Otherwise Engaged: A Fake Engagement Romance

I hadn’t spoken to Bennett or Quinn in days. As the week dragged on, I woke up every morning even lonelier than I had been the day before, and it only intensified over the course of the day; an aching emptiness that no amount of distraction could fix. Every night, I turned off my ringer and went to bed early, desperately trying to avoid the bitter reality of my life.

Of course, Bennett had texted me several times. Called a handful of times, too. Even stopped by the store once more. But I didn’t know how to face him. I didn’t even know what to say.

Quinn had been radio silent, however. Sharing our calendars turned out to be a great way to avoid each other by working at opposite stores.

Half an hour into an episode of Emily in Paris, my phone buzzed with another text from Bennett.

Talk to me, Thay. I miss you.

The show continued in the background while I stared at the screen, debating whether to reply. Or how to reply, if I did. Before I could decide, there was a soft tap on my front door. My heart leapt into my throat, but I stayed glued to my spot on the couch. If it was Bennett, I didn’t want to answer it. Fine, that was a lie. If it was Bennett, I did want to answer it—but I knew I shouldn’t.

I also knew if I checked and it was him, I’d give in and open the door immediately. There was no way I could look him in the eyes and keep my resolve about, well, anything. That posed a fairly big problem with respect to our impending ‘engagement’ party.

When the keypad started beeping, my hopes deflated like a leaky tire. Bennett didn’t know the code to my door. Quinn was the only person who did.

At first, I thought she was coming over to grovel via a bottle of rosé and pretend nothing had happened, which was her usual method of apology. But when I laid eyes on her, alarm bells sounded in my head. Her hair was limp and unwashed, and she was wearing a baggy grey hooded sweatshirt with black leggings. For many people, this might have been a fairly normal state of affairs, but for Quinn, this was rock bottom.

“Hey.” I paused the show, standing to greet her. When she drew closer, I realized her eyes were puffy, skin blotchy and red. She’d been crying—a lot. Just like me. That explained the outfit, too.

Quinn set down her keys on the coffee table and buried her face in her hands, bursting into heaving sobs. Guilt seized me, along with a sisterly sense of duty, and I stepped forward, wrapping her in a hug. No matter how badly we’d left things between us, seeing her in so much pain hurt me almost as badly. Her shoulders racked with each frantic gasp for several minutes before they finally slowed, and she calmed down.

“I’m sorry, Thay.” She pulled back, wiping away her tears with her sleeve. I reached behind me and grabbed a box of tissues, handing them to her. Sniffling, she dabbed at her eyes. “I wanted to believe Adam so badly that I turned into a total jerk. But when I started digging, I saw that you were right.”

In this case, vindication didn’t bring any sense of satisfaction. It simply stoked sheer, unadulterated rage toward Adam for hurting my sister. She’d been too good for him all along, and he had the nerve to be unfaithful to her? The only upside to this twisted situation is that now, she would be free of him. We all would be.

Except for our father, I guess, who was still tied to him through his investment. I wished Quinn hadn’t facilitated that. Maybe there was some way he could get out of it or unload the shares on someone else.

“I didn’t want to be right.” I steered her over to the sectional, gesturing for her to sit. “Do you want something to drink?”

“Yes,” she said immediately. “All the drinks. Hell, bring me the whole bottle.”

I’d meant something more like water or tea, but I supposed getting drunk on a weeknight was a valid strategy right now, too. I disappeared into the kitchen, grabbing two highball glasses and some ice from the freezer to mix the drink with. Two vodka sodas in hand later—which were more vodka than soda—I joined Quinn on the couch.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked gently.

She took a gulp of her drink and set it down on the glass coffee table sans coaster. I cringed inwardly, but let it slide.

Quinn drew in a breath, brows drawn together. “Adam is away on business until next week and he forgot his iPad. It’s signed into his account, so it receives all his text messages. After what you said yesterday, I decided to go digging to prove that you were wrong. All I had to do was guess his pin, which is his birthday because he’s an idiot, and…” Her voice cracked. “It was all right there in front of me.”

Dread bubbled in my gut. “What did you find?”

“You’ll never believe it… Adam is having an affair with Millie.” A mouthful of my vodka soda went down the wrong pipe and I started to cough. Her lips twisted into a grim smile. “Actually, I think I’m the affair, because it sounds like this started before I entered the picture.”

“What?” I croaked, clearing my throat. I definitely hadn’t been expecting that. Another girlfriend, maybe, but Millie? Quinn was her best friend; one of her only friends.

