she says, as though I’ve just started weeping. “He just wanted to talk to you about Cassie’s wedding. We’re going as a couple. He’s a good man and wanted to make sure you wouldn’t be there.”

“Why would it matter if I was there?” I ask, confused. “It didn’t seem to cause any problems for you at Mia’s wedding.”

“What happened there was unfortunate,” she says.

“Unfortunate?” I repeat.

“Obviously we didn’t want you to find out about us that way.”

I blink.Find out about them?As in, there was something going on before the wedding? I don’t know why, but it feels like somebody’s slamming their boot-clad feet into my gut.

“But since it’ll be our debut at Cassie’s wedding, obviously we’d prefer it if you weren’t there,” she continues. “It’ll be better all round, don’t you think? I spoke with Cassie yesterday and she says you haven’t RSVPed yet. But I assumed you weren’t planning on going, anyway.”

Cassie sent out her invitations at the last minute. Originally, they were planning to get married next year, but Derek has been offered a job in London so they’ve been scrambling to rearrange everything. Luckily for her, her dad is loaded and he has a ranch in Montana that’s perfect for their nuptials.

Cassie’s dad is a tech billionaire. Even their wedding invitations were high tech, on a portal that has options for everything, plus an NDA to sign because he’s super private.

“I was actually,” I tell her, annoyed at her sounding like she’s doing me a favor. “There’ve just been some logistical wrinkles I needed to iron out.”

“But we RSVPed first,” she whines. “That’s not fair.”

“Wedding invitations aren’t first come first serve,” I point out, annoyed at the way she’s making me feel I’m the person in the wrong here. “Cassie invited me and I’m going.”

“Are you trying to make our lives difficult?” she asks. “If you think you can win Will back you’re wrong. He’s not interested. He’s in love with me. Why don’t you just stay away?”

“I’m not trying to do anything,” I tell her. “The thought of you two didn’t even cross my radar. I’m not interested in Will. You’re welcome to his cheating ass. I’ve moved on. I’m going to the wedding with somebody else.”

“You are?” She sounds skeptical. “Who?”

“Brooks Salinger,” I say. Satisfaction washes over me.Take that, scrawny legs.

She actually laughs. “Don’t be silly. Brooks Salinger doesn’t date. Everybody knows that.”

“Well he’s dating me,” I tell her. “More than that, we’re in a relationship.”

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