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The shock on Anica’s face would have been comical if it weren’t for the heel that immediately stomped on my Italian leather loafer. I managed to maintain my smile despite the pain that shot through my foot, squeezing her hand in a silent plea to play along.

Ms. Windsor’s eyebrows rose so high they nearly disappeared into her hairline, creating the first wrinkles I’d ever seen on her forehead. “Your fiancée? But my understanding was that you were the wedding plan–”

“A misunderstanding,” I interrupted. “We’re just keeping things on the down low because of the scandal it would cause when millions of women find out I’m taken by this beautiful gem.”

Anica’s fingers tightened around mine with what I suspected was barely controlled rage rather than affection. “It’s true,” she said, her voice strained. “It’s almost a secret, even to ourselves.”

Ms. Windsor looked between us, skepticism written all over her face. “Well, this changes things. Perhaps we should continue this conversation in my office.”

As we followed her through the main hall, Anica leaned close to me, her lips near my ear. Anyone observing would have thought it an intimate gesture, but her whispered words were pure venom.

“I am going to murder you slowly and painfully the moment we’re alone.”

“No, you won’t,” I whispered back, enjoying the floral scent of her perfume and the way her breath tickled my ear. “You need me alive to pay your fee.”

“Fine, but there are worse things than death,” she hissed. “I’ll make sure you experience all of them. Starting with a PowerPoint presentation on wedding etiquette that’s three hundred slides long. With mandatory audience participation.”

Her threat shouldn’t have been arousing, but there was something about the fire in her eyes and the flush across her cheekbones that sent heat straight south.

I had to remind myself that this was strictly business, even if business now involved pretending to be engaged to the most infuriating and inexplicably attractive wedding planner in Manhattan.

In Ms. Windsor’s office, we sat side by side across from her imposing desk. I casually draped my arm across the back of Anica’s chair, earning myself another death glare and what felt like a pinch to my kidney.

“So,” Ms. Windsor began, shuffling papers. A taxidermied fox watched from a shelf behind her, its glass eyes somehow conveying the same disapproval as its owner. “How long have you two been engaged?”

“Three weeks,” I said, at the exact moment Anica said, “Two months.”

We exchanged a look of mutual panic.

“What he means,” Anica recovered smoothly, “is that we’ve been engaged for two months, but we’ve only been actively planning the wedding for three weeks.”

“Exactly,” I agreed. “When you know, you know.”

“And how did you meet?” Ms. Windsor asked, her pen poised over a form that apparently required our complete relationship history, blood types, and possibly genetic compatibility.

“At her office,” I said.

“At a charity gala,” Anica said simultaneously.

Ms. Windsor’s eyes narrowed to slits that could have sliced sashimi.

“Both, actually,” I improvised. “We first saw each other at a charity gala but didn’t speak. Then fate brought us together when I needed a... consultation at her office. It was for my grandmother’s birthday celebration.”

“I’m a wedding planner, yes, but I was an event planner before this and he somehow found out,” Anica added, pinching my thigh under the table with enough force to leave a mark. “Callan wanted to surprise his grandmother with a special party, so he came to me.”

“How thoughtful,” Ms. Windsor commented, in a tone that suggested thoughtfulness was a communicable disease she’d prefer not to catch. “And how did he propose?”

I opened my mouth to fabricate something, but Anica beat me to it.

“It was quite romantic,” she said, her voice suddenly soft and her expression dreamy in a way that almost made me believe her. “He took me to the top of the Empire State Building at sunset.”

“It was raining,” I added, unable to resist testing her improvisation skills.

“Snowing,” she corrected, with a saccharine smile.

“A light drizzle,” I compromised.

“A blizzard,” she insisted. “I remember because my eyelashes froze together and I almost missed the proposal because I couldn’t open my eyes properly.”

“Yet despite the weather,” I continued, “she still said yes when I got down on one knee and told her I couldn’t imagine life without her.”

“He had the ring hidden in a special box,” Anica added, “that played our song when it opened.”

“Ah yes, our song,” I said, looking at her expectantly. “What was it again, darling?”

Her smile tightened. “You know very well it was ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love.’”

“No, sweetheart, you’re confusing it with the song from our first dance. The proposal box played ‘Gold Digger.’”

Ms. Windsor’s pen stopped moving.

“He’s such a joker,” Anica said with a laugh that sounded like she was being waterboarded. “What he actually said was that he’d never met anyone who challenged him the way I do.”

