She wasn't sure what made her do it. Maybe she was tired of Lacey's intrusive questions about her love life. Maybe she was exercising her creative writing abilities. Maybe she just wanted to sound like she had something exciting going on in her completely humdrum life. Whatever the reason, Belle French was dating Mr. Gold.
Well, Belle French was dating Mr. Gold as far as her sister Lacey knew. Her sister Lacey who lived half a world away in Los Angeles and would never know that Belle had fabricated a boyfriend to tell her all about in their biweekly phone chats. Her sister Lacey who had just announced, rather unceremoniously, that she was planning to visit her dear sister in their mother's hometown of Storybrooke, Maine at the end of the month.
Shit.
"That's great!" Belle exclaimed with fake enthusiasm. It wasn't that she didn't want to see her sister. Lacey was more than just her twin sister, she was her best friend and they hadn't seen each other in almost a year. But now she was going to be forced to come clean about her little white lie that was suddenly a huge problem.
"I know. I can't wait to meet your guy," Lacey said.
"Really?" Belle replied, cringing inwardly. "Why is that?"
Lacey let out a snort on the other end of the line.
"You're kidding, right? You guys have been dating for like six months! This is the longest relationship you've ever had. I'm so curious to finally meet him."
Belle cringed, staring down into her half empty wine glass on her kitchen counter and gripping on to her cell phone tighter than was strictly necessary. Her stomach had started to clench uncomfortably.
"In fact he's part of the reason I decided to come," Lacey continued. "If my sister is getting serious about someone, I've got to come give my stamp of approval."
Belle bit back on an audible groan, cursing the too many glasses of wine that had led to this fiasco.
It had all started a few months ago.
Lacey was going on and on about her fabulous life and Belle had nothing remotely interesting to share on her end. She was a librarian for a small and underfunded library in a cold, small town in Maine. The most exciting thing that ever happened to her was sharing the occasional bottle of wine with Ruby at Granny's Diner before she headed home to a trashy romance novel and her vibrator. Meanwhile Lacey was a talent scout for a record company in sunny Los Angeles.
Despite being nearly identical, Lacey and Belle couldn't be more different. Belle had always been the responsible sister, the compassionate one, the only person left to hold the family together once their mother had died. When their grandmother had gotten sick five years ago, it was only natural that Belle would pack up her bags, move to Maine, and take care of her. Once Nana had passed, Belle didn't have anywhere else to go. So she'd stayed, stuck in a dead end job in a dead end town.
But Lacey, well, Lacey was fearless. She'd packed her bags and hit the road at eighteen and never looked back.
She had started off following a band around on their US Tour. Once she'd made it to the west coast there wasn't a chance she'd ever leave. She found herself a position as a personal assistant to a music producer and it was only a matter of time before Lacey was going out on her own to scout fresh talent. She had a knack for finding acts with the X Factor. She also had a knack for sleeping with brilliant musicians. Belle had just sat through another long and drawn out tale of Lacey's conquests, dreading the question she was sure would come at the end of it.
"So, Bells, how's your love life going?"
And some absolutely mad part of her had lied.
"Great, actually," she'd replied, the lie tripping over her tongue with ease. "I'm seeing someone."
There was a dead silence on the other end of the line for a full twenty seconds. For a moment Belle thought her sister had hung up on her. Then she screamed.
"Oh my God! You actually have a boyfriend? Tell me everything. Who is he?"
And so Belle dove head first into the lie. His name was Gold. He was older, sophisticated, originally from Scotland and looked fantastic in a suit. If Belle's fabricated suitor happened to share several traits – and a name – with the local pawn broker who scowled at her from across the street every morning as she opened the library and showed up on her doorstep for the rent once a month, well, there was no one to call attention to it.
At least that's what she'd thought.
"I think he might actually be out of town at the end of the month," Belle hazarded, knowing better than to hope her sister would let things go that easily. And even if she did she would be in Storybrooke. She'd likely see the sign hanging smack in the middle of Main Street that heralded Mr. Gold: Pawnbroker and Antiquities Dealer. Belle had described him fairly precisely from his long graying brown hair to the expensive Italian leather shoes he favored. If her sister bumped into him on a street corner, she'd surely say something.
