Page 33 of Fake It Till You Make It

“Hey, this doesn’t change anything, Eli,” Amarie soothed.You’ll do the auction. I’ll design our social media campaign. We’re partners. Sink or swim, we do this together, right?”

Eli was where he never wanted to be again: his family’s future teetering on a needlepoint of uncertainty and imminent collapse, while he was at the mercy of a purple-sparkle fake business partner with secrets he hadn’t begun to sniff out. Heaven help him, he was in a tail of a mess.

Chapter Nine

AMARIE HAD SEIZEDan opportunity to increase her worth to her boss. Hadn’t she wished for this tiny miracle? But that was before she knew the truth of Eli’s instability. If not for the absolute pandemonium breaking loose in her skull and the spiraling cartoon loops blurring her vision, her knees would be knocking in celebration rather than hysteria. Thirty days to pay eighteen thousand individual dollars or default. She’d never accumulated that many zeroes separate from Russell’s shared account. Everything Amarie owned didn’t equate to five figures. Poor Eli. And by default, poor Amarie. Jobless. Penniless. Manless. Carless. She literally had run out of lesses. Her grandmother’s proverbial “Into every life some rain must fall” came to mind, but this—this bordered on a Category 5 hurricane, the one-hundred-and sixty-mile winds ripping the floor from beneath her feet while an F3 tornado sucked the roof and meager contents from her straw house. A band constricted her chest, like when she squeezed into a medium-sized spandex blouse in the department dressing room knowing full well her breasts screamed extra-large. She didn’t have a word to describe herriotous thoughts, so she made up one. This was Spanx-ing terrible. She was being emotionally Spanx-ed for daring to believe she could succeed on her own.

Her mother’s warning squeezed into her crowded thoughts like a foul, sweaty jogger forcing open the elevator doors and wedging the stench of impending doom inside her head.

Amarie, don’t be foolish and stupid. Keep yourself a man.

The realization of Eli’s dire financial situation had her considering, for half a nanosecond, Russell’s recent text message.

If you’re ready to behave like an adult, I’m ready to consider your apology. What’s the password to my TikTok account?

Not happening, Dr. Feldman. Why give him the chance to offer his basement apartment so she could nanny his offspring? It had been a part of the plan for her and Russell to have children. This way she wouldn’t have to bother with morning sickness and more stretch marks on her thighs. That was one plus in the nanny column. But then she’d have to subtract for pain, suffering, and the humiliation Russell would inflict if she returned, totally at his mercy. The man had none. And knowing him, she’d have to fend off his sneak attacks to lick her chocolate cherry on the down-low. Not how she wanted to be wanted. Delete message.

Eli squeezed her hand. “You’re not moving.”

“Oh, sorry for the deer-in-the-headlights. I tend to slip into a catatonic state when I’m, ah, scared. You know, just… the money, car, job thing. Whew.” She did a twirly maneuver with one finger pointed at her temple. “Thoughts are nightmarish in here. You?”

He said nothing. Just stood there. Big. Brooding. Staring at her. Then it occurred to her, she’d made the possible foreclosure all about her.

Amarie Walker, you are a horrible person for thinking of yourself.Real peril could befall the Calvary family. And she, in a crisis of emotion, had painted herself as a possible savior?! Jeezuz. And why? Because Lourdes Pendleton had called her a vagrant. A woman who, like Russell, sought to exploit Eli’s financial vulnerability. Amarie detested bullies. So, she’d uncorked her Black girl magic, spinning a thread into Eli’s tangled web. Yes, Amarie had helped Russell grow his client roster, thereby increasing revenue, but never under the financial deadline Eli faced. Had she oversold herself?

Could Amarie’s digital marketing and IT skills improve the Calvarys’ predicament? How must Eli feel? She’d witnessed how he, as the eldest, pulled at his chain to guard his family from the threat Lourdes posed. Tobias and Noah, both capable and skilled in their chosen professions, would manage if they lost the property, but what would happen to Leah?

A memory surfaced of Amarie’s mother, dull brown eyes milky from premature worry, flowing onyx strands with graying roots that looked misplaced on such a young woman. The mask of homeless desperation, hope depleted, clung to Bethany Walker’s face, an old cheap blanket that deposited unsightly fuzz fibers that everyone noticed. An impossible-to-brush-off reminder of how dependent she and her daughter were on her husband’s benevolence. Amarie couldn’t bear to think of Leah suffering the humiliation her mom had endured.

Either way, she had to decide. Stick it out in Service as Eli’s fake business partner and work her hot cross buns off to raise the money with Leah’s bachelor auction idea. Or she could return to D.C., move in with Vali, and live with a daily reminder of how effortlessly her career-minded bestie scaled the corporate structure and loved Amarie too much to mention she had been hurled, rather unmercifully, backto squarenone. The thought of limping back to the city to sleep on Vali’s kidney bean–shaped sofa had her back muscles spasming in protest.

But if she abandoned the Calvarys without trying to help, could she stomach her cowardice? Should she cut her losses, continue her current messy broke status, but away from Service? Or possibly exceed historic data where her efforts resulted in a negative correlation with success?

Run away and hide.

Stay and face possible failure… again.

Her choices summed up to a laxative or an enema. Either way she dosed it, things could get messy. Oh, this rapid beating of her heart felt wrong, so very wrong. Eli stepped in front of her, his excessive height looming over her. He tracked his broad fingers through the thick nestle of curls framing his forehead, making the ends a tad bit spiky. Expression lines sprouted from the corners of his alert gaze, which she thought gave him a distinguished look.

“Amarie, what are you doing?”

Tilting her head back, she looked up into vivid green eyes.Hmm, he’s handsomer, or more handsome, in multiples.The sky began to spin off its axis. The sky didn’t have an axis, but she got the image of the metaphor.

“Trying to decide if I’m hyperventilating. Do you feel Spanx-ed?”

“Spanked? How much of those polish fumes are you inhaling?”

“It’s shapewear. Does wonders to smooth bulges.”

“Where are you going with this? You’re making me nervous.”

That made two of them. If she were going to have a meltdown, it should start now. She used her free hand to blot the perspiration gathering under her chin.

“Your meltdown has to be a traveling show. The clock’s ticking on the mechanic.”

“You don’t understand, I’m not equipped to handle red notices. I’m falling apart. Look at me.”

Hiccup, his loveable dog, lifted his round face, piercing Amarie with his black eyes, and let out a hearty woof.