Rosa stopped scrolling.
“There’s one more thing.”
Marco stepped forward.
“No.”
His sister’s eyes flashed.
“She deserves it.”
“I said no.”
I stood.
“And I’m saying yes.”
That stopped him.
I looked at Rosa.
“Please.”
She didn’t show me another message.
She set the phone down instead.
“Last month,” she said, “I did ask Marco whether he was ever going to settle down.”
“So that part was true,” I said.
“Yes.
But that wasn’t the entire conversation.”
Marco looked away.
Rosa continued.
“I asked him whether he planned to spend the rest of his life pretending the only woman he talked about was merely his assistant.”
The room became so quiet I could hear the old clock in the hallway.
I stared at Marco.
“What did you say?”
His mouth tightened.
Rosa answered for him.
“He told me he was seeing someone.”
That was the sentence he had repeated in his office.
The reason for the entire arrangement.
Only now I understood what had actually happened.
Rosa had confronted him about me.
Marco, rather than admitting anything, had claimed he was already dating someone.
Then his family had demanded to meet her.
And instead of confessing that the imaginary woman didn’t exist, he had called me at midnight and asked me to become her.
I laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“You didn’t choose me because I was discreet.”
Marco said nothing.
“You didn’t choose me because I was convenient.”
Still nothing.
“You chose me because they already thought the woman was me.”
“Yes.”
The word was barely audible.
His sister muttered, “Finally.”
Marco’s head snapped toward her.
“Not helping.”
I grabbed my napkin from my lap and placed it on the table.
“Emily.”
I stepped away from my chair.
He came around the table, then stopped several feet from me.
That mattered.
He could have blocked my path without effort.
He didn’t.
“Let me explain.”
“You had an office, a twenty-two-minute car ride, two days before we came here, and an entire folder to explain.”
His eyes dropped.
