Page 52 of The Fake Boyfriend Fiasco

“Hello,” he murmured absently. “How was your trip?”

“Terrible,” Aria replied, plopping down onto a nearby sofa. “I was just telling Jen how I lied to everyone about my new boyfriend. He was actually one of Keynes’s bonkers rich friends and he hired me to protect him from sex at a Spanish house party.”

“Wow,” Theo said. And turned a page.

Aria glared at Jen, jabbing a finger through the air. “I knew it. You knew!”

“No! Nooo, noo, no. Okay, yes. Sorry.” Jen scowled at Theo—or rather, at his paper. “I wasn’t going to say anything. It’s all supposed to be a secret, isn’t it?”

“But…” Aria rubbed her temples. This was, quite frankly, one surprise too many. She was on the edge. She was past the edge. She’d flown past the edge less than ten hours ago, when a man she’d trusted, a man she’d—

That’s enough of that. Pull yourself together.

Swallowing down her bile, Aria asked, “Who told you?”

“Theo,” Jen said promptly.

“And how the hell did you know?” Aria demanded, glaring at the newspaper in front of Theo’s face.

He sighed. “Keynes told me. Obviously. He did say not to tell anyone…”

“But you blabbed anyway? Jesus, man, you’re sixty years old, and you haven’t learned to keep your mouth shut?”

Theo finally lowered the paper, his eyes narrowed. “Aria. I am not sixty.”

“Whatever. You’re supposed to be the mature one in this group!”

“Jennifer is my wife,” he sighed. “I don’t hide things from my wife.”

I always want to be honest with you, agapi mou.

Ruthlessly, she shoved that traitorous memory aside—and shoved her heart aside too, since it couldn’t be trusted. Since it clenched every time she remembered that accented voice feeding her sweet bullshit, those gorgeous eyes lying to her.

“Well, what the fuck is Keynes’s excuse?” she huffed. “You’re not his husband.”

“If platonic marriage existed,” Theo said reasonably, “I would be.”

“Piss off.”

Jen rubbed a soothing hand over Aria’s back. “It’s really not that big a deal, love. I understand why you kept it to yourself. And God, I was relieved when I found out!” She gave an airy little laugh. “I mean, at first I thought you’d really fallen for some random stranger—” Her sentence cut off abruptly, but Aria had known Jen for almost twenty years. She knew what her best friend had been about to say.

Again. I thought you’d fallen for some random stranger again.

Fuck.

This time, when the tears returned, they weren’t the kind she could hide with a hug and a surreptitious swipe of her eyes. This time, they ripped her apart.

* * *

“She came home early, and now she won’t stop crying! I said crying. Yes!” Theo was trying to be quiet, she could tell. But when he got really angry, his voice sort of expanded like a balloon. It floated in from the hallway, reaching Aria’s ears without trouble.

She was alone in the living room, sobbing silently now, but the lack of sound didn’t make it any less embarrassing. Jen had run off for tea. Theo had run off to ring, Aria assumed, Keynes.

“You better call that motherfucker and find out what the hell he did. I know. I know. Call me back.”

He returned a second later with an expression of polite concern. “Well,” he said, his awkward tone a world away from the whip-sharp words she’d just heard. “You seem… better.”

Less hysterical, he meant. She was saved from drumming up a reply when Jen bustled into the room with a mug in each hand. She speared her husband with a glare and ordered, “Out.”

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