I bit my lip and then faked a grin. “Well you know what they say about the fine line between love and hate, right?”
She arched a brow at me, clearly unbelieving. Damn, this was going to be harder than I thought and I was unprepared for it.
In my perfect world, I wouldn’t have to explain this to anyone because it would be over as quickly as it had begun. We’d never have to act like we were married for anyone but the interviewers at the immigration office.
No fakeness. No lies. Just discrete paperwork, a green card and subsequent divorce decree. And all neatly wrapped up without any of the messy personal bullshit involved. And no one had to get hurt.
A nice tidy business arrangement. Lucas wanted that job badly—and I was happy to help him get it. It was only fair, since he was helping me out too. So far we’d stuck to each other’s end of the bargain. He was this-close to getting what he wanted. And, hopefully, so was I.
We’d come way too far to mess this up now. I had to see it through.
“What is actually going on, Kat? Is he blackmailing you or something? Did you lose a bet?” She snorted a little when she laughed.
I suppressed a grimace. “It was impulsive. Just something we did on a lark.”
“On a… lark?” If her eyebrows climbed any higher, they’d vanish into her hairline. “It, uh, it didn’t have something to do with catching the bouquet at my wedding, did it? I promise I didn’t engineer that. I was trying to aim it at Jenna.”
Suddenly the image of that bouquet caught in my long hair while I panicked and fought to free it came back to me. Despite the panic I’d felt then, I couldn’t help but laugh at Mia’s insinuation. “You mean you think I got nabbed by the special magic of the uber love bouquet from the super-couple wedding?”
She stared at me, baffled. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean—”
Time to go on the offensive. “Not everyone dreads marriage like you once did, Mia. I’m thrilled. Lucas is thrilled. We’re both blissfully happy. We didn’t do it the way normal people do, with a big fancy party but we’re both computer nerd introverts and just wanted something quiet.”
Wow. Who knew that it would be so easy to tell such a big fat lie? If I were Pinocchio, the tip of my nose would be halfway to Toronto by now.
Mia shook her head, her long brown hair floating down her shoulders. “Yes. Sure. Of course people do things differently, I just—” She stopped herself and then hesitated for another long moment while she studied me. “I’m sorry. I’m just surprised. But if you’re happy, then so am I. Congratulations.”
I grinned. “Thank you.”
She bent forward and hugged me, pulling me in tight. When she pulled back, a lot of tension that had been there when she first came in seemed to have evaporated—or at least I could hope. Mia was very smart and so I’d have to be careful or she’d easily catch me up in a lie. And since I sucked at lying, that could be scarily easy for her to do.
“Who’d have thought it… Cranberry and Jedi Boy.” Then she snorted again that cute little snort she often did when she laughed.
I rolled my eyes at her in response because yeah, I had no good logical reason to explain it. Always blame it on something ooey and gooey that a newlywed like her would buy. Blame it on the “power of looooooove.” Since I didn’t believe in such a power overtaking my own treasured sense of logic, it became even easier to lie about.
I’d learned far too long ago that the people who were supposed to love you the most were the ones who could also hurt you the most. And I didn’t want anyone to have that power over me.
I glanced at my smartwatch, hoping that this would remind her I was still on the clock—the same clock that her husband was paying me by. She took the hint.
“You need to get back to work, but we should get together soon. It’s been too long. Since Adam and I got married and I started third year, I haven’t been keeping up with my social life. Are you doing anything tomorrow night?”
I sat up, excited. “Coolness, the four of us could get our group together and play DE. It’s been ages.