Bellweather Bay Fake Romance

She had managed wedding receptions for two hundred people in converted barns during thunderstorms. She had once redirected an entire ceremony because the groom’s ex-wife had arrived with a microphone and a grievance. She could survive dinner at Mercer’s.

Probably.

Jack saw her looking at the chaos and grinned. He had the same irritatingly handsome face he’d had at seventeen, though now it came with a crooked apron, flour on one forearm, and a cut near his thumb. His dark hair was escaping whatever arrangement he had attempted. He looked as though he had been assembled during an emergency and sent directly into service.

“You’re staring,” he said.

“At the fire.”

“There isn’t a fire.”

“Then your standards have improved.”

He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Table six has been waiting forty minutes, table nine has received the wrong fish, and Harold Pike is threatening to write a letter.”

“Harold writes letters when the weather is too calm.”

“He’s already sharpened his pencil.”

“That is serious.”

“It’s the pencil he uses for council complaints.”

Jack’s smile warmed at the edges. Clara hated that she noticed. She hated even more that he noticed her noticing.

Before she could answer, Molly Mercer hurried over with a stack of menus pressed to her chest. Jack’s mother was small, silver-haired, and possessed of the unshakeable calm of someone who had raised a son capable of turning a minor plumbing issue into a community event.

“Clara, darling. You’re here.” Molly kissed the air beside her cheek. “Evelyn said you’d be joining us.”

“Evelyn says many things.”

“She said your boyfriend was very keen to see the old harbour.”

Clara’s smile held. Barely.

Jack’s attention flicked towards her.

Molly continued, blissfully unaware of the structural damage. “I told Penny Hart he sounded charming, and Penny told Sophie Bennett, and Sophie said she already knew because Evelyn had mentioned it at the post office.”

“There is no boyfriend,” Clara said.

A waiter passed behind her carrying a bowl of steaming mussels. He stumbled. Clara caught the bowl with both hands before it tipped, setting it safely on a nearby table.

“Thank you,” the waiter breathed.

“Table twelve,” she said. “Not table eight. The people at eight ordered chips and are already emotionally attached to them.”

The waiter fled.

Jack looked from the mussels to Clara. “You’ve been back in town for less than a day.”

“And already I’m saving seafood.”

Molly pointed towards the kitchen. “Could you save my son as well? He has put the vegetarian risotto on the fish pass.”

“I heard that,” Jack called.

“You were meant to.”

Clara should have sat down. She should have let Jack’s restaurant sink beneath its own poor planning while she enjoyed one drink and the smug satisfaction of being right about him. Instead, she saw the dining room as a series of problems with solutions: table six needed an apology and bread; table nine needed the correct fish; the lobster child needed a parent; Jack needed someone to stop him from trying to carry four plates at once.

It was not her fault that competence was a reflex.

She took the menus from Molly. “Who is running the floor?”

Molly glanced towards a young waiter hiding behind the bar. “Theo Walsh, technically.”

"Technically is not a management style.”

Jack’s eyes brightened. “You’re going to help.”

“I’m going to prevent a public incident.”

“Same thing, in this town.”

Clara stepped into the dining room.

For the next twenty minutes, Mercer’s became a wedding reception without the bride, groom, or legally significant paperwork. Clara moved between tables with a calm voice and a notebook borrowed from the bar. She reorganised the order of service, sent Theo to apologise before customers had time to become offended, and persuaded Harold Pike that his haddock had not been forgotten but was “being treated with appropriate respect.”

Harold considered this. “I’ll give you seven minutes.”

“Generous.”

Jack watched her from the kitchen pass, pretending not to. He had expected Clara to be polished, sharp-tongued, and capable of making a person feel underdressed by standing near them. He had not expected her to remember every customer’s name after hearing it once, or to kneel beside the lobster child and negotiate the bread roll away with a replacement basket.

He had certainly not expected to feel proud.

That was inconvenient. Jack had built his life around inconveniences he could fix with charm, cash, or a screwdriver. Clara Bennett was proving resistant to all three.

When the last delayed plate reached its destination, the room settled into the ordinary roar of dinner: cutlery, conversation, gulls crying beyond the open windows. Clara stood near the bar, cheeks warm, fingers smelling faintly of lemon and rosemary.

Jack placed a glass of water beside her.

She looked at it. “Is this an apology?”

“It’s hydration.”

“You’re avoiding responsibility.”

“I’m pacing myself.”

“You expanded the restaurant without hiring enough staff.”

His grin faded, though not entirely. “You’ve been back one day and already have opinions.”

“I had opinions before I left.”

“True. You reported me to the police for stealing peaches.”

“You stole six.”

“Community property.”

“You climbed a fence.”

“A porous boundary.”

“You were seventeen.”

“And hungry.”

“You were holding a basket.”

“That was evidence of enthusiasm.”

She took a drink of water to conceal the laugh that tried to escape. Jack saw it anyway. He always had an infuriating talent for finding the thing she intended to hide.

Her phone buzzed.

The screen showed Evelyn.

Clara stepped towards the side corridor, but the restaurant was too loud and the corridor too narrow. She answered with one hand pressed over her other ear.

“Hello?”

“Darling, where are you?” Evelyn’s voice carried clearly through the phone. “Penny says you’re at Mercer’s with your boyfriend.”

Clara closed her eyes.

Across the room, Jack was arguing with Theo over a bowl of sauce. He looked up when her expression changed.

“I’m not with my boyfriend,” Clara said.

“What do you mean? You told me he was meeting you.”

“I told you I was meeting someone.”

“You said he was lovely.”

“I said the weather was lovely.”

There was a pause. “Clara.”

She lowered her voice. “I’m handling it.”

