Page 13 of Fake It True

“What about you?” she prompted.

“The next logical question,” I said dryly. “You heard most of it in our appointment. Dora’s mom and I dated. Years ago. She broke up with me by ghosting me. Just completely fell off the radar and moved out of the area. That burned even though it let me know I wouldn’t want to stay with her anyway. I didn’t hear from her for over six years. And then, I got a call about Dora.”

Casey’s lips twisted to the side as anger flashed in her gaze. “She didn’t even tell you she was pregnant, right?”

“Nope. I’ve since heard from a mutual friend that we had back when we dated that she’d been seeing someone else behindmy back. Her friend claimed she wasn’t sure who the father was. I don’t know if I ever would’ve found out about Dora if her mom hadn’t died.”

My feelings about Diane were complicated. There was the bitterness I felt after being ghosted by someone I thought I loved, followed by so much unfinished business. Now, my primary concern was Dora and making sure she was okay. I wanted her to be better than okay, and I didn’t know how to make sure that happened.

When I looked into Casey’s eyes, the empathy there almost hurt to see. “That wasn’t fair to you, or to Dora. I’m really sorry you went through that.”

I took a breath. “Same here. So, after what happened with Diane, I haven’t really dated. I haven’t been a monk, but I haven’t really trusted anyone, I guess. Being ghosted completely bites. I definitely know what it means not to trust someone.”

We ate for another minute or two before Casey asked, “How did you find out what happened?”

“When the social worker from the hospital called me. Hadn’t heard a thing until then. From what I understand from her friend, she was pregnant when she broke it off with me and I guess she thought the other guy might be the father.”

Casey pressed a palm to her chest, her eyes glistening with tears. “I am so sorry. Do you know what happened to the guy she thought was Dora’s dad?”

“According to Diane’s friend, they broke it off not long after she had Dora. He didn’t want anything to do with raising a kid.” I took a quick breath, letting it out. “I’m obviously sorry for everything Diane went through. I am really fucking glad I’m not trying to deal with Dora being attached to some other man who was a father figure to her. I wouldn’t want the emotional mess that comes with that.”

“I totally understand.” Casey nodded vigorously. “That would be tricky.”

A bitter laugh rustled in my throat. “That it would.”

The waiter came to check on us and our conversation moved away from the loaded topic of dating, or rather, lack of it. The question I couldn’t even answer inside my own brain was why I was doing this with Casey. Obviously, there was a spark. Hell, it more like a raging bonfire.

I didn’t want to dwell on that. The more I spent time with Casey, the more I liked her. I told myself we could keep it neat and tidy, not complicated.

Chapter Ten

CASEY

Why did you have Leo pick you up? This is a really bad idea.

My hormones were behaving like a rowdy teenager. They ignored all of my caution. My hormones wanted Leo, wanted another kiss, wantedmorethan a kiss.

Somehow, during dinner, I talked myself into this little corner in my mind where it was totally okay for us to casually date even though he had a daughter and my life was a mess. But I trusted Leo, and wasn’tthatsomething?

In the years since my sister Callie had died, trust had felt nearly impossible to find. I trusted my parents. And yet, I’d broken their trust by keeping a secret that would tear them to pieces if they knew it. I didn’t know what to do, or how to sort it out. I didn’t know who else knew what had been going on with Nathaniel and Callie.

I’d always wanted to travel. After Callie died, I wanted to run away, so I did. Two birds, one stone. I would scratch my travel itch and escape the mess that I felt powerless to clean up. Now, it felt like one lie was rolling into the next, and here I was on a date with my fake fiancé. The fake fiancé who nobody even knew was my fiancé here. Complications were adding up by the day.

My attention narrowed to a singular focus when Leo walked me into my apartment building. I should’ve run out of the truck. But when he offered to walk me up, my rowdy hormones were all, “Hell, yeah!”

The downstairs of the building had a larger apartment that Janet rented to tourists. The upstairs had two apartments with mine on one side and an empty one on the other.

Our footsteps sounded loud to my ears as we walked up the stairs and turned down the hallway. I had a doormat with a sunflower on it in front of my door.

Leo glanced down at it, his lips twitching with a smile. “That suits you.”

“A sunflower?”

“Yeah. Cheerful and pretty, like you.”

The simple compliment startled me, and I smiled before I could get embarrassed. “Oh! Well, that’s sweet of you.”

His baby blues held mine as his lips kicked up at one corner before his smile stretched to the other. Heat pooled low in my belly, and I suddenly felt breathless as I looked up at him.

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