Page 18 of Right With You
“They are coming. And I?—”
“Hey, sorry man, can I just grab a quick half dozen?” John Wallace jogged in, apologizing to Luc as he stepped up to the counter.
“What’s the urgency?” I asked, glad to see my old friend, and frankly, a little relieved to interrupt whatever Luc had been about to say. I didn’t know why he made me so jittery and self-aware, but having someone else here gave me a moment to breathe.
“It’s kind of an anniversary for me and Dahlia. I brought her donuts when we were just starting out—whenyouwere just starting out, too, and—well, anyway, it’s a good day to take a little walk down memory lane.” He smiled and gave me his order.
While I slipped the six donuts into a box, warmth suffused me at the memory. “I remember you ordering them. I was still using the old boxes and twine, right?”
It’d been when I was running the shop part-time for special orders only. I’d do ordering ahead and deliver on certain days, working out the proof of concept and building the addiction to the donuts, so by the time I opened, everyone would desperately need them regularly.
Or so I’d hoped.
People like John and Dr. Daniels and so many other locals kept me in business.
Luc wandered to a table, so by the time I finished with John and wished him luck, I’d regained my equilibrium. I grabbed a glazed donut and took a seat across from him, sliding the pillowy sweet delight his way.
“Merci.”
It shouldn’t have charmed me or sent my pulse racing to hear such a basic word in his native tongue, but it did. Call me a simple woman, but hearing this man speak French gave me a weird thrill. It reminded me I didn’t know him—he wasn’t from here. In fact, he had likely lived at least part of his life in Europe. A vastly different experience than mine, and that was before we ever touched his military service or the fact that he seemed to have a sibling and living grandparents.
Cut to a ship where a version of Luc is wearing a billowy pirate’s blouse open at the chest. Maybe he’s got an earring and hair is long, pulled back in a queue because it would definitely be called that and not a braid in this period piece. He’s holding a swooning woman in one arm, her bosom heaving, and he’s whispering French into the curve of her neck, her collar bone, her breast?—
Nope. No. Vivid and not a terrible casting, but simply not acceptable territory just now.
“You were saying something before John interrupted,” I said, not sure how to clear my mind of the fog foisted upon it by his single utterance of French.
Goodness help me if he were toactuallyspeak it to me for more than a second. I’d probably expire on the spot.
“Yes. So. I have a proposal for you.”
I chuckled, smiling at his joke.
But he wasn’t smiling.
“Oh, not a pun, then?”
One side of his mouth pulled up. “A missed opportunity I hope you’ll forgive me for. But, no.” The intensity of his gaze settled into mine, and he leaned his forearms, beautifully displayed thanks to the rolled cuffs of his blue and gray plaid shirt, against the table. “I would like you to consider being my fiancée for a while. A temporary arrangement.”
I opened my mouth to speak but promptly shut it when it received thewe have no idea what to saymessage from the rest of me.
“It’s unconventional, I know. I wouldn’t want you to feel like you were lying, so my hope is that we would embrace the temporary but real nature of the agreement, without being personally invested or serious.”
“I’m not sure I’m following.” Read: was definitelynotfollowing.
He shifted forward in his chair, straightening his already perfect posture like he was preparing for a presentation. “I propose that you become my temporary fiancée. In name, yes, but also with the idea that we behave as an engaged couple—or, while perhaps without the affections of a real relationship, but with the protection, the care, and the fidelity of one. All outward signs of engagement. And yet, of course, it’ll be fake. No real feelings, no actual commitments beyond the parameters of our agreement. Nothing serious.”
His words plunked down against my skull and slowly seeped in like rain on a parched landscape. The initial resistance I felt to being hisactualfiancée was already ebbing, a curiosity for what exactly this would look like rapidly taking root. This would be pretend. Not reality. Entirely fake. Make believe, even.
“So you don’t want to kiss me, but you want to beat up my ex-boyfriend?” I asked, wishing he’d state it clearly.
He coughed and cleared his throat. “For the purposes of this discussion, that is an exaggeration, but not inaccurate. My point is, we would be faithful. In appearances, we would be affianced. I have no desire for anything serious in real life, but that wouldn’t matter in this context. And I would”—he cleared his throat again—“forgive me, I would make it worth your while.”
Cue the record scratch and halt all softening to the subject. “How so?”
“We could agree on an amount that seems fair. I’m happy to pay you for your time as we go, or in lump sums at the beginning and end. We can even?—”
“Can I ask you why you’d suggest paying me for something that seems like a favor?” My cheeks flamed, and the pit in my stomach opened wide, wide, wide.
