The sun was low and in the golden light of dusk, her skin glowed. It made a halo around her, illuminating her delectable curves. She’d pulled the rubber band out of her hair, and it tumbled around her shoulders in a thick, dark curtain.
In fact, she looked so beautiful, I took a mental picture and tucked it safely away in my memory so I could keep at least that much of her forever.
“Sure.” Though I knew it was tempting fate, I followed her into her living room.
Nat’s mother’s paintings hung on every wall, along with a black and white photo of her. In the photo, Nat’s mother was young and laughing, with a paintbrush in her hand and an easel in front of her. Her eyes shone with the promise of what she’d probably hoped would be a great career as an artist.
But the Mrs Williamson I’d known hadn’t looked like the picture. I remembered her as a weary old woman, dissatisfied with how her life had turned out. It must have made things difficult for Nat, torn between her father who’d loved the café, and her mother who’d hated it.
Nat toed her shoes off, then sighed as she wriggled her bare feet on the floor. “While we’re interviewed, we’ll have to pretend to be in love.”
I nodded. “You’ll have to gaze adoringly at me.”
Smiling, she tucked her hand into my arm. “Like this?” She leaned her cheek against my shoulder. “You were wonderful today,” she said in a breathy voice.
Ignoring logic and reason, my chest tightened. “That’s almost it.” I pulled my arm from between us to hug around her shoulders. “Just a few more compliments.”
“You’re my hero.” She moved into me, still speaking in that sexy, breathy voice, and put both hands on my chest. “You saved me.”
Looking down at her meant gazing into her magnificent cleavage. Now it wasn’t my chest that tightened, but a lower part of my body. Her curves fit so well against me. Her scent was familiar: faint aromas of our day in the kitchen and freshly brewed coffee.
I could wrap my arms around her and kiss the hell out of her. There was nothing to stop me, except the aforementioned logic and reason, and right now both of those things seemed wildly overrated.
But before I could let go of my slipping control, she drew back. “If we’re going to continue the lie, we’ll have to come up with a story about how you proposed.” Her voice was normal again.
I let out my breath. “Who says I was the one who proposed?”
She blinked. “You want to tell them I proposed to you?”
“Of course. You were overcome with longing and wildly jealous of every other woman who so much as glanced at me. You couldn’t bear not putting a ring on my finger.”
I made it a flirtatious joke, but inside, I wasn’t laughing. Except in a bitter way over the irony.
When we were together, I was the one overcome by longing. But something had held me back from telling her how I’d felt. And it was a good thing I hadn’t.
“You never give me anything,” she’d said when she ended our relationship. All I’d heard was Mom saying exactly the same thing to me.
I was fifteen, and bedridden with a cold when Mom had come home from the restaurant she was working in, carrying a steaming pot of chicken soup. She’d brought it into the bedroom and placed it in front of me with a proud flourish.
“I got this just for you, my little prince,” she’d cooed as she took off the lid.
The soup smelled amazing, but my brothers were in the living room, and I knew they’d be just as hungry as I was.
“I’ll feed you.” Mom sat to kiss my cheeks, her breath stale and garlicky from whatever she’d eaten at the restaurant.
She spooned a little soup into my mouth and I closed my eyes to savor it as I swallowed. It was hot and delicious and I wanted to gulp down the whole lot, leaving nothing for Asher and Mason. But I instantly felt guilty. And when Mom brought the spoon to my mouth again, I lifted my gaze to hers, trying to judge her mood and predict how she might react.
“What about Mason and Asher?” I whispered.
She lowered the spoon, her expression hardening.
My heart sank. “Wait,” I said quickly. “I’ll eat it. I want it. Please, Mom.”
Her lip curled. “Whenever I try to do something nice, you throw it in my face.”
“I don’t—”
“Stop!” Her eyes blazed. “You pretend to love me, but you don’t. You never appreciate anything I do for you. I give you everything, and what do I get in return? Nothing. You give me nothing at all.”
“Mom, I—”
“All you ever do is make me feel bad. So you can go ahead and starve for all I care.” The door had slammed behind her. Hungry as I was, I didn’t get up to follow her, or try to make her see reason. I just lay there feeling helpless and furious and sad.
I knew she’d likely throw the soup in the trash out of spite.
And I was wracked with guilt because I hated her with every bone in my body.
How could I hate my own mother?
The memory made me feel sick inside, like there was something rotten deep in my soul. There was something so wrong with me, nobody could ever know. I’d never let anyone find out.
So I smiled at Nat and said, “You fell so deeply in love with me, you couldn’t bear to go another day without asking for my hand in marriage.”
“All right, you win.” She rolled her eyes. “So if they ask about the actual proposal, we’ll say we were in the kitchen one night, and I—”
“In the kitchen?” I clapped an outraged hand over my heart. “Where’s the planning? Where’s the romance? Surely you put more thought into it than that?”
“Then where did I propose to you?”
“You’d set
