Chapter 15 - The Rules of Pretending

Ailsa had thought pretending to be engaged meant remembering one lie.

Apparently it meant knowing how Callum Sinclair took his eggs.

“Poached,” he said.

She looked up from the sheet his communications team had titled PERSONAL FAMILIARITY: LIKELY QUESTIONS.

“You’re certain?” Ailsa asked.

“I’ve had breakfast before.”

“With witnesses?”

Callum leaned back in his chair. “Is this how you prepare for every high-stakes event?”

“No. Usually no one asks me to memorize a billionaire’s preferred egg.”

“Then tonight is educational.”

They were in his office two hours before a charity dinner where their sudden engagement had become more interesting than the original program. A short interview had become a table-side press session, followed by what Callum’s chief of staff called “light personal questions.”

Ailsa called them a credibility trap.

She read the next line.

“Favorite dessert.”

“None.”

“That is not a favorite,” Ailsa said.

“I don’t like dessert.”

Ailsa stared at him.

“There are easier ways to tell me you have no interior life.”

“I have an interior life. It simply doesn’t require icing.”

She laughed before she meant to.

Callum went quiet, watching her.

Ailsa lowered the paper. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“That was clearly something,” Ailsa said.

“You laugh differently when you’re not arguing with me.”

The remark landed with more accuracy than she liked.

“Maybe you should be less irritating.”

“Unworkable.”

She looked back at the sheet.

They had covered coffee, tea, schedules, food, and which of them was likelier to answer a work call during dinner. That one produced a draw.

It was ridiculous, and somehow it had become fun. Ailsa ignored that.

“Your turn,” Callum said.

He picked up his copy of the questions.

Ailsa braced herself.

“Morning person?”

“Yes.”

He frowned. “You arrive at Exit after nine.”

“I work before I arrive.”

“That is a technical evasion.”

“It is an accurate answer,” Ailsa said.

“Favorite drink.”

“Tea,” Ailsa said.

“No sugar.”

“You know that,” Ailsa said.

“You’ve made it in front of me six times.”

She hated that he knew the number.

Callum continued. “Food you refuse to eat.”

“Olives.”

His eyebrows rose.

“They taste like disappointment preserved in salt.”

He laughed.

Actually laughed.

Ailsa felt an answering smile tug at her mouth.

“There,” she said. “Now we’re even.”

“For what?”

“Uncontrolled evidence of personality.”

His chief of staff appeared in the doorway with a tablet and her coat over one arm.

“I’m leaving before either of you become charming enough to create more work for me.”

Callum checked the time. “You’re late.”

Ailsa expected the next sentence to be about the briefing.

Instead he said, “The car is downstairs.”

His chief of staff stopped. “What car?”

“The one taking you to the school.”

She stared at him.

“You remembered?”

“You have mentioned the recital every day this week.”

“Because you booked meetings over it twice,” Ailsa said.

“And then moved them.”

Her expression softened. “Thank you.”

“Go.”

She left.

Callum reached for the next briefing page as if nothing unusual had happened.

Ailsa watched him.

“What?”

“You arranged a car.”

“She was going to miss her daughter’s recital,” Ailsa said.

“So?”

“So she shouldn’t.”

The answer was almost impatient.

Ailsa had assumed his competence ran one way: identify what mattered, organize people around the outcome, keep moving. She had seen him protect Eilidh, but family could be dismissed as exception.

His chief of staff was not.

“You could have told her earlier,” Ailsa said.

“She would have thanked me earlier.”

“You dislike gratitude?” Ailsa asked.

“I dislike conversations that make ordinary decency sound exceptional.”

That shut her up.

Callum looked at her for a moment, then held out the next card.

“Your turn to be interrogated.”

Ailsa took it.

The question was WHAT DOES YOUR PARTNER DO WHEN STRESSED?

She smiled.

“Oh, this one is easy.”

Callum’s eyes narrowed. “Be careful.”

“He creates a document.”

“I do not.”

“You absolutely do,” Ailsa said.

“I delegate the document.”

“That is worse,” Ailsa said.

“It is efficient.”

“And then you call three people who could solve the problem, two people who might create a better problem, and one lawyer,” Ailsa said.

“I rarely need more than one lawyer.”

Ailsa laughed again.

Callum shook his head, but he was smiling now.

She flipped the card toward him. “What do I do?”

“When you’re stressed?”

“Yes.”

He considered.

“You get quieter.”

The humor left her.

Callum did not seem pleased with himself.

“You start asking narrower questions,” he said. “You stop explaining why a boundary exists and just state it.”

Ailsa looked down at the cards.

He had noticed.

Not only the arguments. Not only the words she used when he crossed a line.

The change before them.

“That answer stays private,” she said.

“Agreed.”

No joke.

No attempt to make the observation mean more than she allowed.

Ailsa slid the card to the bottom of the stack.

By the time they left for the dinner, they had developed rules.

Never invent a childhood memory.

Never offer a detail the other person could contradict by accident.

Use true preferences whenever possible.

If they did not know an answer, turn the disagreement into the answer.

“That last one is your entire strategy,” Callum said in the car.

“It works,” Ailsa said.

“You called my taste in dessert evidence of emotional vacancy.”

“And now I’ll remember it forever.”

He looked out the window, smiling.

At the venue, the test began before they reached their table.

A donor asked whether Callum chose Ailsa’s ring. Ailsa said he presented options and she rejected the obnoxious one.

A reporter asked who apologized first after an argument.

“Neither of us,” they answered together.

That drew a laugh.

Someone else asked who was more stubborn.

They pointed at each other.

Another laugh.

Callum’s hand rested lightly at her back while they crossed the room, and for once Ailsa did not have to remind herself that it was performance. The rules had become easy.

So had the banter.

That was the dangerous part.

During dinner, an investor beside Callum mentioned a proposed social-impact vehicle and complained that its founders had rejected a larger funder over governance rights.

“They’re being sentimental,” the man said.

Ailsa glanced at the structure on the one-page summary he had left beside his plate.

“No,” she said. “They’re protecting the asset you’re trying to invest in.”

He looked at her.

“The mission?”

“The trust that makes the mission usable. If the funder can redirect operations, beneficiaries stop treating independence as real. Then you have scale and no product.”

Callum turned toward her.

The investor frowned at the page again.

Ailsa pointed to one clause. “Separate the capital protection from operational control. You may get them back to the table.”

The man read it twice.

“Huh.”

Callum’s mouth curved.

“What?” Ailsa asked.

“Nothing.”

“That expression is becoming annoying,” Ailsa said.

“I was told your professional specialty was saying no to powerful people.”

“It is,” Ailsa said.

“You neglected to mention you understand why their term sheets fail.”

Ailsa took a sip of water. “You never asked.”

The pleasure in his face was unmistakable. She had surprised him. Apparently he liked that.

The press session began after the main course.

For ten minutes, their preparation held.

Then a columnist in the second row raised her hand.

“I have one question,” she said. “You both give very good answers.”

Ailsa heard the turn before it came.

The woman smiled.

“But you’ve been engaged for days, photographed everywhere, and not one person has seen you kiss.”

The room changed.

Callum went still beside her.

The columnist leaned forward.

“If this engagement is real, why does it look like the two of you are afraid to touch each other?”

A few people laughed.

Not kindly.

Then she added, “Or should we assume the whole thing is an act?”