She kissed my cheek before leaving.
I stood alone again, mentally running through decorations, food, shopping, and everything else I needed to organize while pretending my heart wasn’t breaking.
First, I had to invite Jordan.
I texted him.
“Ethan wants the whole family there.”
Not long afterward, my phone buzzed.
Jordan.
Even seeing his name made my stomach tighten.
His reply was short.
Cold.
I read it several times before the meaning fully settled in.
My chest tightened.
I set my phone beside the counter and stared toward the swimming pool, struggling to breathe.
“Mom, are you okay?”
Ethan stood in the doorway, his wet hair dripping onto his T-shirt.
I smiled for his sake.
He looked at me longer than I wanted.
Then he quietly returned outside.
That look broke something inside me.
I couldn’t let Jordan arrive with Percy and make me look like the abandoned wife in front of my children and every neighbor who had watched our family grow over two decades.
I opened my laptop.
For the first time in my life, I searched for a fake boyfriend.
A talent agency downtown answered within the hour.
The woman sounded completely professional.
As though hiring someone to pretend to love you happened every day.
“Just for a few hours,” I explained. “He doesn’t have to do much. Just stand beside me. Smile.”
“Of course. He’ll play whatever role you need.”
After hanging up, I rested both hands on the kitchen counter.
Somehow I had become a woman paying a stranger to make it look as though she was still wanted.
—
We met at a coffee shop the afternoon before the party.
I arrived early, ordered nothing, and shredded a paper napkin while waiting.
When Clark entered, I instinctively looked behind him, convinced someone that attractive had to be meeting someone else.
He was tall, dark-haired, with warm brown eyes and the effortless confidence of someone who belonged in advertisements.
He sat across from me and offered his hand with an easy smile.
“You must be my client.”
He waited patiently.
“Look at you,” I murmured. “Nobody is going to believe you’re with someone like me. My ex-husband will laugh in my face. He’ll know.”
“What do you do for a living?” Clark asked.
The question caught me completely off guard.
“I raised four children while he built his career. I ran the household. I kept everything together while he cheated on me for a year.”
Clark nodded thoughtfully.
“So you kept an entire family standing while a grown man lied to you every day. That’s not weakness. That’s the kind of person anyone would want to stand beside.”
Heat rushed into my face.
I stared down at the ruined napkin.
“You’re being paid to say things like that.”
“I’m being paid to play your boyfriend for one afternoon,” he replied. “I’m saying that now, on my own time.”
A quiet laugh escaped me.
It was the first genuine laugh I’d had in weeks.
“He’s going to bring his mistress, Clark. Percy. She’s ten years younger than me and looks like she stepped off a runway. And he sent me a text saying she’s part of his family now.”
“And what did that feel like when you read it?”
“Like he was trying to erase me.”
Clark carefully placed his coffee on the table.
“You don’t have to disappear.”
I met his eyes.
There was nothing rehearsed about the way he said it.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I admitted.
“You don’t have to do anything,” he answered. “Just stand next to me. Smile at your children. Enjoy your son’s birthday. I’ll handle the rest.”
I thought about Ethan watching me that morning.
I thought about the baby I’d once held.
I thought about twenty years of believing my marriage was safe.
Finally, I nodded.
“Okay. Saturday. Two o’clock.”
Clark smiled.
For the first time since the divorce, hope quietly returned.
I had no idea my children were planning something of their own.
Or that one small gift box would change everything.
—
Music floated across the backyard while children splashed in the pool and guests laughed around the patio.
Clark stayed comfortably beside me.
He played his role naturally.
Almost too naturally.
I kept glancing toward the gate.
Ethan suddenly appeared holding a neatly wrapped gift.
He looked at Clark seriously.
