“That you didn’t bother to tell me the news?”

“No. I mean, yes.” She dropped the bracelet and put a hand over her heart to ease the guilty squeeze in her chest. “Sort of. It’s complicated?”

Damn. Her brother thought she was getting married and hadn’t told him.

She and Anderson weren’t close in age. At thirty-six, he was seven years her senior. The fact that he was a legitimate genius and had skipped a grade in school had widened the gap even further when they were growing up.

Add in that he lived in Seattle, and thus a different time zone, as well as that he was a biology professor at the University of Washington, and they didn’t exactly have a lot in common. But that didn’t mean she didn’t love him to death, and he absolutely should have heard about her “engagement” from her. The worst part was, it hadn’t even occurred to her to call him or that he’d even find out. Anderson had long ago left behind the New York social scene for West Coast academia.

An actual engagement he’d want to know about because he loved her. A fake engagement would go right over his brilliant head.

“How’d you find out?” she asked curiously.

“Instagram,” he admitted.

She let out a startled laugh. “Seriously?”

“It’s new,” he grumbled. “Figured I would try to follow your world. Didn’t realize just how enlightening it would be.”

“Anderson, I am so sorry. But it’s not what you think.”

“You and Clarke aren’t finally tying the knot?”

“No! Wait, what do you mean finally?”

He snorted. “I may be the family nerd, but I do have some social skills. Even I knew it was only a matter of time.”

“Well, you’re not so smart about everything,” she said. “It’s a fake engagement.”

“A what now?” he asked, sounding completely at a loss, as expected.

“Short version, some social media troll somehow managed to accuse me of being a man-eater, a home wrecker, and a pathetic spinster all in the span of a handful of posts.”

“And?”

“And, my skin wasn’t as thick as it should have been,” she admitted. “I got tired of the hundreds of comments rolling in about how I’d never posted about a boyfriend on social media, and I just… wanted to prove them wrong.”

“Huh.”

“It sounds stupid,” she admitted.

“No,” he said slowly. “I may be new to following you on Instagram, but even I can grasp that the Audrey Tate can’t so much as fart without thousands of people knowing about it and having an opinion.”

“Anderson. Girls never fart. I thought Adele and I taught you that early on.”

He laughed. “You know what I mean. I can understand the need to self-protect. But… getting married?”