Kiss Her Once for Me (21)

“Also likely to be drunk. And possibly high because she got really into edibles after her hip surgery.”

I glance down at the flash card again. “And then there’s your sister and your sister’s childhood best friend, who always spends the holidays with your family.”

The mood in the car immediately changes as Andrew shifts uncomfortably in his seat. He clears this throat. “Yeah, my sister’s friend Dylan.” I watch his jaw tighten as his steely gaze stays focused on the road. “Dylan’s dad used to work for Prescott Investments, which is how we met. In college, Dylan came out as nonbinary, and things got unpleasant with their parents, so now they spend the holidays with us every year.”

“And Dylan lives in Gresham and works as a kindergarten teacher?” I say, remembering their flash card.

Andrew nods.

“And your sister?”

“Jacqueline.”

His voice sounds tight when he says her name, and I shoot him a look. Andrew is all strong jaw and Roman nose, sleek eyebrows and a four-hundred-dollar herringbone peacoat. Frat boy turned real-estate investor. But when he talks about Dylan and his sister, tenderness creeps in. Tenderness and… protectiveness?

And secrecy, like he’s holding me at arm’s length from fully knowing them. His sister, especially, has been a mystery. He barely mentioned her in our flash-card sessions, and he usually finds some way to change the subject when I bring her up. “Are you and your sister… not close?” I broach.

“We’re extremely close,” he says, but his hands are still tightly clenching the wheel. “We’re only eighteen months apart, so we did everything together growing up. It’s just… she has a contentious relationship with my parents, my dad especially. And she absolutely can never find out we’re faking this for my inheritance. It’s just—” He rolls his shoulders, and his tone turns defensive. “My sister can be stubborn in her quest for independence. She refused to take the Prescott Investments route and dropped out of college. My parents stopped helping her financially after that, and she basically had to become a full-blown adult while I was still at Stanford partying on my monthly allowance. I… she… she can’t ever find out about the addendum, okay?”

There’s something he’s not saying, and unfortunately for both of us, Andrew isn’t good at hiding things. Still, I don’t push it, because I’m his fake fiancée, not his real friend.

“You’ll like her, though,” Andrew adds. “My sister, I mean. Everyone loves her.”

I bite my tongue. Jacqueline is the name of someone who has a country club membership and a Pomeranian. I do not foresee us bonding.

I take a long, deep breath through my nostrils. Two hundred thousand dollars. I’m doing this for two hundred thousand dollars.

Our flash cards are forgotten as the car climbs in elevation and the road conditions become more treacherous. At first the snow is just sprinkled on the side of the road, then it’s banked on the side of the road, then it’s covering the roads. We pull over so Andrew can put chains on the Tesla—a truly ridiculous choice of vehicle for snowy terrain—and I white-knuckle the dashboard the rest of the way on Highway 26.

Eventually, Andrew turns the Tesla onto a steep country road, and the chains grind against the fresh snow. He calmly maneuvers the car going ten miles per hour, past silvery evergreens and the dense forest in the distance. We turn a final corner, crest a hill, and the trees thin to reveal a house.

“Andrew!” I shout.

“What?”

“Andrew!”

“Oliver!”

“Andrew! I thought you said your parents had a cabin?”

“They do.” He gestures ahead of us. “It’s right there.”

“This is not a cabin! It’s a fucking ski chalet!”

He looks confused. “You can’t ski here. We drive up to Timberline to do that.”

“You’re missing the point. That—” I jab my finger against the windshield. “That is a Swiss mansion, not a cabin.”

“It’s a log cabin.”

It is seemingly made of logs—or at the very least, meant to look like it’s made of logs—but the four-story monstrosity sprawled out on the snowy hill in front of us looks like a hotel. As dusk settles on the mountain, a hundred porch lights bathe the giant home in a golden glow. The ground floor is a whopping five-car garage and there are stone freaking columns.

“I’m confused as to why you’re so hung up on the semantics of the word cabin.”

“Because there are balconies!” I count them. “Six. Visible. Balconies!”

Andrew pulls the Tesla into the driveway but doesn’t turn off the engine. “Well, if I’d known about your balcony-phobia…”

I slink down in my seat, hoping it will absorb me, make me part of its leather so I never have to get out of this car. While I knew the Kim-Prescotts were wealthy, it’s another thing entirely to be confronted with a multimillion-dollar vacation home. I could fit every place I’ve ever lived combined inside this alleged cabin, and there is no way I can walk in there in my Old Navy jeans and cardigan with a hole in the armpit and introduce myself as Andrew’s fiancée. I should have let the bastard Pretty Woman me.

And more to the point, I never should have left the safety of my apartment. I won’t know how to talk to these people. They’re wealthy and normal, and they’ll know right away that my childhood was marked by dysfunction, not decorating Christmas cookies.