Chapter 11

Ivan texted her at noon.

Mom invited us to dinner to celebrate your engagement.

Shiloh shut her eyes and groaned. What had her brainless brother done now? She texted him back.

Mom doesn’t know it’s fake?

Dumb question. Obviously not. Shiloh should have nipped this all in the bud four seconds after the conversation with Kellan about this exact subject. Then she could have spent the day avoiding Kellan as planned. At least until she got her strategy ironed out. So far, it had included pleading a headache—which she was clearly much better at faking than anything else—and going back to bed to watch soap operas.

By the middle of the second one, she’d started paying closer attention to the plot in some attempt to learn something new about how to deal with her current situation. Resorting to daytime TV drama to fix her problems. Kellan had officially pushed her off her rocker.

She could hear him moving around in the living room, also known as the place that led to the bathroom. It would have been a far more efficient arrangement for her to have a second bathroom in her bedroom. But she had chosen this condo based on price, not the possibility of a male houseguest who was driving her batty.

Ivan: I didn’t tell her anything. But she heard about it from somewhere.

Wow. The gossip mill at Vivo was even more effective that she’d have ever guessed. And odds were good her mom’s feelings were hurt that Shiloh hadn’t told her personally about the engagement. Damage control needed, stat, and an email wouldn’t do.

Fine. We’ll go to dinner and I’ll tell her the truth.

An email would have been preferable. But she knew better. That would just lead to a phone call that would highlight once again how Shiloh had failed because she hadn’t landed a man yet.

Of course, all of this meant she would not have the buffer of a wall between her and the man she could not scrub from her skin. A shower might have done a better job than the sheets, but she’d had to work with what was available to her inside her self-imposed cell.

Shiloh threw on a robe and went to face the music.

Kellan stood at the island in the kitchen and immediately glanced up as she came toward him. “How is your head?”

Still attached to her body, unfortunately. Which meant that her eyes worked fine and had no trouble sucking him in. Kellan was still devastatingly gorgeous in his regular clothes, not that she’d had any hope of him morphing into a hunchbacked troll overnight.

“It’s fine, thanks,” she mumbled. Wouldn’t be that way for long.

How had she landed in this fix? A better question: what fix was she in? The one where she had to pretend all of this was fake when it turned out she didn’t know how to separate fact from fantasy?

Or the one where she liked all of this so much that she didn’t want it to end—which meant she needed to back way off so she didn’t force him to run screaming in the other direction?

Or the one where she had an enormous amount of compassion for her savior and couldn’t stomach the idea of driving him away with her neediness?

“My mom wants us to come for dinner,” she blurted out. “Us and Ivan. To celebrate the engagement.”

“This feels like déjà vu.” Kellan shot her a look. “So neither of you have informed her of the truth.”

“Well…no. I will tonight, though.” She held up a hand. “Swear. But at this point, she’s already planning on dinner and she loves you, so, please indulge me.”

He lifted one shoulder. “It’s food and I love your mom too. Why in the world would this be a problem?”

Because he’d kissed her within an inch of her life—twice—and she had no clue how to navigate today now that she’d stopped lying to herself about what was happening.

She was falling for him.

Oh, goodness. Today was a day for craziness, clearly. An actual headache started brewing behind one eye, the worst kind, because it felt like an icepick had been stabbed through her forehead. She couldn’t let this continue, especially since she’d let herself get wrapped up in the illusion.

She was not falling for him. Period.

“I think we should back off on the PDA.”

“Oh. Okay.” Kellan went back to making a sandwich, the activity she’d interrupted, his expression unchanged. “We probably got the message across last night well enough.”

Sure. No problem for Kellan.

“Good. Glad that’s settled.”

It wasn’t. Not by a long shot. But what was she supposed to say? Hey you big clod. It would be nice if you could give the slightest indication that you aren’t thrilled about giving up the one bonus of this whole deal.

“There’s not really a whole lot of need for it behind closed doors anyway,” he said evenly as if they were discussing the weather, not the end of an era.

Maybe she should fall to the floor in hysterics. It had worked for Ashley when she’d been trying to get Marco to notice her after he’d divorced Kayla. And she should not be watching soap operas to glean relationship advice…

“I’m saying there’s not a need for it ever,” she informed him through clenched teeth. “It confuses matters.”

That’s when he put down the bread and cocked his head at her. “Are you okay? You seem a little upset.”

I am upset. “No. I mean yes. I’m not upset. I just feel like we’ve maybe crossed a few lines that we shouldn’t have. I let you pretend last night that Sergio was skulking around because I liked having an excuse to kiss you. That doesn’t make it right.”

“Who says I was pretending?”

His gaze burned through her as the moment drew out to the point of discomfort. Had she misinterpreted everything? She’d been so sure he’d made that up. Obviously she’d fallen prey to more than one ruse. “This is why we can’t do that anymore. None of this feels like it’s supposed to.”

