It made me think…how was this going to look? I was headed to an entirely new place with people who might have vaguely known about my history. The polo industry was small. You could never go anywhere without knowing someone. Maggie and my secret wouldn’t stay a secret for long once she began showing. This was my opportunity to jumpstart my career, and bringing a woman pregnant with my baby wasn’t great for business. My career depended on how this job went. And if my career tanked, I couldn’t support my child.
I quickly tapped the screen to mute my microphone. The two smalldingnoises screamed a silentgood luck!for what I was about to say to the woman next to me.
“Pretend to be my wife.”
Maggie whipped her head in my direction, her expression incredulous. “What?”
“Jack? You there?” Mike’s still strident voice carried over the speaker.
I unmuted the call for the split second it took me to say, “One second, Mike.”
When I turned back to Maggie, I expected her to ream me out for asking her to pretend to be my spouse. But when my eyes met hers—quickly, because my main focus needed to be keeping us on the road—I could see the gears turning in her head.
“You want me…to pretend to be your wife?” The slow, emphatic cadence of her voice advised me to tread carefully with my next words. I didn’t want to force her into anything, but this could taint our careers in a way that could take years to come back from. Patrons were everything in this game, and two up-and-coming, young players showing up on our own for the first time with a baby—while patriarchal and begrudgingly traditional—wasn’t the best move.
“Maggie, let me—”
“Wait.” She cut me off. “Are you embarrassed that you knocked up one of your hookups? Is marriage a joke to you?”
“No,” I said flatly. “To both. But you and I are both the new kids here. As outmoded as it might seem, sponsors look at this stuff with a giant magnifying glass.”
“Especially women,” she scoffed sarcastically.
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Sure.” When I didn’t voice my reply right away, she continued. “You do realize it’s hard enough to make it as a professional female player in co-ed polo, right? I don’t need you lecturing me on how bad it might look if I ended up pregnant, too. You’re not the only one losing out on shit because of this pregnancy, so don’t beg me to cater to your ego.”
She was right—about females having it harder than men in polo; the world was misogynistic as fuck—but not about my ego. As fucked up as it was, we played polo for sponsors, which meant we had to cater to whattheydeemed fit. As a professional polo player, you told your sponsor what to do on the field and advised them on their horses. Anything other than that, your opinion was useless.
“I get that, Maggie, I do. You’re a kickass polo player, and there’s no way anyone should judge you for having a baby, but sponsorsdo. And they’re the reason we have jobs.”
“So you want me to go along with this so you can keep your job?”
A car in the lane beside us switched to my lane, just a little too close to my front end, so I didn’t look at her.
She took my silence as a yes. A deep exhale left her mouth.
“Jack?” Mike asked.Shit, I forgot he was there.
I turned to Maggie, pleading with her. I needed this.Weneeded this. We could work out the logistics once Mike was off the phone, but right now I needed an answer.
“Fuck,” she shook her head in disbelief. “I…yes. I’ll pretend to be your wife.”
A sigh of relief left my chest. One thing down, one million to go.
I unmuted myself. “Hey, sorry about that. I was just talking to my wife.”
Wife.The word sounded unfamiliar and unreal coming out of my mouth. I was only twenty-three. I didn’t imagine myself getting married until I was at least thirty.
“Well, geez, kid. I didn’t even know you were married!” Mike exclaimed, still louder than he needed to be.
“Yeah, we eloped.” I cringed at my reply.
“Well, congratulations, Jack. Who’s the lucky gal?”
I sucked in a breath before answering his question. “Maggie Rynne. Well, now Maggie Hennicke.”
Maggie’s hand latched onto my forearm in a death grip. This sounded convenient enough ten seconds ago, but hearing it aloud before I had even processed what I proposed made me choke on my breath. I whipped my head to apologize to her, only to find her reluctant and…regretful? I wanted to pull the truck over again and hold her face and tell her everything was going to be okay. It took everything I had to pull my eyes back to the road and return to my conversation with Mike.