“Your grandfather’s old desk is ready in the Seabird office, and I want you settled before the summer bookings begin. It’s time you stopped treating your life like a temporary arrangement.”

Clara’s gaze found the dining room: the crowded tables, the damp coats, Jack’s flour-marked hands. “I am not treating my life like anything.”

“Then bring him to supper tomorrow.”

“I don’t have anyone to bring.”

Her voice rose on the last word. The kitchen bell shrieked. A gull swooped past the open window. Jack turned fully towards her.

Evelyn said something Clara couldn’t hear.

Clara gripped the phone. “I said I don’t have a boyfriend.”

Jack’s face went still.

Then Clara heard herself add, because apparently humiliation had a lower basement, “Not one who can come tomorrow.”

Silence.

Evelyn made a pleased little sound. “Wonderful. I’ll tell Sophie.”

“No. Evelyn, don’t...”

The line clicked dead.

Clara lowered the phone.

Jack approached slowly, wiping his hands on a towel. He did not look amused now, which was worse than amusement. Amusement she could fight. Concern was a more treacherous opponent.

“Not one who can come tomorrow?” he asked.

“Eavesdropping is unattractive.”

“You were standing beside a copper pan.”

“I was trying to have a private conversation.”

“In my restaurant, that’s a luxury item.”

She tucked the phone into her coat. “Forget it.”

“Can’t. You said boyfriend.”

“I said I don’t have one.”

“Your grandmother thinks you do.”

“My grandmother thinks many things. She once believed a decorative lighthouse was haunted.”

“It was haunted.”

“It was a gift shop.”

Jack leaned against the bar. His voice softened, irritatingly. “Why didn’t you tell her?”

Clara looked past him to the dining room, where Harold Pike was now explaining to Penny Hart that her wine had been poured at an irresponsible angle. “Because she told half the town before I arrived. Because I’ve been gone for years and apparently returned as a disappointing report card. Because if I correct her, she’ll look at me as though I’ve failed at being a person.”

Jack’s expression shifted.

There it was: the thing beneath the sarcasm, the small raw place she had kept covered with schedules and city addresses. Clara hated him for seeing it. She hated herself for letting him.

“I’m not asking for sympathy,” she said.

“I know.”

“Good.”

“I’m asking why you’re trying to survive it alone.”

She laughed once, without humour. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

Jack glanced towards the kitchen, where Theo had just dropped a spoon. “I’m not alone. I have a staff.”

“You have a collection of frightened people who pretend you’re in charge.”

“I pay them.”

“Occasionally.”

“Regularly enough to maintain morale.”

Despite herself, Clara smiled. It vanished when he stepped closer.

Jack smelled of smoke, citrus, and the sea. A smear of flour marked the side of his jaw. She had the sudden, absurd desire to wipe it away. Instead, she folded her arms.

He studied her as though the answer had been waiting somewhere obvious. “Three weeks.”

“What?”

“Exactly three weeks. You need a boyfriend your grandmother can see. I need an investor to believe I’m finally settled down.”

Clara stared at him.

“The investor?” she asked.

“Harold Pike’s cousin. Wealthy. Terrifying. Thinks my restaurant is a charming hobby with plumbing.”

“And you think pretending to date me will make you look responsible?”

“Not pretending to date you. Dating you publicly.”

“That is the same thing with better tailoring.”

“It’s a solution.”

“It’s a catastrophe wearing shoes.”

“Probably. But it’s a contained catastrophe. Three weeks. We set an end date. We make appearances. We never admit it’s fake.”

Clara’s stomach tightened. “Why me?”

Jack’s gaze dropped briefly to her mouth before returning to her eyes. The movement was quick, but not quick enough.

“Because you’re already here,” he said.

“That is the least flattering answer available.”

“Because you can handle a room full of people who want something from you.”

“That’s not flattering either.”

“Because you know how to make a disaster look intentional.”

She should have refused. She had rules for everything. Seating charts. Backup vendors. Emergency chocolate. She did not enter arrangements with men who had once stolen fruit from her family’s orchard and now looked at her as though she were the only organised thing in his entire life.

Jack held up a hand, counting them off. “No falling in love. No unnecessary affection. No sleeping together. No jealousy. Never admit it’s fake. Never improvise.”

Clara’s eyes narrowed. “You just improvised a relationship.”

“I’m proposing a structured one.”

“Those rules are not structure. They’re a cry for help.”

“Is that a yes?”

“It’s a no.”

“Good,” Jack said. “You can think about it while I walk you home.”

“I’m not going home with you.”

“I meant I’ll walk you to the Seabird.”

“I know what you meant.”

“Then why are you making it sound scandalous?”

“Because you’re enjoying this.”

He smiled, but the smile did not reach his eyes. “You’re the one who said boyfriend.”

The words landed harder than they should have.

Clara looked towards the harbour. Outside, the tide worried at the pilings, dark water flashing silver beneath the restaurant lights. Bellweather Bay had always made secrets feel temporary. They drifted through open windows, under doors, across tables with the bread basket.

Tomorrow, Evelyn would expect a man.

Jack Mercer was standing in front of her, offering himself as one.

Clara picked up her coat. “Three weeks,” she said.

His eyebrows rose.

“Exactly three weeks. It ends on the agreed date. And if you improvise, I will leave you in the middle of whatever room you’ve dragged me into.”

Jack’s grin returned, slow and dangerous. “Clara Bennett, are you asking me to be your boyfriend?”

“No,” she said, buttoning her coat. “I’m asking you to behave like one.”

For the first time that evening, Jack looked genuinely nervous.

It improved him. Annoyingly, it improved him greatly.

End of chapter one. 34 more chapters in the full book.