No, this wasn't going to work at all.
"Bullshit," Lacey cried. "Tell him to change his plans. I'm meeting him no matter what."
Belle sank into a chair at her kitchen table trying to figure out how this had gotten so out of control. Why had she kept the lie going this long?
Lacey believed she'd engaged in a torrid affair with Mr. Gold over the past few months when in truth Belle had never exchanged more than a few words with the man. She would see him the first of every month when he'd drop by for the rent on her small apartment and inevitably ask if she'd be interesting in selling the tract of farmland she owned on the outskirts of town. She always said no, he wouldn't press the issue, and that was the end of her exchanges with Mr. Gold.
She'd always wondered about him though. The man was an enigma. He was infamous in Storybrooke as landlord, loan shark and all around villain, yet no one seemed to know his first name.
Belle thought that was about the loneliest thing she'd ever heard. She knew a thing or two about loneliness, so one day she'd started smiling at him from across the street as she opened the library and he skulked into his pawnshop. He'd looked startled, turning to look behind him as if Belle was smiling to some phantom beyond his shoulder. Then he'd quickly entered his shop and slammed the door behind him.
Belle continued to smile at him, and after a few weeks he'd started to nod to her in acknowledgment. She'd given thought to chancing a wave soon, but she hadn't worked up the nerve. This was the man she'd been claiming to have incredibly hot sex with for past few months. She was pathetic.
"I'll get in that Friday night," Lacey was saying. "So I think we should try to do a late dinner with just us girls if you can tear yourself away from him for one night. I can meet him some time Saturday."
"Dinner sounds nice," Belle said, trying to devise how she was going to break the news that she was just as pathetic and alone as ever to her sister.
"I promise I won't grill him too hard," Lacey continued. "But you are my baby sister and I need to be suitably overprotective."
"You're six minutes older than me," Belle reminded her.
"Is this your first boyfriend since Gaston?" Lacey asked, ignoring Belle's interruption. "God, that was college. I'm so happy you're finally getting laid regularly. Fuck knows you need it."
"Yeah," Belle agreed without much enthusiasm as she glanced around her empty apartment. "Look, Lacey…" she began, hesitantly starting the painful process of coming clean.
"Belle, I know I joke around a lot, but I'm really happy for you," her sister said, surprisingly sincere. "After Nana died, I was really worried about you. I didn't know why you insisted on staying in Storybrooke. I just feel so relieved that you have someone there. I'd hate to think of you up in Maine all alone."
Belle dropped her head against her free hand. She couldn't tell Lacey the truth, let her know the sad state of her life.
Belle stared down at the clean surface of her empty kitchen table in her spotless, empty kitchen in her immaculate, empty apartment and came to a decision. There was no way she was telling her sister the truth.
"Thanks, Lacey," she said resolutely. "I'm happy too."
After sleeping on it, Belle awoke the next morning with a leaden feeling in her stomach.
She could just come clean to Lacey, admit that she'd lied about her perfect boyfriend and also have to own up to the crush she had on the real Mr. Gold. Knowing Lacey she wouldn't leave well enough alone, pushing Belle into some sort of horrific confrontation with the poor unsuspecting man.
Or maybe, just maybe, she could keep the lie going.
The idea came to her as she was brushing her teeth. She could make a deal with Mr. Gold.
It would be mortifying to be sure, but maybe she could spin it in such a way that her dignity would survive in tact. The only problem was she'd have to come up with something decently enticing for Mr. Gold to agree. She didn't have any money and Gold was loaded anyway. But she did have something else she knew he wanted.
