Page 15 of The Ripple Effect

Anything. I’d do anything.

The hit piece could still do damage. We need a celebrity endorsement and a way to neutralize the last criticism in the article.

And I know how to do it.

I find McHuge stretched sideways across one of thehammocks, feet dangling off the side, Babe curled against him. He looks up but doesn’t say hello.

I hand him the snap container of food, not greeting him either. “I might have someone who can endorse us. She’s not a psychologist. And she’s not as famous as Renee.” Hardly famous at all since she leftCow Pie High, the teen show she starred in until well into her twenties, but that will almost certainly change soon. “But she’s better than nothing.”

McHuge sits up fast, setting the hammock swinging. “Really?” His voice is half agony, half hope. Fair enough—I deliberately gave him every impression I was here to work hard, get paid, and leave the business of caring to him. I’d be surprised at me, too.

“No promises, but I can make a call. We’re not going down without a fight.”

And the other thing. I have to make myself say the other thing. He won’t like it; god knows I’m not thrilled, either. It violates everything I promised myself about keeping my distance from him and everything I promised him about being professional and avoiding entanglement. Every hard thing about this job will instantly ratchet up in difficulty.

But Sharon said we have to be windproof and waterproof. There’s one more hole we have to sew shut for that to happen.

“And the article criticized you for being single. We’ll neutralize that by getting you a partner.”

He deflates somewhat. “Launch is in three days. I can’t just go to the outdoor store and pick out a partner, Stellar.”

“There’s no time for shopping, McHuge. SoI’mgoing to be your fiancée.”

Chapter Four

It’s a whole year since Jen broke up with me instead of proposing, and my stomach still doesn’t like the word “fiancée.” I press a hand to my belly, soothing the place where the memories of her letting me go pinch the hardest.

“Fiancée?” McHuge’s voice swoops high, then stalls. “Like, me andyou?”

“Yup.” I hold up my fingers to tick off reasons why. “A girlfriend isn’t good enough. They can still say you’ve never been married. A wife is a no-go; the timeline’s short even for Vegas. You can’t invent an imaginary partner, because that journalist guy, Brent, will go looking for confirmation.” Naturally, McHuge invited the journalist who did the hit piece to join the inaugural session of the Love Boat. At no charge.

I spread my hands, shrugging. “That leaves me, your real live fiancée.”

He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind, his sleepy chill completely destroyed. “Okay. Apart from the fact that faking an engagement is ludicrous, it’s… I mean, you and me, pretending we’re inlove? We’d have to sleep in the same tent. We’d haveto… touch, in front of people. I mean…” He rolls his shoulders down and back, shivering like I personally have walked over his grave.

Annoyed by his repulsion, I snap, “I’m an amazing tentmate. I keep my gear tidy, and I don’t snore. You’re not the only one who’d rather not get engaged. But we have to do it, McHuge.You know we do.”

He stares into the distance for so long I think he might be dissociating. Finally, he says, “I don’t like lying.”

“Fisher lied. The article lied,” I point out brusquely. “We’re not obligated to play by the rules when everyone else is cheating. Besides, it wouldn’t have to be a lie. You ask me to marry you, I say yes. Boom, engaged.”

“I can’t ask you to marry me,” he says, a cornered, desperate note in his voice.

I throw up my hands. “Fine! I’ll do it. Lyle Q. McHugh, will you marry me?”

His head turns sharply, his eyes dark and wary. I never intend to use his real name, but it’s like I’m possessed. Every time it flies out of my mouth, I feel one step closer to summoning the specter of our hookup.

If I’m honest, that ghost haunts me all the time. After McHuge, the idea of going back to the one-night stands that sustained me before Jen seemed stupid. The thing that spooked me about him was the sense that even the tiniest of his caresses weren’t part of a deal where each person got an equal share. They felt like he wanted to give these touches to me, and only me, unconditionally. All those bodies of all those people giving no more than what was fair—it stopped feeling safe and familiar and started feeling sad and unfinished.

And I couldn’t afford to be sad, so the only solution to that problem was to swear off sex entirely.

Snack forgotten, McHuge shifts forward in the hammock, eyes fixed on the spot where his feet now touch the ground. “Are you any good at acting? Can you make people believe?”

I look at him sideways. “Acting runs in my family.”

He strokes his beard, giving a brief, rumbling exhale, then levers himself up and heads for the parking lot.

“Where are you going? We still have tons of work to do.”

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