By the time my fake boyfriend took my hand in front of my ex-husband, half the backyard had already stopped talking—and I knew I had made either the smartest decision of my life or the most humiliating one.
Chapter 1
Two days earlier, I had paid a stranger named Daniel Mercer three hundred dollars to pretend he wanted to be with me.
That sentence still sounds ridiculous. At forty-one, with two children, a mortgage, and eleven years of marriage behind me, I should have been beyond schemes that belonged in romantic comedies. But pain makes sensible people do strange things, especially when humiliation has been served to them so steadily that they start mistaking it for truth.
My ex-husband, Ryan, was bringing his new girlfriend to his mother’s annual Fourth of July barbecue. Not just any girlfriend. Vanessa was the twenty-nine-year-old marketing coordinator he’d been seeing before he moved out of our house.
And I was expected to smile through potato salad.
Ryan’s mother, Elaine, had hosted the same family party at her home outside Los Angeles for more than twenty years. There were ribs on the grill, red-white-and-blue bunting on the fence, cousins splashing in the pool, and one photograph every year beneath the old oak tree.
I’d been in that photograph since before Ryan and I married.
“You are coming,” Elaine had told me over the phone.
“He’s bringing her.”
“I know.”
“Then maybe this is the year I skip it.”
“No.” Her voice softened. “The children belong here. And so do you.”
That should have made me feel strong. Instead, after we hung up, I sat in my SUV in the driveway for nearly half an hour, staring at my own front door.
Three months earlier, Ryan had ended our marriage at 7:15 on a Tuesday morning while I was packing our son’s lunch.
I remembered the exact time because the microwave clock had been blinking beside his shoulder.
“You’ve changed, Maggie,” he’d said.
Our daughter, Lily, was in the living room watching cartoons. Ben was upstairs hunting for his missing sneaker. I had one hand on a peanut-butter sandwich and the other on a plastic bag.
“What does that mean?”
“You don’t take care of yourself anymore.”
He wouldn’t look at me when he said it.
“You used to make an effort. You used to be thin. You used to be fun.”
I stared at him. “Is there someone else?”
His pause answered before he did.
Her name was Vanessa.
Six weeks after moving out, Ryan was posting photographs of the two of them at restaurants, concerts, company events, even his cousin’s wedding. He wasn’t excessive about it. Somehow that made it worse. He posted her the way a man posted a new boat or a promotion—not desperately, but proudly.
A life upgrade.
So after Elaine called, I opened my laptop and searched for professional actors available for private events.
That was how I found Daniel.
His profile said he specialized in “social improvisation, interactive events, and sensitive personal scenarios.” His photo showed a dark-haired man in his late thirties with calm gray eyes and an expression that seemed to say he had nothing to prove.
One review caught my attention.
He understood what was happening before anyone explained it.
I booked him.
During our phone call, Daniel asked questions I hadn’t expected.
“Will your children be there?”
“Yes.”
“What do they know about the separation?”
“Enough.”
“Does your ex get violent?”
“No.”
“Does he embarrass you publicly?”
I hesitated.
“Sometimes.”
Daniel was quiet.
Then he asked, “Is this the first family event where you’ll see him with the other woman?”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“All right,” he said. “I understand the assignment.”
He arrived at my house at 2:30 on the Fourth wearing khaki pants and a pale blue linen shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. He looked comfortable, capable, and irritatingly at ease.
I opened the door and immediately said, “I’m sorry. I probably look different from the picture I sent.”
Daniel studied me for a second.
“You apologized before you even told me hello.”
Heat rushed into my face. “Sorry. I’m Maggie.”
His eyebrows lifted slightly.
I closed my eyes. “I did it again.”
He smiled then, but not cruelly. “Daniel.”
Ben and Lily appeared behind me.
Lily inspected him with the ruthless curiosity of an eight-year-old. “Are you really an actor?”
“That’s what the tax return says.”
“Have you ever been a superhero?”
“No.”
“A bad guy?”
“Twice.”
“A pirate?”
“Once.”
Ben frowned. “Where?”
“A dental convention.”
Lily burst out laughing.
By the time we reached the freeway, both children had accepted Daniel with alarming enthusiasm. He told them about terrible commercials, strange auditions, and one role where he had spent six hours dressed as a talking avocado.
I drove with both hands locked around the steering wheel.
“Sorry about the traffic,” I said.
Daniel looked out the window.
Five minutes later the air conditioner started clicking.
“Sorry. It does that sometimes.”
Still nothing.
Then Lily pressed her hand against the passenger window, leaving a perfect palm print.
I automatically reached for a napkin.
“Oh, honey, don’t—I’m sorry, Daniel.”
He turned toward me.
“Maggie.”
“What?”
“It’s a window.”
I stopped.
For some reason, those three words embarrassed me more than anything else had.
Ryan’s black pickup was already in Elaine’s driveway when we arrived. Beside it sat a white convertible I’d never seen.
I knew immediately whose it was.
My stomach tightened.
Daniel unfastened his seat belt. “Ready?”
“No.”
“Good answer.”
I looked at him.
He smiled. “You don’t have to lie to me.”
We walked through the side gate together. His hand rested lightly at the small of my back—not possessive, just convincing.
The backyard was exactly as it had been every Fourth for more than a decade. Music played from outdoor speakers. Smoke rolled from the grill. Children shrieked in the pool.
Then Ryan saw us.
He was standing beside the grill with his arm around Vanessa’s waist. She wore a red sundress over her swimsuit and looked exactly as polished as I had feared she would.
Ryan’s expression changed the moment he saw Daniel.
Confusion came first.
Then suspicion.
Then something almost like alarm.
He crossed the patio toward us, Vanessa beside him.
“Well,” he said loudly. “This is interesting.”
Several conversations slowed.
Ryan looked Daniel up and down.
“Who’s your friend?”
Daniel held out his hand.
“Daniel Mercer.”
Ryan ignored it.
“And you are?”
Daniel’s voice stayed easy.
“Maggie’s boyfriend.”
Ryan laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
He laughed because he wanted everyone else to.
“Come on, Maggie.”
I felt every eye in that backyard turn toward me.
Ryan smirked.
“You hired this guy, didn’t you?”
My fingers went cold inside Daniel’s hand.
For one terrible second, the whole ridiculous plan collapsed around me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
I didn’t even know who I was apologizing to.
Daniel tightened his hand around mine.
“Don’t be.”
Ryan grinned. “Does the boyfriend package include hand-holding, or is that extra?”
Silence spread across the patio.
Daniel looked at him calmly.
“Does the ex-husband package include humiliating the mother of your children in front of them?”
Ryan’s smile disappeared.
“Or,” Daniel added, “do you do that for free?”
Nobody laughed.
And that was the moment I realized Daniel had stopped playing the part I hired him to play.
