“I’ve been investing wisely. And I had a feeling Gerg and I weren’t going to last much longer. I wanted to be generous while I still could.”
I frown hard. “Gerg?”
“My ex,” Zan growls. “And, yes, his name is Gerg. Not Greg. I know. That should have been a deal breaker, but we don’t have time now to debate the wisdom of marrying men with stupid names. I wanted Lizzy to have the money before I was forced to give half of it to my ex. I wanted her to know she had options and didn’t have to marry Andrew if she didn’t want to, but she refused to take it.”
“Why?” I ask, genuinely baffled. “I mean, I understand not wanting to take money from a stranger, but you’re family. And if you explained why you wanted to give it to her…”
“I did, but she still said no. She said she ‘had a plan’ in a vague, floaty way that was so Lizzy I didn’t think much of it at the time.” A soft clicking sound filters through the line, making me think Zan is chewing on her thumbnail, the way she does when she’s thinking. “But now, I wonder…”
I nod, shocked, but realizing where she’s headed. “If she planned on tricking me into taking her place all along?”
Zan exhales. “But why on earth would she do that?”
“I’m falling in love with him,” I confess, my heart beating in my aching stomach.
“Who?” Zan asks, sounding so disgusted I can almost hear her nose wrinkling.
“The royal pig keeper,” I say, then add in an exasperated voice, “Andrew, of course. You know, the guy I’m pretending to be engaged to?”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not. Turns out we have a lot in common.”
Zan snorts again. “Like what? You both like looking at your own asses in the mirror?”
“I don’t like looking at my ass in the mirror. Take that back, Alexandra!”
“See, you’ve proven my point,” Zan says smugly. “What could you possibly have in common with that idiot?”
“He’s not an idiot. He’s smart and funny. And we both like to run and explore and try new things,” I say defensively. “We have similar senses of humor, and we’re both very loyal to our families. And I just…” I exhale. “I like him, Zan. I like being with him. When I’m not with him, I miss him, and when I am, I don’t want him to leave.”
“Wow.” Zan’s falls silent for a long moment. “And you think somehow Lizzy guessed that you two would be good together and arranged this entire scheme to trick you two into falling in love?”
“I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head. “But she’s scatterbrained, not forgetful. She wouldn’t have forgotten that you paid off that loan. She deliberately lied about it to convince me to go along with this plan, and she wouldn’t have done that just to buy time to finish her collection. She’s a workaholic, but she’s not that selfish.”
“She’s not selfish at all,” Zan says softly. “That’s me. And to a lesser extent, you.”
I huff. “Thanks a lot. I feel like I’ve done my share of putting aside my own needs for the good of others.”
“You have. Of course, you have, I just meant that you wouldn’t have agreed to an arranged marriage the way Lizzy has. You have too much backbone for that. Honestly, I always wished that you’d been born first because I knew you wouldn’t have let this stupid engagement go on for so long.”
“No, I wouldn’t have,” I say, torn between the part of me that believes free will is of utmost importance and the undeniable fact that, without this arranged marriage and some deft deception on my sister’s part, I never would have gotten to know Andrew. “Maybe Lizzy deliberately turned her phone off? Maybe that’s her way of telling me that she wants me to follow my heart?”
“Well, she hates conflict, but that doesn’t explain why she’s not answering my calls,” Zan says. “And if you’ve been texting her saying you’re about to bail, I can’t see why she wouldn’t respond. Especially if she’s trying to get you and Andrew together. Though I’m still not one hundred percent sold on that explanation.”
“She said she didn’t care if I kissed him,” I confess.
“What?” Zan squawks.
“Yeah, she said she didn’t care. Multiple times. And then said that she had a feeling everything would work out, quote, ‘the way it’s supposed to.’”
“Oh, fuck yeah, she’s matchmaking. You should have smelled a rat the second she was cool with you making out with the guy she was going to have to sleep with for the rest of her life. Not even Lizzy is that laid-back. How naïve are you, Bree? Seriously.”
“Well, I was a little distracted pretending to be someone else,” I snap. “I’m not a trained actor, you know.”