One Fiancee To Go, Please. Jackie Braun

      It was almost ten when the waiter brought the check, and Tess left the restaurant on shaking limbs, unable to clearly remember all of the lies she and Jack had spun for the Fausts’ benefit. All she knew for certain was that she had started out the day worried about a midterm exam and ended it with the town’s most celebrated gossip believing she was engaged to, and carnally involved with the gorgeous new vice president of Faust Enterprises.

      Tess had traded black silk for denim and cotton, and sat huddled in the front seat of Jack’s rental car waiting for the heat to kick in as they drove back to Earl’s Place. Beside her Jack groaned and muttered, “I can’t believe I let it get this far.”

      He’d been saying basically the same thing since leaving the Fausts, but this time Tess felt the need to offer her own bit of editorial comment.

      “You? My reputation is in tatters. Cora Faust thinks we’ve been…” she gestured wildly with her hand to fill in the blank. Just thinking the words made her uncomfortable. She couldn’t bring herself to say them aloud.

      “We’ve been what?” Jack asked. He turned toward her, and she saw the beginnings of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

      “You know only too well what she thinks we’ve been doing,” Tess croaked. They passed the beauty shop, where gossip was dispensed as freely as the hairspray, and something even more depressing occurred to her. “What if this gets back to my mother? I’m twenty-four, but I may as well be in pinafores as far as my mother is concerned.”

      He sent her a sympathetic look before returning his attention to the road.

      “On the bright side, at least the man you’re supposedly sleeping with is willing to make an honest woman out of you.” When he glanced her way, Tess sent him a withering look intended to tell him exactly what she thought of his attempt at humor.

      “Sorry. Just trying to lighten the mood.”

      But Tess didn’t want her mood lightened. She slumped against the headrest and closed her eyes. “What if my family learns of our supposed engagement?” she moaned.

      “Maybe they won’t get wind of it. Maybe Cora will keep quiet for a while out of a sense of romance, and by the time she says anything to your family, this entire mess will be resolved. Then you can tell them the truth and have a good laugh over it.”

      “Somehow, I doubt they would find this funny.”

      Jack brought the car to a stop in the lot behind Earl’s Place and shifted into park. He turned to face her and when he spoke, all humor was gone from his voice.

      “I’m really sorry, Tess. I didn’t mean to drag you so deeply into my predicament.”

      The street lamp illuminated only half of his face, but there was no mistaking his sincerity. She exhaled slowly and straightened in her seat. “Oh, it’s not all your fault. I went along with it, even when I realized who we were supposed to be fooling. I could have said no, but I didn’t.”

      “Why did you do it?” he asked softly, his gaze just a little too direct.

      Tess looked away. She didn’t have an answer for him, not one she could share without sounding pathetic. How could she tell him that work and school had taken up so much of her life for the past several years that she hadn’t had time for many dates or much fun? And despite all the complications their “date” had wrought, she had had fun. She’d enjoyed putting on a sexy dress and going out to a fancy restaurant. She’d enjoyed Jack’s company and the forbidden feelings he conjured up in her whenever he smiled or touched her hand. It was heady stuff for a woman who spent most of her spare time dressed in ratty sweats, her nose pressed into a textbook.

      “Tess?” he prompted.

      She decided it was best to ignore the question. “I can’t believe I said we’re having a June wedding. It just got out of control.”

      “Yeah,” Jack said with a sigh. He leaned his forehead on the steering wheel and moaned like a man facing amputation without anesthesia. “Way out of control. I guess we should own up to it and apologize. We probably should have done that from the start. It would have been much easier.”

      “I’ve been thinking the same thing myself, although I don’t relish the thought of telling Cora Faust I lied to her.” In jest, she asked, “Got any other ideas?”

      Jack rolled his head to the side on the steering wheel and squinted at her, as if taking her question seriously. “Well, we could keep up the charade for a little while longer. I mean, just long enough for my position to be secure. Then we could tell the Fausts we called off our engagement.” He sat up and shrugged. “Tell them we decided we just weren’t suited.”

      “Jack, I don’t know. My family.”

      “I’m asking a lot, I know. Before you say no, think about it. We’ve already asked the Fausts to keep our engagement a secret. We could also ask them to keep quiet about our breakup to spare us any public embarrassment. No one else needs ever know we lied.” He grinned triumphantly. “It’s a brilliant plan, Tess.”

      “You mean devious.”

      “Well,” he cocked his head to one side. “Maybe just a little, but my intentions, ultimately, aren’t dishonest.”

      She remained quiet for a moment, surprised to find she was actually considering what he proposed.

      “It wouldn’t be for long, Tess, I promise. A few weeks, maybe a month. What do you say?”

      Tess glanced around the empty parking lot and tried to figure out just why she was willing to continue playing along with this scheme, because that’s precisely what she was prepared to do. Surely, she had more than paid Jack back for the ruined suit. But then, Tess knew it had stopped being about the suit several lies ago. Maybe it had never been about the suit at all.

      She liked Jack Maris. She liked spending time with him. She liked the way he said her name, and the way he had held her hand as they sat at the table, stroking the pad of his thumb over her knuckles with such casual tenderness. Maybe she was just being a fool, but this—whatever this was—felt right. She thought about her mother’s firm belief in fate. Perhaps Tess should believe in such things herself.

      “I must be crazy,” she muttered.

      Jack’s brows pulled together. “Is that a yes?”

      “Yes, I’ll do it,” she said slowly.

      In the low light, he looked relieved, then oddly troubled, as if he were having second thoughts. Fiddling with his seat belt, he said, “Make sure, Tess. You don’t have to, you know. I may have made you feel obligated, but you’re not.”

      “It’s just a white lie, really,” she said, trying to reassure him as well as herself.

      “Right, just one little white lie. Who can it hurt?”

      “Certainly not the Fausts,” she agreed a little desperately. “After all, how can our pretending to be engaged possibly hurt them?”

      “It will just be one less gift for them to buy come June,” he added with a smile.

      “Then it’s settled.”

      Once they reached an agreement there seemed little reason not to say good-night, but Tess hesitated until the silence became awkward.

      “Well, I…” she said at the same time Jack began to speak. They both laughed a little tightly, then she said, “Go on, please.”

      “I was just going to say that I’m flying back to Boston on Sunday night. I need to pack up my things and get my affairs in order.” He pulled a business card from his wallet and scribbled something on the back before handing it to her. “Here’s a number where you can reach me in the evenings if anything comes up. If you need me before Sunday call me at the Saint Sebastian.”

      She nodded and tucked the card inside her purse.

      “Well,