Kaede smirks and gets up, heading out of the office while I pick up Abi’s call. “Hey, little sister. See you got my text?”

“What’s all this about a family dinner?” Abi asks sweetly. I can hear the bomb about to drop in her butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth tone. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with an announcement, would it?”

“You’re a scheming little chess master, you know that?” I growl, but Abi’s laugh still makes me smile.

“I do what I can,” she says, and I can almost imagine her humbly curtseying at the compliment.

“I can only assume you and Vi talked?”

“Of course.”

In the back of my head, I wonder just how much Violet’s told Abi, and more importantly . . . what’s Abi’s angle on all of this?

I’m not exactly the best fake husband for Violet. I’ve got too much baggage and too public a profile to really play a fake role.

Meanwhile, for me, Violet’s need for the marriage isn’t exactly ideal, either. What would be best would be a six-month, no-stress social thing that never gets too serious. Truly, just regular arm candy for show like Violet said.

So this isn’t a perfect match for either of us. But at the same time, a niggling little voice that’s been going off in my head since I saw her curled up in my bed says it’s totally right, too.

But what is Abi’s role in all of this? She’s the fly in the ointment right now, but I have to trust her somewhat.

“And?” I prompt.

“And what?” she snaps back. “You might not believe me, Ross . . . but I’m doing this for both of you.”

I hum, not sure about that. Abi always has a master plan. I’m just not sure what it is right now. Though I guess covering both her brother’s and her best friend’s asses with this crazy idea might be the entirety of her scheme. Lord knows, it’s not something either Vi or I would’ve come up with on our own.

“Have you told Courtney about this?” I ask, a little worried. I love my youngest sister, but Courtney wants to be the good girl in the family way too much. There’s no way she’d understand what I’m doing or why.

“Hell, no!” Abi says, her opinion of Courtney totally lining up with mine. “You remember the number of times she ratted on me to Mom and Dad when I was in high school? Getting out of the house to go on dates with Danny Reeves was damn near like Prison Break with her around.”

“He was a douche,” I point out, something Abi found out for herself before she went to college. “So, this is just between us? No one else can know, for both Vi’s sake and mine.”

“Already discussed and agreed upon, big brother.”

“So, you’ll be there tonight and help me not blow the whole thing before we even get it started?”

Her chuckle does nothing to soothe my nerves at making this play in front of my family. What if we can’t pull this off? What if they can tell that Violet would rather kick me than kiss me? What if they know we’re not compatible at all, with the constant teasing and bickering?

“Oh, it’s already started, Ross. But I’ll be there. It’ll be fine. Vi’ll be ready. I’ll be ready. Just make sure you’re ready.”

She’s trying to calm me, but something about her words makes it sound like I need to be ready for just about anything. When Abi and Vi get together, I guess that’s usually true, which is terrifying.

“All right, Sis. See you at Mom and Dad’s tonight.”

The click severing the connection feels like a sign of what’s to come. I’m dead, so fucking dead if this goes wrong.

*

The Andrews Estate isn’t quite the historical family heirloom that the name implies. My family’s wealth is too new. In fact, I can remember living in an upper middle-class home before my father’s hard work paid off. If anything, those memories are part of why I’m busting my ass so much to prove myself to Dad.

He built the company with his hard work . . . but I’m going to be the one to make it multi-generational. He built a kingdom. I’m going to turn that kingdom into an empire.

But first, I need to get past this hurdle.

The estate is certainly beautiful, an anniversary present from Dad to Mom, and in many ways, it does seem to have a bit of a fairytale castle vibe to it, with its sand-colored stone and big windows that look out over twenty manicured acres. It’s got all the usual toys of the rich, including an Olympic-sized pool, a rose garden, and a lawn roughly the size of a football field.

But in a nod to just how good a set of parents I’ve got, there are a lot of things that you wouldn’t expect. Like a huge wooden playset with slides, swings, and more, and a tree house with chairs in both little girl size and older brother size.

There’s a full gym in one wing of the basement, installed so that a son who wanted to be a high school football player could bring his friends over and make sure his team was fully prepared for the gridiron.

And a game room where we actually sat at the table and played cards on rainy nights. It was there I first discovered a love of business when I beat my dad at Monopoly. He’d been proud at my win and encouraged me to learn strategies that I later delved deeper into in business school.

Yeah . . . I owe a lot to my parents.