Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Isla

E lla’s buttermilk-colored hair was propped up by a pink scrunchy on the top of her head. She was wearing a T-shirt with a photo of Jane Austen, and since the cottage floors were always cold, she’d pulled on a pair of purple striped socks. It wasn’t exactly research attire, but she was busy doing just that. “Aha, here he is. Lucas Evan Greyson.” She bunched her brows as she scrolled through the screen. Her big brown eyes popped up over the phone. “It says he was born in 1935, and he’s a shipping magnate.”

“Yuck.” Layla added in a little shake to show her disgust. “You’re going to pretend to be the girlfriend of a ninety-year-old man? I think you should have asked for ten grand.” Another shake of disgust followed.

“And he’s got mutton chops,” Ella added with a laugh. “All right, I’m going to assume that I’ve found the wrong Lucas Greyson.”

“The man had no mutton chops, and he wasn’t a day over eighty,” I said.

Layla gasped.

“I’m kidding. Oh my gosh, little Miss Gullible. This Lucas Greyson is tall, handsome and has a smattering of facial hair on his jaw, but no mutton chops.” I still hadn’t absorbed the whole thing. I’d finished cleaning the office space, and he’d gone back to his office to work. Our gazes passed each other a few times through the tinted office window, but once I finished, I wrapped up my vacuum cord, gave him a meek wave, which he returned with a smile and a nod, and I walked out the door. He sent me a text the second I stepped in the elevator. It said, “See you Thursday at seven.” I had checked the text three times before I fell, exhausted, into bed, just to make sure I hadn’t imagined the whole darn thing.

Layla’s phone buzzed. She grunted as she read the text. “Maryanne called in sick, so Aria needs me to come in and cover her shift.” She uncurled her legs and dropped her feet to the floor. “I wish something exciting like this would happen to me.” She stopped before leaving the room. “What will you wear? I’ve got that cute little black skirt, and Ella has that nice pink button-down blouse.”

“Uh, I get the feeling this might be one of those stuffy, dressy affairs. Luke gave me five hundred dollars for clothes.” It was a tiny detail I’d forgotten to mention but one that nearly dropped both their chins to the floor.

“On top of the seven grand?” Ella asked.

“Yes. On top of it.”

“Maybe he really is a shipping magnate,” Layla said.

“Or a prince,” Ella said with a sly wink.

“Don’t get all starry-eyed and romantic about this, El. It’s strictly a business contract. I just have to smile, be polite, fade into the background and then the money is mine. Oh, but El, I’m no good at picking nice clothes. I spend a third of my day in T-shirts covered in flour and sugar. Another third in T-shirts that are plastered with dog hair, and the last third wearing the scratchiest, most unflattering uniform on the planet. I need fashion help.”

Ella waved her hand in front of her Austen shirt and striped socks. “And clearly, I’m the person to come to for that.”

Layla dipped back into the room. “Ella, you could take my place at the café, and I’ll go shopping with Isla.” She added her pleading, impish grin, the one she used to use on us to get the last piece of cake after dinner.

“I think we can manage without your fashion expertise,” Ella said. “This is a formal wedding, not a rave party. Off you go. If you’re late, Aria will be grumpy.”

“And no one likes a grumpy Aria,” we all said in unison.

S he’d changed out of the purple-striped socks and Austen T-shirt, but Ella was still on a quest to find out more about my fake boyfriend. She was feverishly scrolling through something on her phone as I stepped out of the dressing room in a dress that was far too pink and fluffy. I cleared my throat, twice, loudly.

She finally looked up from the phone. “According to this article about Lucas Greyson, owner of Green Wave Technologies, your fake wedding date is the grandson of Lucas Evan Greyson, shipping magnate. Luke—your Luke, not mutton chop Luke—is heir to the whole shebang. His family follows that ridiculous old, English gentry rule of leaving everything to the first-born son. Boy, I’d have something to say if I was a younger sibling in that family.”

I cleared my throat again, held out my arms and circled around, trying to get her back on task. “What do you think?”

“You look like cotton candy,” Ella said. “I’m telling you, try the light blue, off-the-shoulder dress. It’s sexy and elegant, and that’s a hard combo to achieve.”

I grabbed the hanger with the blue dress. I tended to shy away from lowcut dresses because of my ample breasts. They’d garnered far too much attention from the boys in high school, and it made me so self-conscious, I started wearing oversized T-shirts. Aria used to tease me that I might as well wear a big, floral muumuu to school. I’d since grown more confident about my hourglass shape, but I still hated to bring too much attention to it.

Ella’s hand shot over the top of the dressing room door. My phone was in her hand. “It’s him. The fake lover,” she teased.

I was standing half in and out of the cotton candy disaster, but I reached up and grabbed the phone. Luke had texted me four times this morning, mostly with simple questions like am I allergic to any foods and is a room with a view of the stables all right? They were nice, thoughtful questions that made me feel less queasy about the whole thing. I swiped open the text. “Do you ride?” he asked.

I texted back. “Bicycles?”

“Well, that, too, but I meant horses.”

My fingers flew over the screen. “Does a carousel horse count?”

“I was thinking more of horses whose hooves touch the ground.”

