Page 40 of The Wedding Hoax

“Fine. Sure. Doctor’s orders.” Eileen blew out a sigh. She then turned her attention toward me. “You don’t look as excited as she does, Harry. You don’t like visiting your family?”

“I wouldn’t say that.” I took a seat next to her at the kitchen table. “Who doesn’t like visiting their family? I’m not a monster.”

“I didn’t say you were a monster. You just looked a little hesitant.” Eileen shrugged. “I was just wondering about it. That’s all.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Complicated how?”

“Complicated as in they’re the whole reason Simone and I are doing this marriage in the first place,” I answered. “Complicated because if they just trusted me to run the company without needing me to be married, I never would’ve gone through with any of this.”

“Ah. So, this is a tradition in your family, then? Getting fake married to stay in charge of the family business?”

“Nope. Everyone before me got married of their own choosing. Long before their fortieth birthday, so the rule never had to be enforced.”

“Have you ever told them how you felt about the tradition?”

“All the time.” I leaned back in my seat. “But no one ever listens to me about it. They just bulldoze over me until I get in line with whatever they say.”

“That’s funny.”

“I don’t see what’s so funny about it.”

“Well, it’s funny because you don’t seem like the type of man who’d ever let anyone bulldoze over him,” Eileen replied. “And yet, with your family, it’s like they know just how to press your buttons.”

“Isn’t that how it always is?”

“I think so.” Eileen smiled. “But they can’t be all bad. Or else, you wouldn’t still be dealing with them.”

“That’s because I’ve gotten used to them. They’ve always been like this, expecting way more from me when I’m already giving them everything I have. Their standards for me have always been impossible to reach. I think they did it that way so that I’d always be in overachiever mode—”

“But instead, it made you feel like you could never make them happy.” Eileen finished my thought for me. “They wanted an overachiever but they got someone who’s never satisfied.”

“Except for the magazine,” I added. “With the magazine, I’m completely satisfied with my work. It’s the one thing that I know I’m doing perfectly.”

“Which is why your family trying to take it out of your hands drives you crazy.” Eileen hummed. “I think I’m getting the full picture now.”

“You are?”

“I am.” Eileen offered me a bright smile. “You’re not that complicated, you know. I mean that in a good way.”

“It’s just—I kind of got the feeling you hated me.”

“I don’t hate you, Harry.” Eileen shook her head. “Trust me. There are very few people that I hate, and you’ve never made it on the list.”

I smiled. “That’s a relief.”

“And that’s quite a compliment,” Simone said as she set a protein shake in front of Eileen. “You should hear her talk about the butcher shop guy. He’s definitely on her shit list.”

“It’s not my fault that he always weighs the meat wrong and ends up stiffing us.”

Simone laughed, and she and her mother exchanged a knowing glance.

My heart ached at their connection as I thought about how complicated things were with my own family.

Why was it so easy for Simone and her mom to be this close?

And why was it so hard for me to be close to anyone?

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