Page 36 of The Complication with the Best Man

I stand from the table. “It’s not like that, Tamra.”

“Sure, it’s not.” She crosses her arms.

It’s understandable why Tamra is upset. I’m throwing all her plans into a lurch. But if I’m honest, I feel worse for Harper. I cringe when I think of her, secretly pregnant with my baby, watching Tamra and me trying to sell that we’re a loving, engaged couple. What the hell must she have thought? How must she have felt watching and knowing she had to somehow tell me her news?

“I’m sorry, Tamra. I had no idea it was even a possibility.”

“Newsflash, Finn, it’s a possibility when you fuck her!” Her voice is irate, and her face is red.

I step forward. “I didn’t do anything wrong in doing so. We weren’t together, and we had zero plans on ever being together again. You’re upset because I’m fucking up your plans, I get it. But let’s not pretend it’s because we have any romantic interest in each other. I didn’t scorn you, Tamra.”

She huffs and tears her gaze away from me. “So, what does this mean?”

“I can’t marry you.” The words drop like a lead weight between us.

She whips her head back around to look at me, eyes wide before they soften. The scary thing about Tamra is how fast her demeanor can change when something she wants is in jeopardy. “No. We can still make this work, Finn. We’ll just tell people it happened while you were on a break. That you didn’t cheat.”

“Ididn’tcheat.” My voice grows louder. I’m so damn sick of sticking up for myself.

She waves off my words as if they’re of minor consequence, and my anger grows hotter.

“People will judge us, but that doesn’t matter. As long as we still look like a loving, committed couple, we’ll both get what we want.”

Money. She means we both get our money.

Tamra needs funds for her company to finish building out the app she’s been developing for years. She doesn’t want to take on any investors because she’s convinced it’s going to be a success and wants full control and all of the profits.

When her grandfather passed a couple months back, she found out at the reading of the will that she’d been left a trust, but it would only be dispersed once she was happily married. Apparently, he was an eccentric man who was married to his wife for more than fifty years before she passed away a year before him.

When she came to me with the idea of pretending to get back together for the sake of the trust, she sold me on the idea by offering me enough money to give my parents. They own a small ski resort that has fallen on hard times. Climate change means each ski season gets shorter and shorter, and you have to have the resources to be able to make an abundance of snow to keep the runs open when Mother Nature isn’t cooperating.

The market became more and more competitive as the decades rolled on and huge conglomerates gobbled up all the small resorts and invested heavily in making them over. The money Tamra was going to give me would have allowed them to upgrade the lifts and purchase more snow-making equipment as well as overhaul the lobby and add on to the small family restaurant at the resort so it could be a real après-ski destination.

My parents have refused to sell over the years whenever they’ve been approached, but each year, the margins get tighter. I’m afraid that if they don’t do any upgrades, they won’t be able to compete, and they’ll lose the resort.

“Say something,” Tamra demands.

I shake my head. “That’s not going to work.”

“What do you mean it’s not going to work?” She grips my shirt. “You made a promise, Finn. We can still make it work. Think of your parents. Think of all their employees losing their jobs.”

She’s so fucking good it’s scary. I reach for her wrists and pull them away from me so that she lets go of my shirt. The desperation in her eyes makes me feel bad for her, but I refuse to let her ambition keep me from being a great father.

And if my parents had any idea what I had planned and the real reason I was going to marry Tamra, they’d agree.

“I’m sorry, Tamra. I am. But if I marry you, I’ll be forced to stay in Vermont. My child is going to grow up in Alaska. So, that’s where I need to be.”

Her face contorts, and she glares at me. “So, now you’re going to up and move to Alaska and play the role of baby daddy?”

I inhale a cleansing breath, grabbing for any ounce of my patience. I understand why she’s upset, but I don’t like the way she keeps referring to my unborn child or me as a father. Hell, the baby probably isn’t the size of a peanut yet, and I already feel protective.

“I’m going to do what’s right. And marrying you is no longer it.”

My words hang between us for a minute.

She must see the resolve in my face because her anger shifts to cold indifference. “Fine. The only thing I ask is that you let me announce our breakup and that you don’t tell anyone about our arrangement. I’d rather people look at me with pity than think I’m desperate.”

I inwardly roll my eyes. This is the reason it never worked out with Tamra and me—her consistent need to make sure the narrative was her own. “Fine. Whatever.”

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