“Uh-huh.” She nodded, pursing her lips. “Gross, right? Millie told me she was going on a spa retreat with her mom this week, but she failed to mention the part where she was meeting Adam for a weekend in a hotel after.”

Oh, ew. Quinn was right; that was gross. The mental image alone was beyond disturbing.

“But what… why…?” I gestured vaguely, unable to make sense of what she was saying. I knew Adam was a garbage human being, and Millie was no saint herself, but this was beyond the pale.

“You were right about the money, too. It almost sounded like they were conspiring together the whole time.” Quinn downed another half of her drink, shuddering at the alcohol burn.

I knew it. That that was how Adam ran into Quinn: Millie was playing puppeteer. She probably knew where Quinn was going to be and helped orchestrate their ‘chance’ meeting. I bet she’d even told him things to help win Quinn over, too. And Millie definitely, definitely knew about Quinn’s fertility struggles, which made the entire conspiracy even more disgusting.

“Why would he do that?” I asked. “Millie has plenty of money of her own. Why not use hers?”

Quinn snorted. “No, she doesn’t. When the stock market crashed back in college, her parents blew through her trust fund trying to make it up. They have nothing. Financed to the hilt, leased luxury cars, you name it. It’s supposed to be some big secret, but fuck that. Now I’m going to tell everyone I know.”

It would be sweet justice after what Millie did to Bennett, too.

“Do you have some cookies or something? I need sugar.” She craned her head, looking into my kitchen.

“Let me go check.” She’d made a remarkably quick recovery from hysterical tears to searching for processed carbohydrates in the span of minutes, but I wasn’t going to question it. Pushing to stand, I went into the kitchen and returned with two bowls of cookie dough ice cream.

“Best I could do,” I said, offering her a pink-patterned bowl.

She grabbed it out of my hands, diving into it with her spoon and eating the cookie dough first, like she always did.

“You know what the worst part is?” Quinn asked, as if reading my mind. She stirred her ice cream around with her spoon. “I don’t even think I loved Adam. Because when I saw those messages, I was more angry than sad. And right now, I’m…embarrassed. Embarrassed I bought his phony act, or thought I was falling for such a jerk.”

“Maybe you liked the idea of him,” I said gently. “You know, the whole family thing.”

“Yeah, I think I did.” Quinn hiccupped, and sadness stretched across her face again. Something about her expression seemed almost childlike, and her voice turned small. “Are you still going to quit the store?”

Guilt plunged over me like a bucket of ice water. I felt bad saying yes, but I couldn’t lie and say no, either. Quitting had been such a relief, that the instant I had, I knew it was the right choice all along. I’d already submitted a few MBA applications and was finalizing a couple more. With the way things were going, I didn’t even know if I’d stay in our city for school. While my first-choice program was in the area, maybe I’d be better starting over somewhere else. It still came down to where I was accepted—though with a high GMAT score, I was hopeful I’d have several options to choose from.

I gave her an apologetic look. “I think we both know it’s for the best, Quinn. For me, as well as our relationship.”

“I don’t know if I can handle the stores all alone,” she admitted. “I know you shoulder a lot of the work.”

I did, and I didn’t. It’s not that the things I handled were difficult, necessarily, it’s that they were boring.

“I’ll stick around until you get everything sorted out. I can teach you how to manage some items, and you can hire a bookkeeper for the rest. It’s not too complicated, I promise.”

That was the whole issue. At times, I could finish all the work I needed to do in an hour or less, which left me drifting aimlessly without anything else to occupy myself. Being left feeling like I hadn’t accomplished anything of value at the end of the day made me a little empty on the inside.

Her jaw dropped with a sudden realization. “Oh my God. Did you and Bennett get into a fight because of the lease? Am I the reason you two are having problems right now?”

Problems was a diplomatic way of putting it. We’d imploded.

“Partly,” I said. “That’s what started our argument, but that wasn’t all of it.”

“What do you mean? You two are perfect together. I can’t even imagine you arguing. Well, unless it’s that cute little bickering thing you two always have going on, but that doesn’t count. Everyone knows that’s just foreplay.”

Courage surged through me. “We were faking it, Quinn. When I told you I had a date to the wedding, I didn’t.” As humiliating as it was to own up to it, I felt like she deserved to hear the truth after what she’d just been through herself.

She laughed. “Nice try.”

“No,” I said. “I’m serious.” I gathered up what was left of my dignity and tossed it straight out the window, telling her the truth in detail. After I finished explaining everything, from beginning to end and everything in between, Quinn looked more confused than when I started.

