Shit. I miscalculated.
Well, if he does, it doesn’t change the fact that I have to ask him if he’ll do this for me. I need him to help me make my father’s last wishes come true and trust that we’ll get everything fixed after.
“It’s been a long time.”
I’m stalling. I’m really not sure how to say this.
“It has. How are you?”
Here’s my opening. Not wanting to wait another second, I decide to say it all now. “Well, not so good. I . . . I have a problem, and I think you’re the only one who can help me.”
He blinks. “Me?”
I nod.
“How can I help?”
I bite my lower lip before saying, “I need you to marry me.”
There I said it. Now to pray he agrees.
Five
OLIVER
I’m clearly losing my damn mind. “You what?” I ask.
“I need you to pretend to marry me. It doesn’t have to be official, but, well, I have no groom, and I need a groom to get married,” Maren sputters.
“I’m confused.” I’m lucky I can get these two words out. Between her being a walking wet dream and her asking me to marry her, my brain is fried.
Oh, and then there’s Devney, who I haven’t seen in years, standing thirty feet away. Yeah, totally not firing on all cylinders.
Maren smiles, and my heart trips over itself. I shut down the idea of feeling anything for this woman because there’s no way in hell I’m going there. I’m done with women and their bullshit.
But, God, she’s something else.
“My fiancé, Oliver, decided that marrying me wasn’t really what he wanted to do as of now . . . or ever.”
“You’re here to cancel the wedding?” I ask, knowing full well she asked me to pretend to marry her.
“That would probably be the easier thing, but you see, my father is dying. He’s been sick for a really long time, and about six months ago, the cancer came back. He was fighting—Lord only knows why because I would have given up a long time ago—until a few days ago when the doctors told him the treatment wasn’t working. He’s . . . there’s nothing else they can do other than let him die without pain. He told me all he wants is to have the memory of walking me down the aisle, and now . . . he won’t.”
The desire to agree rises high. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
She nods and then fidgets a little. “Thank you. He means the world to me, and when he said he feels like leaving me without someone to love me and care for me was destroying him, it destroyed me. I can’t do that, Ollie. I can’t . . . I can’t let him . . . I need to give him this peace before . . . before . . .” She traps her bottom lip between her teeth, but I can still see it tremble.
I step back because this beautiful creature might just get me to agree, and that is absolute lunacy. “I’m sorry about your dad.” I pause, searching for an easy way to let her down. “I don’t know what more to say.”
“Tell me you’ll help me. It won’t be real,” she rushes to say. “We’ll go through the entire thing as though it is, but . . . I wouldn’t ask you to really marry me. It’s just . . . well, I need to do this for him.”
My head is spinning, and thank the heavens above my sister finally joins us.
“You must be Maren.” Stella’s voice holds a hint of amusement. If she knew what Maren had just asked me, she wouldn’t be so happy.
“I am.”
“I’m Stella, Oliver’s twin, and that is my brother, Josh.”
Josh waves.
“It’s great to meet you.”
“Likewise. We’re really happy to help you with the wedding. I know you have been dealing with Oliver, but I’d like to make sure that this goes off as smoothly as possible. Therefore, I’ll step in for the final coordination parts. Flowers, cake, final dinner menu, and seating chart. All the fun stuff.”
Maren smiles. “I really appreciate that, but I’m not sure there will be a wedding.” Her pleading eyes turn back to me as my sister’s gaze burns a hole in my cheek.
Stella cuts her gaze to Josh.
“My fiancé—well, I guess ex-fiancé now—called it off.” Maren launches into the lengthy speech about her father, recounting everything she said to me. Hearing it again isn’t any easier. I wish I cared about my father so much that I’d beg someone I haven’t seen in ten-plus years to fake marry me just to make him happy.
Stella, the bleeding heart under all that steel, wipes at her eyes. Great. Not the reaction I expected.
“Oh, Ollie, you have to!” Stella says quickly, her hand going to my shoulder. “You have to do this for her. Can you imagine? Her father needs this.”
“You want me to marry her?”
Maren steps back in. “Fake. We won’t be married. We’ll do all the things we need to make this look real, but it won’t be legal or anything. We won’t be married, we’ll just have a wedding.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“I know I’m asking a lot, but . . .”
Yeah, no shit she is. “I can’t marry you.”
“Fake.”
She bites that lower lip again, and I want to slide my thumb against her skin, tug her lip free, and then kiss it.
Yeah, this is so not going to work.
“Believe me, I wish there were another way. I am sort of desperate and haven’t thought every part of this through, but I know this is the right thing.”
“I don’t think you’ve thought any of this through,” I say.
“She’s thinking with her heart,” my sister defends.
Maren smiles, and the sun shines brighter. What is with this girl? What is with my reaction to this girl? “I know this is a big ask, and if you say no, I’ll understand. I just can’t help but think of him being so sad. This trip is all he has to look forward to. My stepmother keeps him couped up, making him go to a million appointments and making more excuses as to why his family can’t come visit. He’s exhausted. He’s been fighting this cancer for almost fifteen years, and . . .” Tears fill those beautiful green eyes. “I want to give him something happy.”
“I don’t think lying to him would make him happy.”
“I think it’s better than disappointing him.”
I run my hand through my hair. “I know you’re desperate, but I’m not the right answer here.”
I look to Devney, feelings that I’d buried coming just a little closer to the surface, and I hear all of it whisper again.
Nice.
A great guy, but not the guy.
I like you, but I love someone else.
I wish it were different.
How many times does a man need to be the last option? Not only is this entire thing insane but also it is wrong on so many levels. Maren is upset, rightfully so, but someone has to be rational here. Apparently, it’s going to be me.
I step to her. “I think that, in about an hour, you’re going to see that this was a bad idea. I can’t pretend to marry you. I have no desire to fake marry anyone.” Stella’s fingers dig into my elbow, but I continue. “Maybe your family can use this time as a reunion, but marrying you—pretend or otherwise—isn’t the right idea.”