“Just for a few hours,” I said quickly. “He doesn’t have to do much. Just stand next to me. Maybe smile.”
“Of course. He’ll play the role you describe.”
“He doesn’t have to do much.”
I hung up and pressed my palms flat against the counter.
I’d become the kind of woman who paid strangers to pretend she was loved.
***
We arranged to meet at a coffee shop the day before the party.
I got there early, ordered nothing, and picked at a napkin until it was shreds.
When Clark walked in, I actually looked over my shoulder to see who he was really coming to meet.
We arranged to meet
He was tall.
Dark hair, warm brown eyes.
The kind of clean-cut face you saw in magazine ads.
He slid into the seat across from me and offered his hand like we were old friends.
“You must be my client,” he said.
“I think this was a mistake.”
He tilted his head, waiting.
“You must be my client,”
“Look at you,” I whispered. “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 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.”
“Nobody is going to believe you’re with someone like me.”
Clark nodded slowly.
Then he leaned forward.
“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 to my face.
I looked down at my shredded napkin.
“That’s not weakness.”
“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.”
I let out a small, disbelieving laugh, the first one 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?”
“You’re being paid to say things like that.”
“Like he was trying to erase me.”
Clark set his coffee down.
“Then don’t let him. Don’t you want him to see how happy you are without him?”
I stared at him.
There was no smugness in his voice, no rehearsed line.
Just a steady, patient question.
“Then don’t let him.”
“I don’t know how to do this,” I admitted.
“You don’t have to do anything,” he said. “Just stand next to me. Smile at your children. Enjoy your son’s birthday. I’ll handle the rest.”
I thought about my son’s eyes in the doorway that morning.
I thought about the baby.
I thought about twenty years of believing I was safe.
Then I took a slow, shaky breath and nodded.
“I don’t know how to do this,”
“Okay. Saturday. Two o’clock.”
Clark smiled.
For the first time in months, I felt something dangerously close to hope.
I didn’t yet know that my children had a plan of their own.
Or that a small, wrapped box would change everything.
***
The music from the speakers competed with laughter and splashing water as I moved between clusters of guests.
My children had a plan of their own.
Clark stayed at my elbow, easy and calm.
He played his part with a warmth that almost felt real.
I kept scanning the gate, waiting.
My son, Ethan, appeared at my side with a gift box tucked under his arm.
He looked up at Clark with uncharacteristic seriousness.
“When Dad gets here, can you give this to him? It’s from us kids.”
I kept scanning the gate, waiting.
Clark glanced at me, then took the box.
“Sure, Ethan. Whatever you need.”
I opened my mouth to ask what was inside.
But Ethan was already gone.
Before I could follow, I heard the gate swing open.
Jordan strolled in like he still owned the place, one hand on the small of Percy’s back.
I opened my mouth to ask what was inside.
She wore a dress that probably cost more than my monthly grocery bill.
Her smile was practiced, cool.
Every conversation around us seemed to lower a notch.
“There she is,” Jordan called out, waving like we were old college friends. “The birthday boy’s mother.”
I pulled in a slow breath and felt Clark’s hand find the small of my back.
Every conversation around us seemed to lower a notch.
