Page 34 of Four Steps to the Perfect Fake Date

There was a long silence as they ate stale cookies and drank their coffee.

“That old cast-iron pot wasn’t really about baking bread,” her grandmother finally said. “It reminded me of my mother. She taughtme how to cook. We’d make all kinds of breads together, and she swore that the pot was the reason they turned out good. She said the new ones just weren’t the same, and that specific Dutch oven had some kind of magic in it. I didn’t really care about baking; I just cared about those precious memories with my mother. After she died, it was one of the only things I had left of her. I thought I’d have it forever; the thing was near indestructible. So yes, I stopped baking bread. Baking just didn’t mean anything to me anymore.” She leaned forward and put her hand on Daphne’s, her skin thin and soft and wrinkled. “But I still have a lifetime of memories. I want you to have a life full of memories, Daphne. Beautiful, rich memories that aren’t clouded by the actions of someone who didn’t recognize your worth.”

Daphne brushed her hand across her face to wipe the tear that had escaped down her cheek.

They both jumped when Grandma Mabel’s phone rang. The older woman glanced at the screen. “Your mother and father are downstairs. I’d better not keep them waiting.”

Standing, Daphne wrapped her arms around her grandmother and squeezed. “I love you, Grandma.”

“Not as much as I love you, honey.”

She walked Grandma Mabel to the front door and waved at her parents before trudging back up the stairs and locking herself inside her apartment. The walls were bare and the furniture was generic. It wasn’t a home.

Was she living a smaller life than she should? Was she letting her broken engagement cloud her decisions?

But what was the alternative? Go to some vow renewal with Flint and pretend to be his date? Why? What possible reason could she have to—

Daphne froze in the process of clearing the table. She stared down at the half-empty mugs of coffee, the crumbs on the cookie plate, the stamp of lipstick her grandmother had left on the rim of her mug.

The family heirloom that meant so much to her grandmother had been taken by Flint’s grandmother. If anyone had it, it would be his mother. The vow renewal would happen at his mother’s home.

The chances of that old pot still existing were slim. It was almost inconceivable that anyone would keep the thing, especially when it meant so little to anyone other than her grandmother. Butif. If it still existed, it would be in Eileen Yarrow’s kitchen. A place that normally would be completely beyond Daphne’s ability to access.

Unless she went to the vow renewal as Calvin Flint’s date.

Step Two: Concoct a Cover Story

Chapter 13

The last thing Calvin expected, an hour after getting home from Mickey’s Bar, was his phone to light up with a call from Daphne. He’d already lifted her number from her employment file and saved it in his phone, seeing as she seemed to be hell bent on getting herself seriously injured as quickly as possible. He’d figured he might as well have a way of reaching her in case things went wrong, which they seemed to do often when she was involved.

Staring at the screen for a moment, he kicked his feet up onto the coffee table and swiped to answer. “How bad is it?”

There was a pause. “Excuse me?”

“You’re calling me after midnight, and I left you with all your limbs attached a little over an hour ago. Something must have gone horribly wrong.”

“This was a terrible idea.”

The phone went dead. Calvin stared at the screen, blinking. The woman had hung up on him. Aftershe’dcalledhim. Three seconds later, she answered his call.

“Forget it,” she said without preamble.

“Talk to me, Cupcake.”

“You’re making this exceedingly difficult.”

“If I knew what was going on, maybe I could make it easier.”

“I very much doubt that.”

Calvin leaned his head back on his sofa and stared at the ceiling, smiling. “Let me guess. You’ve reconsidered the vow renewal invite.” The pause that followed made him sit up. He frowned, propping his elbows on his knees. “Davis? You’re not ...Haveyou reconsidered the vow renewal invite?”

Her sigh ruffled through the earpiece. “I think we may be able to come to an understanding.”

“‘An understanding,’” he repeated, not sure how the word tasted on his tongue. She wasn’t exactly volunteering to jump into his bed. Then again, an understanding wasn’t a no.

“I might be persuaded to go to the event with you,” she started, “as a way to temporarily fight fire with fire.”

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