The Pretense of Love

Pov

Cora

"Mom!" I yelled.

I was mortified by her joke about Bryce gambling. She was right, of course. She had seen the articles about him, no doubt. They were everywhere. And since my mom wasn't working, she kept busy browsing the internet.

"No, no," Bryce said, putting his hand on mine. "I understand that," he said. He took a deep breath and looked at my mom. "I know I've made bad decisions in the past. But when I met Cora, everything changed. I guess it was when I realized I wanted to settle down. Because she makes me see life differently. She has the kind of stability I never had in relationships before, and where others didn't challenge or excite me, I am completely mesmerized by your daughter. I know I've made mistakes, but I know what I want now. Everything has become crystal clear."

My mom studied Bryce, and I waited for her to say that his words weren't good enough.

I knew what she was worried about. I knew she was panicking about me getting married. It wasn't so much about the deadline, but about the fact that I was getting married. By jumping on her the way I did, I creeped her out.

And why shouldn't she be suspicious? My dad left her when she was pregnant with me, and she never saw him again. They knew each other well before they got married, she said. They dated for two years. And she still didn't expect him to do that to her.

How much worse could it be when I didn't know Bryce?

Part of me hated that I was doing this to her. I was getting married for convenience and money, not for love.

But it was for my mom, for her survival.

Besides, I didn't think of marriage and love the way other women did. I was raised in a home where I understood the reality of love — it hurt more than anything else.

As long as Bryce and I could pull this off, everything would be fine. I would recover after these six months. I wouldn't suffer from heartbreak the way Mom did.

If anything, this fake marriage was preferable to the real thing. Keeping my heart out of the mix, I wouldn't get hurt.

She just didn't know that. I couldn't tell her what was really going on, not yet. She would worry about the fake marriage even more than she was now, and I didn't want to cause her any extra stress.

But as much as I hated lying to my mom, we needed a roof over our heads. If this was what it took to make it happen, then I was going to do it.

The rest of the dinner went smoother. My mom seemed to relax a bit after Bryce made it clear that he was serious about making this work. But she still seemed uncomfortable.

One thing was clear: Bryce and I still had some details to work out.

After dinner, I took my mom home. I made sure she was settled in for the night before I left to visit Bryce at his penthouse.

When Bryce opened the door, he was glad to see me. He didn't give me a hello kiss again, and I was relieved. I wasn't sure how to act around him, what would be expected of me, but it was good to know that when we were alone, he wouldn't expect anything from me that I wasn't ready to give. It was one less thing to worry about.

When we sat in the living room, each with a glass of wine, Bryce looked at me. His expression was serious.

"We may have underestimated what this will take," he said.

I nodded. "I was thinking that too."

"It's going to take a lot more work to really convince people. Many people get married on impulse, but this is the next level. Everyone will be suspicious."

He was right. They would suspect us and why we were doing this, especially the people Bryce needed to impress. They would watch him much more closely than my mom was watching me. Bryce would have to make it work for a reason. Although I was gaining something from this deal, I was just along for the ride.

"How are we going to pull this off?" I asked, taking a sip of my wine. We hadn't had anything to drink at dinner, and it was nice to relax a bit.

"I've been thinking about that," Bryce said. "And I think a good start is to get to know each other better."

I nodded. That made sense. My mom asked Bryce what my favorite color was. It was such a trivial thing when it came to the depth of a real relationship, but most people in serious relationships knew details about each other. That was what love was, wasn't it? It was finding out the little things.

"Okay," I said. "Let's get into it, then."

Bryce smiled and fired off a bunch of questions. Favorite colors, favorite foods, favorite places to go. We offered our answers one by one and even wrote them down to review later. But it was going to be hard — the real marriage shouldn't feel like a test, and this felt like it. Except it was worse than a test at school. This would affect the rest of our lives.

Lives that would be spent apart, of course.

"When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?" I asked Bryce after we fell into a moment of silence.

"I always knew I should take over my father's place," he said. "I was groomed to be a CEO."

"Wasn't there something else you wanted to do instead, at some point?" I asked.

He paused. "I don't know. I never thought about it in concrete terms. I wanted to run away, have my own freedom. As a kid, that seemed a lot like running away at first." I calmed down when he said that, but I didn't interrupt him. "And later, it seemed like traveling. Which I did for a while, until I got older. We really don't understand what's important when we're kids, do we?"

"So, traveling the world wasn't all it seemed to be," I said softly.

Bryce smiled at me. "Not for me. But I'm happy here."

He sounded so sad when he said that, and it tugged at my heartstrings. Although Bryce Hollis was a man who had everything, I wondered if he was really as happy as he claimed to be.

"And you?" he asked. "What were your dreams?"

I smiled, thinking of the little girl I used to be. "I wanted to be a teacher," I said.

Bryce laughed. "Of all things."

I nodded, laughing. The wine made me feel light and carefree. "I had a great teacher when I started school and loved going to school, so I imagined that one day I could make other people feel that way."

"That's very sweet," Bryce said.

I shrugged. "It's like you said, we really don't understand what it's about when we're kids."

When Bryce didn't ask anything else, I kept talking.

"In fact, I graduated in graphic design. I wanted to get into marketing, but not on the back end. I wanted to be the one creating the images, creating the art."

Bryce raised his eyebrows. "You

're an intern in a very different part of the job."

I nodded. "Yeah, I know. It was all I could find, though. And I needed money. Fast. I thought it would be easier to work at a big company than work at a small one and never be able to go anywhere. My mom needs me."

"Do you mind if I ask what's wrong with your mom?" Bryce asked.

I shook my head. "Breast cancer. She's in recovery now, but for a while, it didn't seem like the chemotherapy was working. I even said goodbye. We were preparing for the worst. And then suddenly, everything changed, and now I'm staying with her for a while longer."

"You've been through a lot," Bryce said.

I nodded. "That's why we have to make this thing work, no matter what. I'll get through it, no matter what others think we're doing, because you deserve your company, so you can have your freedom, and I need to keep a roof over my mom's head."

Bryce smiled and nodded. "We'll make it work."

We sat in silence for a while as the darkness of the night enveloped us. The lights in the room were dim, and we looked out the windows to the sleeping LA.

I realized how close Bryce was to me. I looked at him, and when he turned his head, his face was inches from mine. His eyes slid over my features, and they were dark and intense.

When he raised his hand and brushed my hair from my face, my breath caught in my throat.

"You're beautiful, Cora," he said softly.

My stomach exploded with butterflies, and Bryce leaned in. His lips brushed mine, and when he kissed me, heat flooded my body. He kissed me as if he were serious, as if he really liked me.

God, he was good.

Was that how he kissed all his women? Was that how he made them feel? If so, I understood why they were all so crazy about him.

He did this with all of them.

I just had to keep reminding myself of that. This was a game, an act, a means to an end. It wasn't real, no matter how good it felt.

Bryce and I were doing this to get something. This wasn't a boy-meets-girl romance. It was a business transaction.

I couldn't forget that and let myself get carried away by his deep blue eyes. I couldn't accidentally fall in love with a man who would never reciprocate the feeling.

That was too dangerous.

When he broke the kiss, my heart sank as I felt him pull away again. But my brain knew it was better this way.

He smiled at me, and I smiled back uncomfortably.

Just pretend, I told myself.