Page 51 of Personal Escort

“Ha. That’s what I would have said about telling my family.”

“That’s different,” I murmur as I kiss her lips. “They’re my in-laws now. I need to keep them on my good side.”

She kisses me back, then lifts the phone again. “One more in-law to call, then.”

This is all her. I stretch out and offer her my arm to lean into as she waits for her sister to pick up.

“Elana, it’s Cara. I have some news, and I think you do, too. Want to trade?”

There’s a pause, then she giggles. “Ben and I guessed weeks ago. We should get a gold star for keeping it to ourselves. I’m so excited for you! When are you due?”

Another pause, then she groans. “Okay, fair is fair. And Nana will probably be calling you shortly anyway. I… Well, I got married today.” She wrinkles her nose. “Yes, to a real person. Oh myGod, I can’t believe you would think that I would make up a groom. That’sterrible.”

I bite my knuckle to keep from laughing, and she pokes me in the side. I point to the living room part of the suite, and she waves me off.

“It’sToby, okay? … Toby Hunt. Yes, Ben’s best friend. No, I’m not making this up. … Yes, he’s very cute.”

I turn and give her a raised-eyebrow look at that, and she blushes.

“Very, very cute. He showed up and surprised me with a ring. So we eloped…No, I don’t want to do a whole other wedding. Yes, I know you would…okay, maybe something in the Hamptons over the Fourth of July weekend. No, not fancy…”

I leave her to hash out the not-a-wedding, but-still-fancy celebration Elana wants to throw in Sagaponack when we’re all there. I head downstairs to get a secret wedding dinner for my bride. The wife of my heart.

I have in-laws now. And they’re only slightly bat-shit crazy. Plus, I’m already like a brother to her brother…we just can’t talk about women the same way ever again.

Bring on the holidays.

CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO

CARA

IT’S hot in the Hamptons, and not only because my fake husband has his right hand curled around my upper thigh as he deftly drives out of the East Hampton airport.

It will take at least half an hour to get to the beach house today, with traffic crawling in all directions.

That should be just enough time to convince Toby not to fly back to Toronto with me after this weekend.

We’ve been fake-married for two weeks, and we’ve each done the cross-country flight once. We need to pace ourselves and find a sustainable long-distance routine that will work for at least the next year, and probably longer.

I still dream of living in Australia.

Now I wake from those dreams feeling like a traitor to love, though.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks as he rubs his fingertips along the hem of my shorts.

“You should go back to Palo Alto after the weekend.”

“I will,” he says gently. “By way of Toronto.”

“I’ll come and visit at the end of the month.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“So we don’t really need to—”

“Need to? No, of course we don’tneedto. But if we’d had a big wedding, I’d have taken two weeks off so we could have a honeymoon in Fiji. A few stolen days here and there over the summer is a perfectly reasonable variation on the honeymoon time.”

I swallow hard. “We could still do the Fiji thing at some point.”

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