The Cinderella Deal by Jennifer Crusie

not worried about the speech, why are you stressed?”
    “Look,” Linc began, planning to tell her to mind her own business, but then he realized she was right. He was wound so tight, he was going to be breathing through his hair at any minute. “I think it’s the lying,” he said finally. “I’m not a liar. I’ve never lied before. And now I not only lied, I dragged you into this whole mess and you’re lying too. It’s not right.”
    “It’s not a lie,” Daisy said. “It’s a story.”
    Linc looked at her, exasperated. “That’s semantics. They’re the same thing.”
    “No, they’re not.” Daisy scowled at him, and Linc remembered too late that she told stories for a living; he’d just called her a professional liar.
    “I didn’t mean to insult you—”
    “Lies are untrue,” Daisy said with all the sureness of Moses laying down the law. “Stories are unreal, but they’re true. They’re always true.”
    Linc shook his head. “I still don’t see the difference. I’m sorry, but—”
    “Listen.” Daisy leaned forward and gripped his arm to hold his attention. “If you tell a lie, you’re deliberately telling an untruth. If you’d told them you’d published six books, or that you’d taught at Yale, or that you’d won the Pulitzer, that would have been a lie. You’d never tell a lie. You’re too honest.”
    “Daisy, I told them I was engaged to you. That was a lie.”
    “No.” Daisy shook her head emphatically. “You didn’t tell them anything about me. You told them you wanted to get married and settle down in Prescott and raise kids.”
    “Well, that’s a lie,” Linc said, but he could see where she was going. “I told them what they wanted to hear.”
    “Yes, but it was what you wanted to hear too.” Daisy settled back in her seat. “Sometimes stories are just previews of coming truths. I bet you really do want that deep down inside your repressed academic soul. I bet your subconscious just wormed its way to the truth and laid it all out when you were too stressed and preoccupied with breathing to keep an eye on it.”
    “Very cute,” Linc said. “Would you like to explain the Alizarin Crimson, the daisy ring fiasco, and my brother from Jersey now?”
    Daisy shrugged. “Sure. Annie is an original cat, definitely one of a kind, and she’s reddish, so telling Guthrie she was an Alizarin Crimson was true in its own way. And you were treating me like a child bride in the store, not letting me pick out my own ring, so I became one. That one was really your story, not mine. And the brother part…” She looked up again, a little shy. “I think I just wanted somebody to rescue me, you know? Howard was being such a louse, and I just wanted somebody to stick up for me, the way a brother would. I get really tired of fighting my own battles. And then you came in, and I knew you’d stick up for me. I just knew you would. And you knew it too. That’s how I know it’s true, even if it isn’t real. You walked right into my story.”
    Linc pulled back. “I did not know it.”
    “Yes, you did.” Daisy leaned her head back on the seat. “You could have denied everything, or told me to shut up, or dragged me from the store, or walked out. Really, you could have done almost anything.” She turned her head to meet his eyes. “Instead, you were my brother from New Jersey. You knew it was true too.”
    “I’m still not buying this,” Linc told her, but he was irrationally cheered. Maybe he hadn’t lied. Maybe it had been a glimpse of the future. Maybe—
    The plane hit another air pocket, and Daisy clutched his hand. “How much longer to Prescott?”
    “About fifteen minutes to the Dayton airport. About another forty-five to Prescott by car.”
    “Are we renting a car?”
    “No, Crawford said he’d come pick us up.”
    “The dean? You must really rate.”
    “Not me. I told him all about you. He can’t wait. He calls you ‘Little Daisy.’ ”
    Daisy closed her eyes.