Page 24 of Make-Believe Match

But she hadn’t come out here for niceties. Her eyes were feverish, and she spoke in the most ferocious whisper you can imagine. “You have no idea what this place means to me.”

Passion and determination emanated from her body like heatwaves—I could feel how deeply she cared, how hard she’d fight to hang on. I saw the nine-year-old girl who’d lost her parents, who didn’t want to experience that loss all over again. The urge to put my arms around her, to wrap her up and shield her from the inevitable was so sudden and unbearable, I had to take a step back.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You’re right. I don’t.”

“Nor do you know what lengths I’ll go to in order to save it.”

“You can’t save it, Lexi. Not without a miracle. Or a marriage.”

She stuck her hands on her hips. “Oh, you know about that too? What a surprise, you went snooping into my grandmother’s estate planning. You probably knew about it before I did!”

“I did not snoop! Your grandmother told me about it at lunch today after you stormed off like a toddler.” Great, now I was name-calling. This woman had me so far off my game, I couldn’t even find the court.

“I left so I wouldn’t have to look at your face while you swindled my poor grandmother.”

“There’s no swindling, Lexi. Your grandmother will walk away with millions. You could too—just take the deal.”

She folded her arms over her chest, her jaw set, her eyes focused on the trees to her right. Beyond them, the top of the mountain was visible.

“You could do anything you wanted with that money,” I cajoled. “Start a business, buy a house, travel the world, give it all away—whatever you want.” I stuck my phone back in my pocket and studied her beautiful, stubborn face. When I asked the next question, I was genuinely curious about the answer. “What is it you want?”

She said nothing for a moment. Birds sang in the woods. An airplane painted a vapor trail across the sky. The wind ruffled her hair. Finally she looked me in the eye. “I want to save my home.”

That crack in my chest widened. “You can’t, Lexi. It doesn’t bring me any pleasure to say that, because I like you, but you can’t save this place.”

“Oh no?” She rose up on her toes and poked my chest. “Watch me.”

FIVE

lexi

Winnie calleda few minutes after I shut the door on Devlin.

“Well? How did it go? Did you slay the dragon with your stiletto heels?”

“Not even close.” I stuck two halves of a plain bagel in the toaster. When I’d walked out of the restaurant, I hadn’t been hungry at all, but somehow fighting with Devlin had restored my appetite. “The dragon just drove away from my condo in perfect condition.”

“What was he doing at your condo?”

While I rinsed off an apple, I told her about what had transpired at the restaurant.

“No. Fucking. Way,” she said. “The shark was thesame guywho found the missing O? What are the chances?”

“Zero!” I cut the apple into slices with more force than necessary. “That’s how I know he scammed me.”

“But why? What would that get him?”

“I don’t know.” I sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on my apples. “Maybe he thought he’d get intel about the family.”

“Did he ask you any questions about your family?”

“No,” I admitted. “So maybe he just did it to throw me off my game.”

“How would he have even known where to find you? It’s not like you’d posted on social media or something that you were going to The Broken Spoke Sunday night.”

“Stop taking his side,” I moaned, carrying my plate over to my little kitchen table for two.

“I’m not! I’m just wondering what would motivate this guy to mess with you like that.”