Belle wasn't from Storybrooke. She and Lacey had spent the first half of their lives back home in Australia before moving to Boston in their teens. But Storybrooke was their mother's hometown. After she'd died, the one tie they still had to her was their grandmother who owned an old farmhouse in Maine. When she'd grown sick, Belle had moved to Storybrooke to take care of her and found employment at the library. When Nana had passed, she'd left her house and the surrounding land to Belle and Lacey. Belle couldn't keep up the old house on her own and the property was much too large for her to tend to, so she'd moved in to one of Mr. Gold's rental properties like everyone else in town. She knew Gold wanted the land. She knew it irked him that the little librarian owned such a large chunk of "his" town. He'd offered her far more money than she even thought it was worth, but something had always kept her from selling. She knew Lacey would jump at the chance to get rid of the place, but Belle held on to it out of sentiment. It was where her mother had grown up. It was where she'd spent her last days with Nana. She couldn't just let it go.
But maybe clinging to the past was what was holding Belle back. These past few years she'd felt completely stagnant, as though she'd pushed the pause button on her own life. It was time to hit play.
So Belle hatched a plan.
She was doubting the wisdom of said plan by the time she'd made it to the door of Mr. Gold's pawnshop. What was she supposed to do, waltz on in and ask Mr. Gold to pretty please be her fake boyfriend so her sister wouldn't worry about her? Belle glanced over her shoulder at the comforting sight of her library, one of the windows boarded up because the city couldn't afford to replace the glass.
She had to do this. It's not like things could actually be any worse for her. And maybe if she took a chance, things could possibly be better.
Steeling her spine, she pushed open the door of the pawnshop and walked inside.
Gold was standing behind the counter, looking through a stack of receipts when she entered. Early morning light was streaming in through the blinds of the high windows, slicing through the gloom of the shop and picking up the silver highlights in his dark hair. His fingers were nimbly flipping through the little slips of paper in his hands, the sharp cut of his suit showcasing the slim lines of his body. Belle bit her lip. He was so handsome and mysterious, and she was about to be mortified.
"Miss French," he said, looking up at her with surprise. "You're paid in full on your rent."
Of course he thought she'd be here about her rent. What else could she possibly have to talk to him about?
"I know," she replied nervously. "I'm not here about the rent."
Something indefinable crossed Gold's brown eyes at her words, but a second later his face had settled into a mask of polite interest.
"What can I do for you?" he asked, setting down the receipts and clasping his hands together on the handle of his gold cane.
"I wondered if we might strike a deal," she said, clawing at the fabric of her skirt for want of something to do with her hands. Everyone knew Mr. Gold's penchant for deals, as long as you had the right collateral.
If she didn't know better, she'd have almost thought Mr. Gold looked disappointed by her words, a shadow passing over his features. But what cause would he have for that?
"Ah, of course," he replied, staring down at the counter in front of him. "What did you have in mind?"
"My sister is coming to town," Belle said haltingly and rather unhelpfully. She wasn't sure how to continue this. In her hurry to actually move forward with her hasty plan, she hadn't actually plotted out what she was going to say. How could she be so stupid? Now she was stuck here floundering for the words.
Gold just looked at her expectantly. "And she's looking for a rental property?" he provided.
"No," Belle exclaimed, walking further into the shop. Such a delicate transaction shouldn't happen with her still standing in the doorway. "She's not moving here, only visiting."
Gold nodded, looking confused. "I apologize if I'm being obtuse, Miss French, but what deal could you possibly need to make with me regarding your sister?"
Her bravery, so stalwart out on the street in front of the shop was failing her now. Now, with Mr. Gold standing directly in front of her looking impeccably put together in his crisp suit, his long hair shining and soft, his well manicured hands clutching the handle of his cane, she realized this was a terrible plan. He would never agree to it and she'd have embarrassed herself in front of him for all eternity. She'd never be able to look him in the face again and Belle quite liked looking at Mr. Gold's face.
"No, it's my fault," Belle said miserably, shaking her head. "I did something stupid and now I'm making things endlessly awkward. I'm sorry, Mr. Gold, I'll just go."
Poor Gold looked completely flummoxed and Belle couldn't bear the awkwardness of this encounter for another moment. She turned to leave only to hear the scuffle and tap of his cane as he followed her.
"Miss French," he called after her, coming around from behind the counter to stand right in front of her. "If there's something you need, please, just ask."
Belle looked up at him, her heart beating out a staccato in her chest. She'd never actually stood this close to him before. His dark eyes had flecks of gold in them that she'd never managed to notice.