I laughed at his response. It was silly because it was just a simple conversation, like the four other conversations, but somehow, it felt like we were flirting. I needed to get out of that mindset. “I don’t ride horses. But I do love to ride a bike,” I wrote back. There was no response. Maybe he was rethinking the whole thing. I was going to be so wholly out of my element at this weekend wedding.

“Horses are overrated,” he wrote back. I decided to end the conversation there. I needed to choose a dress and pick up my canine clients for their walk around town.

I pulled off the pink dress. Ella continued to entertain me with Lucas Greyson trivia as I wriggled and squirmed into the snug blue dress. “Green Wave Technologies is considered one of the top new companies on the Forbes list. It works with developers and building managers to create plans for environmentally friendly buildings and houses. People magazine named him the country’s most eligible bachelor last year. He’s dated many famous and rich women but never for more than a few months. He’s really good-looking, but I guess he’s one of those guys,” she said with a tone that I was sure accompanied an eye roll.

I hopped up on my toes and peered at her over the top of the dressing room door. “What guys?”

“The kind who refuse to commit. You know—rich playboy who can’t be bothered with a woman’s feelings because they’re too self-absorbed.”

I laughed. “You’re sure wearing your psychology degree on your sleeve today.” I reached back and tried hard to zip the dress, but the bodice was so tight, I could only move the zipper a few centimeters. “Besides, none of this matters. It’s a fake relationship, a business deal. The seven thousand is going straight into my savings account.” I grunted in frustration and pushed open the door.

Ella’s face lit up. “It’s gorgeous. I knew that color and style would be right for you.”

I raised a cynical brow and turned around to show her that the zipper was half open.

“Oh, I suppose that won’t do. But it’s so gorgeous.”

“Yes, well, I can’t very well walk around with the zipper down. Maybe they have this in a larger size?”

“This was the only one.” Ella sucked in a deep breath, which lifted her chest and sank in her belly. “Do this,” she said through gritted teeth before releasing the big breath. “Maybe we can, you know, pull an old-fashioned corset-cinching session, only with a zipper.” She twirled her finger in the air. “Turn around and grab hold of the edge of the dressing room. You know, like they used to do with the post on a bed.”

“Yes, and we’ll call in all the lady’s maids to help,” I said. “You spend far too much time in your nineteenth-century London fantasy world.”

She ignored my comment and twirled her finger again. I sighed, causing the zipper to slip down more. I knew Ella wouldn’t give up unless she gave it the old Victorian try, so I spun around and grabbed hold of the edge of the dressing room. Two teen girls giggled as they walked past us to the next dressing room.

“This is very humiliating,” I noted as I gripped the edge of the doorway.

“Now suck it all in,” Ella said.

I took a deep breath and held it as she grunted and growled and worked the zipper up to the top of the bodice. “There!” she exclaimed triumphantly.

“Only one problem,” I said weakly. “Can’t breathe.”

“Please. A little discomfort is a negligible sacrifice for beauty.” She spun me around rather annoyingly and stepped back. “Oh my gosh, Issie, it’s gorgeous. You’re gorgeous.”

“So, I’ll trade off breathing for looking great.”

“Women do it all the time. What do you say?” She turned me back around with equal velocity, and I looked at myself in the mirror. My breasts were close to spilling out the top of the lowcut dress. The sleeves were merely off-the-shoulder bands of blue lace. The bodice cut in at such a deep angle, it was hard to believe the rest of me was inside the dress. It almost looked like an optical illusion. The skirt flared out, and the hem came to a few inches above the knee. Ella was right. The dress was gorgeous.

“Aria has the perfect gold choker to go with it.” Ella’s starry, romance-filled gaze peered past me into the mirror. “You look amazing, Issie.” She rested her chin on my shoulder, and I dropped my head to touch hers. We stayed that way, staring into the mirror, and in an instant, we were taken back to those dreamy teenage years when we talked about nothing but boys and fashion and music. “Maybe Lucas Greyson is your prince,” Ella’s tone was soft, wistful. “Maybe this whole charade will end in love.”

Her comment broke us free from our daydreams. “I suggested that to him, and he literally laughed. No, this is a business deal. It’s for the bakery.” The dress became more tolerable as I wore it. I glanced at the rack that now held a half dozen dresses that looked far better on the hanger than on me. “I guess this is the dress then. I just won’t be able to breathe, and instead of indulging in all the expensive food and drinks I’ve been dreaming about, I’ll have to chew on celery stalks and sip sparkling water.”

I turned back to the mirror, and I liked the reflection staring back at me. The woman in the mirror looked confident. Nonna always told us true beauty came from within and knowing who you are. I was the woman standing in the incredibly gorgeous dress and wearing it pretty darn well. Then the thought of standing in a household of complete strangers, people who lived in a completely different world than me and my sisters and our crooked little beach house, wiped away the moment of joy.

“Oh, Ella, what have I gotten myself into? How am I possibly going to do this? They’re never going to believe our act. They’re going to see right through this pretty dress to the faded T-shirts and jeans. I’m going to be the center of all their gossip. I can hear it now. ‘Has Lucas lost his mind?’” I said with a snooty tone. “‘Surely he’s not thinking of marrying this girl!’” I continued.

Ella threw her arms around me for a hug. “They’re going to be dazzled, Issie, ’cuz you are everything amazing.”

I wasn’t convinced, but I hugged her back for a long time.