Page 13 of Knocked Up by My Fake Fiancé
Mom is classist and traditional. She doesn't want me with a career woman. My dad, on the other hand, dislikes anyone without ambition and tells me to bring home a girl with more than half a brain cell.
Between them, my parents want me to find a unicorn. A driven, intelligent, and accomplished woman to please my father, who is also prepared to drop all that to become a stay-at-home wife and mother of multiple children to please my mother.
None of them have even bothered to ask me what I want. Which is none of the above.
I don't want a wife or a family any time soon. Maybe never. I've only been in love once, and that was a fucking nightmare I never want to repeat. I know most people are married with kids by my age, but it's not for me. I take my work too seriously, and I know what I'm like—I'm an all or nothing kinda guy, and with women, extremes like those are a really bad idea.
As they introduce me to more people, my phone buzzes in my pocket, likely work calling. I ignore it for now. I already know I have work to do, but I can spare fifteen minutes of mandatory, I-love-my-family time, before I leave. That should be enough to get them off my back for the next few months.
I'm also on the lookout for my brother George to show up any minute now, even though Steph assured me that he wasn't coming.
He could still show up, and that would be just the thing to take this night from terrible to unbearable.
As my parents occupy themselves with small talk and gossip with another couple the same age whom they've known for about a hundred years, my sister leads me to a corner. Her body language tells me that there's something she wants to say, but she feels uncomfortable saying it.
That alone shows me what this is about.
"So," she says as she turns to face me. "I thought I should be the one to tell you. Marina and George are engaged now."
I nod. I'd seen it coming, and I hate the pitying look my sister gives me almost as much as the news itself.
So what if my ex, Marina—the only woman with whom I have ever been in love—is now engaged to my brother? So what if she broke my damned heart? So what if she's the reason I vowed never to make my heart vulnerable to any lying, deceiving, damned woman ever again?
"That's not the worst part," Steph continues, with a deep exhale. "I overheard Mom and Daddy talking. Daddy's going to step down soon and he's thinking of taking the Wolfe Group off you and giving George the CEO role instead."
"What?" I explode. "He can't do that!" But between him and my mother, as majority shareholders, I know they absolutelycando it. Rage surges through my body. Smoke practically blows out of my ears, even as Steph gestures for me to lower my voice. "How the hell can he even think that? After all that work I've put in?" And it's true. I've slaved my ass off for the company. Dedicated my entire life to it. "George barely does fuck all. Surely he knows that."
"I know," My sister holds up a hand. "I get it. But it's not about that. It's about the fact that Daddy and Mommy want the company to be a legacy, passed down from father to son. You know, generation to generation. Staying in the Wolfe family.Right now, George is the only one who looks like he's settling down. You don't even seem like you want that and, well… sorry bro, but you're forty-five already, and you're not getting any younger."
"What the fuck does he expect? They want me to do what exactly? Marry some acceptable female specimen that comes from the right heritage, who's fit and healthy, and sound in the head, just so I can sire offspring with her? Is that what they want?"
"Pretty much." She shrugs. "But between you and me, it might be enough to at leastlooklike you're settling down."
I open my mouth to say something, but frown. There was a subtext in her last sentence. "What are you saying?"
"I think you should consider getting a fiancée too, brother." Her eyes twinkle with mirth. "Even if it's a fake one."
It's later in the afternoon, and I'm heading back to my own personal apartment—the penthouse floor of a 1930s-built granite building on Central Park West, overlooking the famous Strawberry Fields memorial to John Lennon. I'd chosen it partly for the stunning park view, and partly because it's under ten minutes' walk from my favorite cocktail bar, Da Capo on Columbus Avenue.
Steph's suggestion sounds great in theory, but it's a lot easier said than done. Sitting in the back of my yellow cab as we crawl along at the usual New York snail's pace, I have plenty of time to consider my sister's words.
Hiring a fake fiancée is one way to outwit my father and gain what is rightfully mine, and it's something I've thought about before. Finding a woman who's prepared to fake a relationshipwith me seems simple enough on paper. In principle, I'd just need to stay with her for a few months—a year perhaps at the outside—then I could "naturally" break up with her after I'd regained the trust of my parents and kept control of the company…all of that sounds like a solid plan.
In theory.
In practice, it's a lot more difficult.
Maybe if I were just looking for anyone, it would be simple. I would tell my assistant to hire an actress to play the role, but knowing my mother, that won't fly.
The second I introduce any new woman to the family as someone I'm even remotely interested in, Mom's going to hire Tom, a former FBI agent turned PI, to run a thorough background check on her. She'll want to knoweverythingabout her, and Tom's no fool, for one thing. He'd soon uncover the contractual arrangement. Wouldn't take him more than a day or two of sniffing around the agencies. For another thing, Tom can't be bought. He was brought up as a kid watching my mom on TV and seeing her image in glossy magazines. The man's besotted with her, and loyal to a T. There's not even the remotest chance of him accepting a bribe to keep his mouth shut.
If this fake fiancée doesn't fit all my mom's criteria, Mom's gonna scare her off, one way or another.
There was only one person that my mother never did this to, and that was Marina. Even Mom could see that Marina was special, and was more than deserving of being the wife of her firstborn child. She could also see that I was madly in love with her, so my mother was forced to bring her into the fold and turn her into the high-class daughter-in-law she wanted.
After that, of course, Marina cheated on me with my brother.
Though she'll never say it to my face, my mom blames me. She probably thinks that things would have ended up better if I'd only listened to her about Marina in the first place and takenher advice. She'll use that as an excuse for why she needs to thoroughly investigate this new woman.