"I need you to pretend to be my boyfriend," she announced, the words bubbling out before she could even think them through. She was sure her cheeks were blazing now as she averted her eyes from his to stare at the toes of her shoes. She felt the flush creeping down her neck, her whole body feeling overly warm in the cool, dark shop.
"Pardon me?" he asked, his voice a rough whisper.
There was no escaping it now.
"My sister, she's a bit…" Belle searched for an appropriate word. "Intrusive, I guess. She means well, but she's relentless. She always wants to know about my personal life, who I'm dating, what I'm doing. Answering her questions week after week with 'nothing much, just tending the library,' was a bit soul destroying. So a few months ago I told her I was dating someone and, over time, that person kind of morphed into you."
Gold stared at her, his mouth slightly agape. Belle didn't think she'd ever seen him at a loss for words. He always seemed so cool, knowing exactly what to say and silencing the people of Storybrooke with a well aimed quip and a piercing stare. If Belle wasn't sure he was going to evict her for her impertinence, she might even be proud of herself for rendering him speechless.
"You told your sister you were dating me?" He finally managed. If the look on his face was anything to go by, he thought the assertion ridiculous. Belle tried not to be too stung by it. She knew she'd never stand a chance of attracting Mr. Gold's attention outside of her own fantasies.
"No, not you specifically," she clarified. Now that she'd managed to speak she couldn't seem to stop. "But someone named Gold who shares a lot of your attributes. But since I don't actually know you that well I filled in all the blanks on my own. For example, your first name is Roald."
Gold quirked an eyebrow. "Roald Gold?" he asked skeptically.
Belle cringed at the ridiculous name said aloud.
"I'm sorry, she asked for a first name and the first thing I saw when I looked around my living room was a copy of 'Matilda' and I couldn't very well call you Matilda Gold."
Gold stifled something that almost sounded like a laugh.
"I sound like a pretzel."
"That's exactly what Lacey said!" Belle exclaimed, feeling slightly more comfortable. If they could laugh about this maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all when he firmly said no. "Which then led to some slightly inappropriate sexual comments on her end."
Gold coughed a little bit at her admission and Belle realized she might have crossed a line.
"Sorry," she said, slightly mortified.
Gold just shook his head as if wondering how life had conspired to bring him to this point. Belle rather thought she could commiserate.
"You mentioned a deal," Gold said. "Typically there is some sort of consideration for the other party."
"Yes," Belle agreed.
Gold looked at her blankly and Belle realized a moment too late he was waiting for his end of the bargain. Wonderful. In addition to being crazy he now probably thought she was stupid as well.
"And what would my end of this deal be, other than the unmitigated pleasure of your company?"
He was mocking her and Belle couldn't help the nasty look she leveled at him.
"The tract of land on the outskirts of town," she began. "The one you've expressed interest in in the past."
"Yes," he replied. "I remember it."
"You can have it," she said with a decisive nod of her head.
Gold arched an eyebrow at her. He clearly wasn't expecting her offer.
"You'll sell me your property in exchange for my pretending to be your…boyfriend," he seemed to stumble over the word.
"Yes," Belle agreed.
"You must really want to save face in front of your sister."
Belle stared back at him. "My reasons are my own."
Gold held up a placating hand. "Fair enough," he acquiesced. "I must say, Miss French, this is the single most unusual deal anyone has ever offered me. And I have made a lot of deals in my day. You're full of surprises."
Belle sighed, her cheeks positively flaming. He was going to turn her down and she'd have mortified herself in front of both Lacey and Mr. Gold. Her entire plan was for naught.
"I'm sorry," she began.
"Don't apologize," he countered. "I like being surprised. It happens so very rarely these days."
Belle's eyes widened in surprise, her heart suddenly rising from the place it had firmly sunk. There was a smirk playing across his lips, a gleam in his eye she'd never seen before. Was it possible he was actually considering accepting?
There was a beat of silence, the atmosphere of the shop tense as if the whole room was holding its breath and not just Belle.
"It's a deal, Miss French."