“First of all,” she started, “I am so sorry I ever made you feel like you needed to lie about something like that. But I still…” She shook her head, blinking rapid-fire. “Bennett is in love with you, Thay. I guarantee it.”

My heart contracted in my chest. I wanted to believe her, but it didn’t make sense.

“Then why was he so mean to me about the lease?” It sounded juvenile to phrase it that way out loud, but that’s the only way I could explain it. He’d been mean; cold.

“Male pride?” Quinn offered. “Men are stupid creatures sometimes. Adam went by earlier that day to gloat about the fact that he was going to win the bid, so Bennett was probably riled up going into that conversation with you.”

Bennett hadn’t told me that, but an unpleasant encounter with Adam would have definitely put him on edge more than usual. I still didn’t think that excused accusing me of hiding the lease from him, though. Or any of the other things that happened in the past.

The net result was me questioning every single thing about us. He’d had information I hadn’t. It had been an uneven playing field from the start, and I’d lost a game I hadn’t known I was playing.

“Think about it,” she said, scooping up her last piece of cookie dough with her spoon, pointing it at me. “Bennett thinks he’s about to lose everything—again—with you watching.”

Sympathy and skepticism warred in my brain, and my gut twisted like a towel being run out. I clutched the cold ice cream bowl between my hands, letting it chill my skin in some warped form of catharsis.

“What if it’s not that?” I asked. “What if none of it was real?”

Quinn put down her bowl and took mine out of my hands, setting it aside. Then she took my hands in hers, ducking to catch my eye. “From what I’ve seen, and from all the attempts he’s made to get you to talk to him since you left his office, there’s no way that this is just pretend. For either of you. I think you know that, deep down inside.”

“But I don’t know.”

She raised her eyebrows pointedly. “Your heart knows.”

My heart was telling me to get in the car, drive straight over to Bennett’s, and pretend none of this ever happened. Clearly, my heart needed a breathalyzer, because it was drunk behind the wheel.

At any rate, my brain knew that was a terrible idea. With the mess I’d made of my life, I was kicking my heart out of the driver’s seat for a while. Otherwise, it was going to drive me straight off a cliff.

When I didn’t respond, Quinn waved her hand, prompting me. “And your heart is saying…”

“Run,” I lied.

“You’re not a good liar, Thay.” She inclined her head, putting a finger to her bare lips thoughtfully. “Which is pretty telling, if you think about it. How were you able to convince so many people you were in love with Bennett if it was all fake?”

“But that doesn’t mean his feelings for me are real, or that I should be with him.” I grabbed my favorite fuzzy throw blanket from the basket beside the couch, draping it over my legs. Quinn scooted closer, joining me underneath it.

“You’re scared,” she mused, rubbing my arm soothingly. “It’s normal to be scared when you fall for someone, especially if it’s the first time you’ve ever done it.”

I wasn’t scared; I was terrified.

“I’ve had other boyfriends.” But I was being contrary more than I was actually protesting. I could count the number of men I’d been emotionally invested in on one finger.

“How many of them have you cried over?”

We both knew the answer to that. A big, fat zero.

I shrugged and looked away. “Some people cry over commercials. Crying doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

“With them, it doesn’t. But it means plenty with you.”

I tried to catch my breath but couldn’t. “He already broke my heart once.”

“So you’re going to break it yourself for a second time?” she asked.

Ugh. I hated it when she was right.

“Think of it as a mitigation strategy,” I said, digging in my heels. “Little break now, or big break later?”

“First of all”—Quinn gestured to me, rose-gold nails glinting in the light—“I wouldn’t call this heartbreak you’ve got going on right now ‘little.’ Second of all, you have no way of knowing that Bennett will break your heart down the line. For all you know, you two could get married for real and live happily ever after.”

Much as I liked to think that could happen, I was skeptical. Especially when it involved a man who was vocally opposed to marriage. Wait. I was opposed to marriage, too. Wasn’t I? But then why did it sound so appealing when Quinn said it?

“Adam is such a shit,” she muttered suddenly. “He’s gunning for Bennett when he’s the one who deserves to fall on his smug, stupid face.” She paused, a look of pure contempt taking over her face as she turned to look at me. “But… I think I know how we can get Adam back.”

“How?” I asked. I’d love nothing more than to see Adam go down, especially if Bennett triumphed as a result. No matter how hurt I was right now, I still didn’t want to see him fail.

“I know how Adam was going to win the bid.”