Page 3 of Fauxmance in the City

“Stop flirting with me unless you enjoy crashing and burning.” I cross my arms and raise an eyebrow, hoping to snap the tightwire pulling me toward him.

“Oh, there’s a fire. But it’s not in my pants.” He drops his gaze to my pencil skirt.

“In your dreams.” I roll my eyes.

“My wet dreams.” He pops another piece into his mouth, smiling devilishly.

“This is a big deal, Sam.” I rub my forehead as the weight of my situation pulses against my temples. “I have a mortgage and property taxes. And maintenance fees. What if someone finds out I’m a fraud and it all blows up? People are canceled for far less these days.”

Sam’s one of the few people in the office—and my life—who knows my secrets. I never intended to tell him, but he suspected something was amiss, and in a moment of weakness, I blurted it all out.

“No one’s going to find out, Catie.” He sinks in front of my chair and his fingers grip my chin. “You deserve it. You worked your ass off.”

My jaw unhinges, and my eyes drop to his lips. There’s a little flake of pastry and I want to lick it off, but as fast as he swept in to shake me out of my anxiety spiral, he’s back in his chair, bent over the pastry bag, seeking another piece of croissant. I blink, my skin burning from the heat of his hand. Begrudgingly, I’m aware of Sam’s attractiveness and what it does to all my feminine parts, but these thoughts create a queasy storm inside me.

Sam committed the ultimate sin when he cheated on Beth. I lost all respect and trust for the slimeball after that. Okay. Okay. There’s a “debate” over whether it was actually cheating, but when the girl you’re dating—Beth—shows up at your—Sam’s—apartment and finds a half-dressed Irish girl on the other side of the door, I’d call that cheating.

That was four years ago. Beth’s happily married with a kid, and any thoughts she had of Sam are long gone, but somehow he’s ended up as a thorn in my life. If we ever moved past flirtation, his prick would be a painful reminder of what happens when you fall in love with the wrong person.

Nope. Thank you, sir, may I not have another?

There’s a light rapping, and I look up to see Natalie in my doorway.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, shooting a look at Sam, who shrugs.

Natalie grips the handles of a shopping bag. “I forgot to give Sam the ingredients to give you for the recipes we’re trying out in the test kitchen this afternoon.” She plops next to Sam in the matching white armchairs across from my desk.

“What are you celebrating?” With a short nail, Natalie pings the champagne glass in front of Sam.

“I signed the papers last night.” I lift the contract.

“You look like you’re going to vomit,” she says, glancing over the document. “Could you aim it that way?” She points toward Sam.

“Har har.” I glare at Natalie. Of all people, she knows what’s at stake.

“Stop worrying,” she says. “You have a great job and the gig on Good Day. Not to mention the money that’s still coming in from your book.”

“Our book.”

Natalie waves her hand as if that’s an insignificant fact. How can she be so flippant? We’re balancing on a tightrope. If I fall, Natalie comes tumbling down with me.

“Did the co-op board ask anything about your ‘husband’?” Natalie puts air quotes around the last word.

“Since the mortgage is in my name, they didn’t ask too many questions. I told them he works out of the country, and that I’d be the main resident. It’s Manhattan. They barely batted an eye. Plus, once I got them on the topic of Good Day, all they wanted to talk about was what Holly Jenkins was like in real life and if Ed Priestly really wore a toupee.”

“What’s another lie on top of so many?” Smiling, Natalie pushes a few stray blonde hairs under her baseball cap. If only I could pull off hair that light, but I take after our father, whose family is from the south of France near Italy. I have olive skin—or it would be if I ever got out in the sun—and mousy-brown hair if I didn’t dye it. God bless highlights.

“I’m worried about how naturally the lies come now.” I’ve become good at putting up smoke screens. And it’s not just one lie I’m juggling—it’s multiple.

Lie number one: I can cook.

When I first began my lifestyle and interior design blog, Blooming in the City, I thought it would be fun to post recipes along with my design tips. I asked Natalie, who was in culinary school at the time, for original dishes, and she happily provided them. At the time, no one read my blog except our mom and her friends, so what did it matter? Right?

Then BuzzFeed picked up one of my posts—“10 Design Hacks I Wish I’d Done When I Was Twenty-One”—and my blog blew up. The new exposure led me to a chance meeting with Patrick Simon, who’s now my editor at Simply Chic. Two weeks later, I was hired by the magazine.

As my popularity grew, so did my responsibilities at the magazine, and soon I was including tips on cooking, meals, and party planning. I told Natalie what I needed, and she gave me the recipes. My readers assumed I could make all those gourmet dishes, and I never corrected the assumption.

I wanted to give Natalie credit from the beginning, and I still do. I begged her to let me put her name next to the recipes when I first posted them on my blog. She’s a genius in the kitchen, but Natalie was—and still is—adamant that she doesn’t want to be associated with my blog or the articles I write for Simply Chic. She hates the limelight, and she’s terrified of rejection. If she reads one negative comment, it ruins her week, her month, her year! It haunts her in the dark hours of the night.

---