That part hit uncomfortably close to truth.

“And the ring?” Ms. Windsor prompted, clearly enjoying our discomfort.

“Being sized,” we said in unison.

“It needed to be adjusted,” Anica elaborated. “Callan initially got a ring that was much too large.”

“Because I thought her fingers matched the size of her ambition,” I added.

“Very funny, darling ,” she pinched me again on the thigh. “I just have narrow fingers.” She wiggled her fingers to demonstrate.

I smirked. “You know what they say about women with little fingers…” I let the words trail off, but neither woman laughed. Instead, both narrowed their eyes at me, and Ms. Windsor lowered her glasses to intensify her glare.

“No, I don’t know what they say about little fingers, Mr. Burkhardt. Why don’t you enlighten me?” Ms. Windsor’s glare darkened, and I straightened in the chair. The room was quite a bit warmer than it had been a second earlier.

“Um, they, um… They have big hearts.” I clicked my tongue and pointed my finger. “Yup. That’s it.”

Anica rolled her eyes. “Anyways, like I was saying, the ring kept sliding off and falling into my soup at the celebration dinner,” she continued, her smile now fixed in place like rigor mortis.

“The waiter was very understanding about fishing it out of the lobster bisque,” I added.

Ms. Windsor sighed, setting down her pen.

“Mr. Burkhardt, Ms. Marcel... I’ve been managing this venue for forty-seven years.

I’ve seen every type of couple imaginable.

Nervous couples, overexcited couples, couples who clearly despise each other but are proceeding for family reasons.

” She leaned forward, the light catching her pearl necklace in a way that made it look like a row of judgmental eyeballs.

“What I’ve never seen is a couple who can’t keep their story straight about basic details of their relationship. ”

Anica tensed beside me, likely preparing for the dismissal that was surely coming.

“However,” Ms. Windsor continued, “your grandmother is a valued patron of this estate, Mr. Burkhardt. And despite your... unusual circumstances, I’m willing to pencil you in.”

The tightness in my muscles loosened. Gram would be excited that the wedding could be here, and anything that made her happy made me happy. “Thank you, Ms. Windsor. You won’t regret it.”

“You mentioned wanting a date three months from now. While we often do have our venue booked this close to the date, we had a recent drop out on the last Saturday in September. Take it or leave it.” She closed her leather-bound appointment book.

“I must warn you that we’ll require a non-refundable deposit of thirty-five thousand dollars by the end of the week. ”

“We’ll take it,” I said immediately, ignoring Anica’s sharp intake of breath.

“Very well. I’ll have my assistant show you the grounds and discuss the particulars. I assume you’ll want the same spot where your grandmother was married?”

I nodded, finding it difficult to speak. The same spot. Where my grandmother had pledged herself to a man who would eventually break her heart so thoroughly that she’d never remarry.

Ms. Windsor stood, smoothing her already immaculate suit. “One last thing, Mr. Burkhardt. We don’t allow karaoke, chocolate fountains, or those dreadful photo booths with feather boas and plastic sunglasses. Rhodes Estate is a venue for tasteful celebrations, not carnival midways.”

“No inflatable bounce houses either?” I asked, giving my best puppy dog face. “I was hoping to enter my reception in formal attire via slide.”

Her expression suggested I’d proposed holding the ceremony in a Chuck E. Cheese. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

Ms. Windsor left to fetch her assistant, and the moment the door closed, Anica turned to me, eyes blazing as she smacked me in the shoulder. It was cute.

“What the hell was that?” she demanded, keeping her voice low.

“Improvisation,” I replied, trying to recover my usual nonchalance. “And it worked. We got the venue.”

“You made me lie! You put me in an impossible position!”

“An impossible position would be trying to do the splits in that dress,” I said, straightening my cuffs. “This was just a little creative storytelling.”

“This isn’t a joke, Callan.” The use of my first name surprised me. “You can’t just declare people your fiancée without their consent.”

“Would you have preferred I told her the truth? That I’m planning a wedding for a bride I haven’t met yet to win a bet?”

She sighed, running a hand over her face, careful not to smudge her makeup. “No. But there had to be another way.”

“Sometimes the direct approach is best,” I shrugged. “Besides, you were quite convincing as my besotted fiancée. The frozen eyelashes were a particularly poetic touch.”

“If you ever pull something like that again?—”

“You’ll what? Force-feed me wedding cake until I explode? Force me to try on tuxedos until my will to live expires?”