“Basically,” she said. “Anyway, somehow Randy found him, or he found Randy. At least I think it was Randy. He’s the only one other than you, my parents, and Naomi and Claire who know everything that went down with Brayden.”

“Ah shit. That’s out there?”

“Yup. Word on the street is I’m a home wrecker, who also can’t keep a man, and oh yeah, I’m cursed.”

“Well, that’s bullshit,” he said loyally.

“Is it?” She stared up at his ceiling. “I mean, I know I haven’t exactly put myself out there on the romantic front since Brayden. I thought I wanted to be single, but… it’s starting to get a little embarrassing. It’s also not like guys have been banging down the door trying to woo me.”

“Maybe it’s because you use words like woo?”

“You’re the worst fake husband ever.”

“Our ill-fated love affair will end just as soon as you get off me.”

“All right, all right.” Audrey meant to move. But she didn’t.

She felt an idea lurking.

Instead she turned her face slightly to the side, until her cheek rested lightly against his. “What if we didn’t end it?”

“Hmm?” he asked, sounding half-asleep.

“What if we stayed engaged? Just a little bit longer. A couple days.”

He laughed incredulously. “What?”

“What if we didn’t correct the rumors just yet? What if we let people believe that it’s true. That we really have done what basically everyone’s assumed is inevitable—that we’re super in love.”

“I don’t do super in love.”

“But you could pretend to.”

“I could,” he said slowly. “But why would I?”

“To spite your mother? You know she’s never liked me. It would kill her to think that not only are you not marrying perfect, smart Elizabeth, but instead are marrying silly, flighty Audrey. She’d die.”

“Tempting,” he said darkly. “Very tempting. But I’m thirty-one. A little old to be playing the part of rebellious son.”

“Says the guy who told the Manhattan Post he was engaged just to thwart his mother’s plans.”

“I merely planted the rumor to stay one step ahead of her. I wasn’t actually going to pretend we’re getting married.”

“But we could.”

He was silent for a moment. “What’s really going on here?”

She rolled off him, lying on her side and propping her head on her elbow. He did the same, facing her.