Page 38 of Don't Date Your Nemesis

I repeated the mantra in my head as if I hadn’t spent forty-five minutes applying three different layers of concealer at six in the morning while cursing Liam James under my breath.

Everything is fine.

Blake appeared first, setting her laptop on the table and immediately launching into the terms she was prepared to negotiate. I barely heard her as I was mentally rehearsing my opening statement to be calm, professional, and utterly unbothered.

Then the door opened.

Liam walked in wearing dark jeans and a gray t-shirt that had, unfortunately, looked perfect on him. His hair did that annoyingly effortless tousled thing, making him look like a model who had just rolled out of bed.

He saw me, and his stride faltered just enough that I noticed.

He almost turned around. He pivoted a quarter inch toward the exit before Xavier, his publicist, a tall man with the energy of someone permanently one crisis away from early retirement, put both his hands on Liam’s back and physically propelled him into the room.

We stared at each other across the table.

He sat down across from me, and our publicists flanked us like opposing legal teams in a very expensive and absurd divorce proceeding.

His eyes traveled to my neck, and one corner of his mouth curved upward.

My hand twitched toward one of my high-heeled sandals. How much would he sue me for if I threw it at his perfectly symmetrical face and broke his nose?

I removed my sunglasses instead because I was a professional adult. “I don’t want to do this,” I said in a firm voice. Remember: calm, professional, and unbothered.

“Neither do I,” he said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “I’d rather drown.”

“I can help you with that,” I said with a saccharine grin, batting my lashes.

Blake made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a prayer. “Can we please keep the homicidal urges to a minimum?”

“I’ll try,” I muttered.

Liam immediately pitched his voice up and mocked me by mimicking me, “I’ll try⁠—”

“See?” I snapped my face to Blake, hand outstretched like I was presenting evidence. “I told you I can’t work with him. He’s so childish⁠—”

“Says the woman who threw champagne at me and launched a cupcake at my face,” Liam said to the ceiling.

“It was gravity.”

“Gravity,” he repeated it as if he were tasting the word, turning to Xavier. “She’s a nightmare. I told you!”

“Both of you,” Blake said, holding up both hands. “Shut. The fuck. Up!”

We shut the fuck up.

Blake took a deep breath. “You both have to figure out how to tolerate each other without murder involved, because this arrangement works for both of you. It’s just three months, and you can do anything for three months.”

“People climb Everest in less time,” Xavier offered helpfully with a small smile.

“People also die on Everest,” I pointed out.

“Very encouraging,” Liam said with a fake smile, and I resisted the urge to launch across the table and scratch his face.

Blake and Xavier took over then, trading talking points like tennis players, laying out the terms in clean, businesslike language that made our accidental fake engagement sound like a reasonable, mature, and professional decision.

Even though I hated the arrangement, it made sense.

Diya and Yash will be at the wedding. Together. And I would arrive with an Olympic gold medalist on my arm, wearing my grandmother’s ring, looking like a woman who had thoroughly and completely moved on.