Page 84 of Playing His Game

“You say that like it’s an option,” he huffed. Sure, Mo knew that was one way to end their fake relationship, but in the way he might also recognize a sidewalk as a route out of a traffic jam: not seriously. Both options were ridiculous, not socially approved, and would probably result in mass casualties.

“It’s not?”

“Sage. Be serious. We’d have to want to date each other for that to work.”

“And you don’t—want to date each other, that is.” Sage was still watching him, one eyebrow raised.

“Of course not. Why would we? We’ve spent almost a decade very publicly not getting along.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Girl, stop it.”

“What?”

“Implying shit,” Mo snapped. His skin felt too tight. “We’re not going to date for real, Adam doesn’t want to, so we’re going to fake break up. He’ll probably tell his family I got spooked by all the togetherness and kicked him to the curb.”

“Which you kind of did.”

“Which I kind of did. But in a nice way?”

“Sure, in the nicest way anyone can possibly reject another person because of their family.”

Mo covered his eyes. “Can’t you just tell me something nice and distract me from my soap-opera life?”

The next New Year’s surprise arrived only a couple hours later—a call from Claire.

“Moritz, darling, tell me you and Adam are free for dinner on Tuesday. We ought to ring in the New Year with family once he’s back in town.”

God, he hated her happy-families tone. He swallowed and searched for the courage to say what needed saying. Going to a Du Pont dinner with an Adam as tense as he was on Christmas was a horrifying enough prospect to unlock his jaw.

“We broke up.”

“Oh, that’s a shame. Probably to be expected, really, but the timing…”

A maelstrom of emotion—hurt, anger, mortification—churned within him, filled his chest and stomach, heated his cheeks, and stopped his tongue.

“Well, if you kept things quiet for now, that would be for the best,” Claire said thoughtfully.

Mo blinked, swallowed. “Why?—”

“Is that Moritz?” Orson’s voice carried down the line, despite clearly coming from across the room.

“Yes, dear. He says Adam broke up with him.” She didn’t even pull the phone away from her face.

“Well, damn. Couldn’t he have waited to make a mess of things?”

“I’m sure he’s not trying to vex us.” Her tone suggested she wasn’t, in fact, sure of that but also didn’t want to deal with any argument resulting from Mo’s selfishness.

“Well, tell him to keep a lid on things—we don’t need his drama in the papers right now.”

If Mo were a more spiteful person, he’d point out that no one worried about gossip in “the papers” anymore except for out-of-touch fossils. If he were braver, he’d tell them both to fuck off—his romances (or lack thereof) were his own business.

But he wasn’t. Not with his parents, anyway. So he said nothing except to agree that dinner with Adam would not be a good idea, and no, he wouldn’t make any sort of public announcement of the end of his relationship.

Not that either of those promises were a hardship. Mo wasn’t exactly eager for this new round of embarrassment to hit socials. His parents wouldn’t be the only ones to assume Mo had fucked up or that Adam could do better.

He hung up the phone and pulled up his text chat with Adam, which had grown quiet since Christmas.