What would life be like with the one who got away?<b> </b>From the author of <b>My Husband&#8217;s Sweethearts</b>&#8212;hailed as &#8220;a laugh-and-cry novel&#8221;* that&#8217;s &#8220;whip-smart, tender&#8230;an undiluted joy to read&#8221;**&#8212;comes this bighearted, funny, fiercely perceptive tale about a happily married woman and the little white lie that changed everything.&#8230; <br><br>For Gwen Merchant, love has always been doled out in little packets&#8212;from her father, a marine biologist who buried himself in work after her mother&#8217;s death; and from her husband, Peter, who&#8217;s always been respectable and safe. But when an old college boyfriend, the irrepressible Elliot Hull, invites himself back into Gwen&#8217;s life, she starts to remember a time when love was an ocean. <br><br>What does Elliot want? In fact, he has a rather surprising proposition: he wants Gwen to become his wife. His pretend wife. Just for a few days. To accompany him to his family&#8217;s lake house for the weekend so that he can fulfill his dying mother&#8217;s last wish. Reluctantly Gwen agrees to play along&#8212;with her husband Peter&#8217;s full support. It&#8217;s just one weekend&#8212;what harm could come of it?<br><br>But as Gwen is drawn into Elliot&#8217;s quirky, wonderful family&#8212;his astonishingly wise and open mother, his warm and welcoming sister, and his adorable, precocious niece&#8212;she starts questioning everything she&#8217;s ever expected from love. And as she begins to uncover a few secrets about her own family, it suddenly looks like a pretend relationship just might turn out to be the most real thing she&#8217;s ever known.<br><br><br><i>From the Hardcover edition.</i>