Page 95 of Fake It For Him

January had been good to us. We’d settled in as a real couple, spent a ton of time with my family, and when Freya had come back from her honeymoon, she and Ella had sat down for an entire afternoon to talk. Their friendship had grown by leaps and bounds, and barely a day went by that they didn’t talk.

Finn and I had also had a few long talks and he’d finally come to realize that I hadn’t hired Ella to bullshit them, but to help find a bridge back into my own family. He still thought I could’ve found a better way to do it and maybe he was right.

Maybe there had been another way, but I sure hadn’t seen it at the time, and he’d admitted that he didn’t have any ideas either. Besides, he adored Ella. She and Norah were becoming friends, and he had eventually let it go, telling me that all was well that ended well.

With our relationship on track and all the drama with my family behind us, Ella had turned her attention to her own situation by February. She’d also gotten back into writing and was doing better than ever, focusing her pieces on off-the-beaten track adventures and romantic breakaways for couples.

She didn’t write about the normal couple-type stuff at all, swapping candlelit dinners for lantern-lit picnics in jungles and that kind of thing, but it turned out that more people than I might’ve expected were obviously looking for exactly that.

I’d been surprised that she’d gathered so much information about those kinds of adventures on her travels. She’d just shrugged and told me that she’d always been a closet romantic. With her career back on track, our relationship settled, and her preliminary research into Spencer done, she’d finally tracked him down last month.

I’d been with her, and while it had very nearly turned into a shit show, she’d managed to turn it around. I’d watched—in awe of her again—as she’d opened up to him, apologized, and told him that she’d forgiven him, even if he might never do the same.

The guy hadn’t been particularly warm or even particularly receptive, but he’d accepted her apology and had ended their conversation by apologizing to her in turn. Then he’d said that he’d put the whole thing behind him, that they’d brought out the worst in each other, and that he wished her luck but that she should put it behind her as well.

Which was what we were here to do.

She’d said all along that the hardest part was going to be talking to her family. There was a lot to say and she was scared. She was angry with them. She was hurt and she knew she’d hurt them too. After all, she was the one who’d run off to Europe.

As we got to the porch, she tightened her grip on my hand and held me back for a moment, those green eyes wide and shiny with emotion as she looked up at me. “Whatever happens, thanks for coming with me today. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you.”

“Yes, you would’ve,” I countered gently. “There’s nothing you can’t do if you put your mind to it, Ella Carver, but I’m happy to be here with you anyway.”

She inhaled deeply, closing her eyes for a beat. Then she nodded and started walking again. I could practically feel the nerves trickling through her, radiating from her heart like a beacon of despair.

I understood, though.

This was a big day. A day she’d waited a really long time for. If it didn’t go well, her heart was going to break all over again and she’d have to somehow make peace with the fact that her family had chosen Spencer over her for good. That there wasn’t going to be any redemption for them. That she was forever going to be out of the fray.

While I hoped that wouldn’t be the case and that her parents turned out to be the kind of people I thought they had to be in order to have raised a daughter like her, I was nervous too. My mother and sister were standing by in case she needed them and even Finn and Dad had said that they could come to our place anytime.

My family was ready to accept her with open arms as one of our own, which was great. I was beyond grateful, but I knew that Ella really missed her own people. If we could have her family as well as mine, that would be the absolute best thing that could happen.

If not, well, at least we had mine.

Kara and Mikey knew we were here, too. They’d offered to come, but Ella had thought it would be better if it was just her and me. She didn’t want to overwhelm her parents by showing up with an entire group of people and she wanted them to meet me—even if they didn’t end up talking to either of us much at all.

They were waiting for us at their place, keeping the champagne on ice for what would either be a celebration or a goodbye to that part of her life. Her breath caught as she knocked, and she held it until the door swung open and a woman appeared on the other side.

Even if I didn’t know whose house this was, I’d have picked this woman as Ella’s mother. She was the spitting image of her daughter, albeit with a few extra lines on her face and some gray hairs mixed into the black.

She had the same petite but curvy build. The same forest green eyes, and they lit up the same way Ella’s did when she was surprised and happy. At the sight of that light going on in her mother’s eyes, everything in me rejoiced.

Not a thought I have very often, but it’s true.

“Hi, Mom,” Ella said with a sheepish, scared smile on her lips. “I, uh, this is Calan. Is now a good time?”

The woman pulled her in for a tight hug right away, silent tears quickly building and streaming down her cheeks as she held her. “Oh, Ella. Oh, my darling. My baby. You’re home. Of course, it’s a good time. It’s always going to be a good time for you.”

I grinned from ear to ear, already knowing that this was going to go better than any of us had expected. Ella was finally home and it seemed her mother, at least, was happy to have her here.

* * *

Later that night, after we’d spent all afternoon with Ella’s parents and had driven back to the city, we were having dinner with Kara and Mikey in their turquoise kitchen. The champagne they’d been chilling had been broken out, and my girl bubbled with excitement as she told her friends all about our visit with her parents.

“We’re going to have dinner together next week,” she was saying.

I sipped my awful champagne. I really wished they would have let me bring a bottle, but now we were all going to have horrible hangovers tomorrow because they’d insisted on getting it themselves.