Page 119 of The Plus One Contract

My mother looks from my brother to Nathan, and with absolute certainty, she says, “I think you did too.”

I freeze.

My breath catches, my stomach dipping as guilt claws its way up my throat.

Oh, Mom. What am I doing?

She doesn’t know this is fake. That Nathan isn’t mine. That this entire week has been one massive lie, built on a napkin contract and a misunderstanding at an airport bar.

For a split second, it’s on the tip of my tongue. To tell her the truth. To spill everything.

She cuts in first, shaking her head with a small chuckle.

“You know,” she muses, tilting her glass, “I found it strange how you never spoke about him before this wedding.” She looks at me then, lips twitching, eyes sharp. “You didn’t even give us a name, Sienna. Not once.”

My heart pounds.

“I thought for a while that you’d just made him up. That there was no man. That you just didn’t want to show up alone.”

I force myself to keep my expression calm, to nod along like I haven’t just been completely exposed.

She simply smiles, winks, and takes another sip of her wine.

“Whatever way you got a hold of him,” she says, “my advice? Keep holding.”

My throat closes.

“That man looks at you…I don’t know, Sienna. It’s intense.”

Just like that, I realize the truth.

I might have fooled everyone else, but not her.

Not my mother.

She’s known from the start. She just never called me on it because she sees the same thing I feel.

Something real.

Something terrifying.

Something I don’t know how to hold onto, even if I wanted to.

I swallow hard, blinking down at my wine, pretending I don’t feel like I’m coming apart at the seams.

“Mom,” I whisper.

She just pats my hand, knowing.

Understanding.

Loving me anyway.

Forty-Five

It’s been twenty minutes, and he’s still at the kiddy’s table.

He’s sitting there, sleeves rolled up, top button undone, some five-year-old girl trying to braid a piece of his hair while another small child chants, “More bubbles! More bubbles!” at full volume.

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