“What is it supposed to feel like?”

“Fake!” she croaked and wished she’d never gotten out of bed. “I mean, I know it is. I know it has to be. But it’s just too hard to balance. For me anyway. Next thing you know, I’ll be buying you presents and cooking dinner, all under the premise that this relationship is moving toward something deeper, and then you’ll clear your throat uncomfortably so you can announce that this isn’t really what you’re looking for—”

“Shiloh.” Kellan skirted the island and cupped both of his large palms under her jaw, holding her steady as he spoke to her. “We’re not dating. None of this counts. Repeat after me.”

“We’re not dating,” she mumbled and tried to look away from the intensity in his eyes. But he wouldn’t let her. “None of this counts.”

“Good. Why is that important?”

“I don’t know.”

But she had a feeling he was about to tell her exactly how silly she was being. None of this was real and she’d gone off the rails, which was exactly how she suffocated the living daylights out of every man who got within five feet of her. He was no different. He’d get tired of how she hovered and wanted to be with him all the time. Sooner rather than later if she didn’t back off.

“It’s important because it makes it okay if you have fun with me,” he murmured, his gaze melting with sincerity. “I’m not going anywhere. You can’t possibly cling too hard. That’s what I want you to do. Because then I know where you are, and I know you’re safe.” And then he stuck a huge dollop of fluffy, delicious icing on the top of that cupcake. “Besides, I like being with you.”

“You do?” Stupid tears pricked at her eyelids as she stared up at him. “You realize what this says about your character, right? You’re admitting you like hanging out with blubbery, neurotic women.”

He just laughed, the big idiot. “Stop. You had me at my mom wants us to come for dinner.”

“You think you’re charming, I suppose.” But she wasn’t freaking out any longer, so there was that. And her lips were tugging upward into a smile that she couldn’t seem to control.

Instead of arguing, he leaned down and laid his lips on hers in a kiss that shouldn’t have been so perfect. It shouldn’t have even happened in the first place. But it unfolded into something that bound them together. Inexplicably.

They were in this together. He wasn’t going anywhere. She could be as needy and clingy as her heart desired.

And when he pulled back ever so slightly, her eyelids blinked open and she fell into his gaze, greedily soaking up the heat she saw there. “What was that for?”

“Because I like kissing you and that means there’s no reason not to,” he said so matter-of-factly that she couldn’t seem to find a reason to disagree. “That’s what’s so great about all of this. None of it counts.”

“What if I want to kiss you for no reason?” she countered primly before thinking better of how that was going to go down.

He quirked an eyebrow. “Then I’m afraid I’m at your mercy, Ms. Anderson. Just be gentle with me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, yeah. I get it. I’m being ridiculous. Making too big a deal out of all this. I’m allowed to have fun and no one should be worried about taking any of this too seriously. Did I miss anything?”

“Only whether you’d like a sandwich. I’ll make you one,” he offered and dropped his hands from her face as if he hadn’t just rocked her entire world.

Okay then. She was dragging Kellan along to a family dinner as her date, she’d admitted that she was having trouble with the line between fiction and truth, and her fake fiancé was not running for the door as fast as he could. What alternate reality had she fallen into?

Kellan drove to her mom’s house without a single pause, which meant he’d been there before. She’d moved to Celina a few years ago after a huge debate—which Shiloh had lost—about selling the home they’d all shared with her dad. One day, she’d learn to leave well enough alone.

As Kellan parallel parked his giant Chevy truck in front of the trim one-story house, a curtain fell back into place. Her mom had been watching for them, clearly. Perhaps she needed a hobby. Shiloh made a mental note to look into pottery classes or something. There was a rec center right down the road, which had been one of the many reasons for the move to the very far north suburb of Dallas.

“Looks like Ivan isn’t here yet,” Shiloh commented. Her brother had mentioned he’d be picking up his girlfriend, Katie, from somewhere out in this area and joining them as soon as traffic allowed.

Which meant she’d be ruining the reason for her mother’s dinner party without any backup. Well, she had Kellan. That was better than Ivan any day.

“Showtime,” she muttered as Kellan helped her out of the truck with a hand down.

“I didn’t think we were playing up the engagement for your mom.” He hadn’t released her hand yet and she wasn’t in so much of a hurry for him to get to that part anyway, so she held on tight.

“It’s a figure of speech.”

First order of business—tell her mom the truth. Especially since it seemed like a big deal to Kellan. But the second they cleared the door, her mother swept her up in a hug the likes of which Shiloh had never experienced.

Something that felt like love washed over her and burrowed inside to take up residence in a place that had long been empty. Since her dad had died.

