Page 25 of Faking it with my Bad Boy Crush

I focused on boxing up a sourdough loaf for Mrs. Curtis, keeping my voice professional. "Things changed."

"Things changed," Tessa repeated flatly. "That's all you're giving me?"

"For now, yes. Just trust me.”

The truth sat heavy on my tongue. I wanted to tell Tessa everything—that it was fake, that Ethan had offered legal help in exchange for community acceptance, that we had one week to pull this off before he left the island. But the farmers market wasn't the place for that conversation, not with half the island within earshot.

So, I smiled and sold bread and tried not to think about how easily Ethan had slipped into the role of boyfriend. How natural his hand had felt in mine. How his voice had sounded when he saidThanks for giving me a chance, Maya. I know I don't deserve it.

Like he'd meant it.

The farmers market finally wound down around 2 PM. I'd sold out of almost everything—the Saturday crowd had been hungry, or maybe just curious about the baker who was apparentlydating the mainland lawyer. I'd fielded approximately seventeen variations of "So I heard you and Ethan Caldwell..." with increasingly strained smiles.

Tessa helped me pack up the booth, her silence more pointed than any interrogation would have been. She knew I'd tell her when we were alone. She just wasn't happy about waiting.

We loaded the van and drove back to the bakery in relative quiet, Tessa's purple-tipped hair blowing in the breeze from the open windows. The island looked perfect today—blue sky, sparkling water. Postcard beauty that made tourists fall in love and locals took for granted.

I used to take it for granted too, before I left for Seattle. Now I saw it differently—saw how fragile this beauty was, how easily it could be bought and sold and transformed into something unrecognizable.

"Okay," Tessa said the moment we were inside the bakery with the door locked behind us. "Now you can tell me what’s going on. And don't even think about lying to me, because I've known you since you were sixteen and I can read you like a recipe card."

I leaned against the counter, suddenly exhausted. The performance had taken more energy than I'd expected. "It's fake."

Tessa blinked. "What's fake?"

"Me and Ethan. The dating. The meeting in Seattle. All of it." The words tumbled out in a rush. “He offered to help with my legal problems—all of them, everything with the permits and the property dispute—in exchange for me pretending to date him for a week."

"He what?" Tessa's voice rose an octave. "He asked you to fake date him?"

"He needs community acceptance. Right now, everyone sees him as the enemy, and he can't do his job if no one will talk tohim. But if he's with me—if he's dating someone the island trusts—that changes the narrative."

"And you agreed to this?" Tessa looked torn between outrage and fascination. "Just like that? You're going to pretend to be his girlfriend?"

"I need the legal help," I said quietly. "You know I can't afford a proper lawyer. The property dispute hearing is in two weeks, and if I lose, I could lose everything. Ethan knows how to untangle permit issues, how to navigate the bureaucracy, how to build protections I can't build myself. This is my best option."

Tessa studied me with those too-perceptive green eyes. "But?"

"But nothing. It's a business arrangement. Strictly professional."

"Maya." Tessa's voice was gentle now. “This objectively attractive guy is offering to be your knight in expensive Italian leather, and you're going to pretend to date him for a week? You don't see how that might get complicated?"

“Trust me, I know the difference between fantasy and reality. This is a transaction. He gets community acceptance; I get legal help. When it's done, he leaves. That's it."

Just like last time,I thought to myself.

"If you say so." Tessa didn't sound convinced. "But for the record, the way he looked at you at the farmers market? That didn't look fake."

My stomach did an uncomfortable flip. "He's a lawyer. He's good at performing."

"Maybe. Or maybe you're both playing a game that's going to blow up in your faces." Tessa grabbed her bag. "I'm going home before I say something you're not ready to hear. But Maya? Be careful. You've spent seven years building walls to protect yourself. Don't let some guy with a guilty conscience knock them down just because he's offering to save you."

After she left, I stood in the quiet bakery, surrounded by the familiar smells of flour and yeast and possibility. My sanctuary. My legacy. The thing I'd sacrificed everything to protect.

And now I was gambling it on a fake relationship with the boy who'd once tried to destroy it.

I spent the rest of Saturday afternoon doing the bookkeeping I'd been putting off—invoices, expense reports, the financial calculations that always made my chest tight. The numbers didn't lie. I was barely breaking even, and one major unexpected expense would tip me into the red.

Like, for example, the legal fees from fighting a property dispute I didn't have the resources to win.