“There’s my baby,” her mother crooned despite never having called her daughter that once in her life. At least not since Shiloh could remember. “I’m so happy you were able to come. And there’s your fiancé. Hey, sweetie.”

Her mom likewise smothered Kellan in lieu of a greeting. He murmured, “Hi, Clare,” and hugged her back a beat longer than Shiloh had done. It was fairly obvious they had a good relationship, which probably explained why he was being so weird about ensuring they told her mom the truth.

Beaming, her mom drank them both in as they stood there in the entryway. “Imagine. The two of you are engaged. I wish George had lived to see this. He would have been so thrilled to walk his little girl down the aisle to marry a fine man like this one.”

Shiloh cocked a brow as she contemplated her mother. “You can calm down, Mom. There’s no need for champagne and a parade.”

That was exactly the sort of remark that caused friction between the two Anderson women in the past, but come on. That had been laying it on a little thick. Especially since her father was not here to walk her down the aisle and the sudden lump in her throat over that fact didn’t help.

Her mom dismissed that with a wave. “I’m just so excited. I’ve been waiting ages for the chance to take you shopping for a dress.”

“You…um, what?” Shiloh nearly swallowed her tongue.

“You’re getting married. It’s one of the biggest events of your life and I want to be right in the middle of it.”

Okay, she had not seen that coming. More than a little dazed, she blinked at the woman who had given her life and participated willingly as one fourth of the Anderson family until it was torn apart, and then vanished inside herself. If Shiloh had known a fake engagement might be the thing to get her mom out of her shell, she’d have trolled up and down McKinney Avenue looking for a suitable candidate ages ago.

But the beauty of it was, she didn’t have to. She already had a suitable candidate, one her mother already knew and approved of.

Would it hurt anything to pretend just a little while longer?

Shooting Kellan an apologetic glance, she smiled brightly. “I would love to have you in the middle of it.”

Her mother actually radiated with happiness, turning her careworn face years younger. “We should get started planning. Have you picked a date? What color are you thinking for the bridesmaid dresses? Oh! I went and got some magazines. I hope it’s not too early to start looking for ideas. I found some centerpieces that I wanted to get your opinion on.”

Her mother hooked elbows with Shiloh and guided her toward the informal living room off the kitchen, which had a fireplace that saw almost no use outside of the handful of subfreezing days north Texas experienced in the winter.

Sure enough, bridal magazines had exploded all over her mother’s house, lining the coffee table, the long wooden stand for the TV, the mantle, and there was even a stack near the coffee maker in the kitchen.

“Some magazines?” Shiloh had to laugh at her mother’s enthusiasm even as she scrambled to sort through the implications of faking an engagement that would not actually end with a wedding. “It looks like you bought every one they had.”

Nothing could dampen her mother’s smile. “I did.”

Kellan wandered into the back part of the house just as the doorbell rang. The look on his face did not bode well. The second her mother flew to answer the door, he crossed his arms and stared down at her.

“You’re not going to tell her the truth.”

It was her turn to treat him to the one-shouldered half shrug that wasn’t anything close to an apology.

“What was I supposed to do?” she stage whispered. “She’s all excited. There’s shopping involved. Please don’t make me crush her happiness.”

Kellan sighed and ran a hand through his hair, but at least he’d dropped his crossed arms, which had looked as imposing as he’d intended. “She is pretty excited.”

“She loves you, obviously.” Shiloh had long given up hope that she’d break through the barriers between the Anderson women. How bizarre was it to have finally done so with Ivan’s best friend by her side? “Bonus for me. I like you too.”

That made him smile, but it faded just as quickly. “This is not going to end well. Wouldn’t it be better for her to know the truth now instead of later?”

After they’d gotten to spend some quality mother-daughter time together? And maybe bonding in way that Shiloh had never been able to before? No, that would not be better. Sure, there’d be some disappointment in her mother’s future, but in the meantime, how could it hurt to keep up a ruse they were already perpetuating? “I’ll deal with the fallout. I’ll blame the breakup on me, so don’t worry that she’ll think badly of you.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.”

But he was starting to cave, she could tell. “Don’t worry about anything. It’ll be fine. Except for the part where you’ll have to act like we’re in love for the evening. Sorry. I really did think you’d be off duty tonight.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that’s the part you should apologize for. Poor me. I have to hold your hand and find ways to corner you in the kitchen so we can accidentally on purpose get caught making out. Sounds like I’m in for a long, horrible evening.”

Well. She might be a huge fan of Sarcastic Kellan if those were the kinds of things that came out of his mouth. “Maybe I’ll be the one finding ways to tug you into a back bedroom for some alone time.”

The temperature rose about a thousand degrees as his gaze latched onto hers with something entirely too dangerous and exciting. “I like the way you think.”

“Then it’s a date,” she informed him saucily as Ivan and Katie blew into the room ahead of her mother, completing the circle of her family.