“Arranging to spend the weekend with a guy you’ve never met and found on the internet? Yeah, great. Cause that’s not dangerous or anything.” He scrunched his nose, squinting at her. “Dammit. You really know how to put a guy on the spot, don’t you? Fine. I’ll go.”
“Good.” The relief was sudden, short-lived, as one more complication came to mind. “There is one more tiny hitch. Lance and Priya will be there too. In fact, they’re flying up to the conference with us on the same private jet chartered by the Californian clinic. So we need to get our story straight ahead of time.”
“Hold on. Are you nuts?” He leaned forward slightly, his voice angry. “It’s bad enough we’re fooling the people who might be your new bosses. Now you want me to lie to my best friend too? Because as far as Lance knows I’m not even dating anyone. I mean, we don’t share all the intimate details, but he’d sure as hell have noticed if I had a fiancée sitting around somewhere.”
“Are you dating anyone?”
“No.”
“That’s good, then. One less thing to worry about.”
He arched a brow at her and her cheeks flushed anew.
“Darling, you’ve got yourself so turned around here you don’t even see what you’re doing.”
The fact that he was probably right only served to annoy her more. “You’re overthinking it. We get our stories straight, learn the basic details about each other, and keep our cool. It will be fine.”
She picked at the edge of the table and kept her gaze downcast, because if she looked at him right now he’d be able to see exactly how uncomfortable she was with this, and she needed to fool him into thinking she was completely okay with it all.
She was completely okay with it all.
Or she would be once things got underway, because she had no choice.
“Okay. Say we do make it through this weekend. What happens if you get the job, Carmen?” Zac asked. “You get the job and you show up for work and suddenly there’s no fiancé. How do you explain to the new bosses that I’ve disappeared from your life?”
“I’ll deal with that if and when it happens.”
Honestly, she didn’t have the brainpower to devote to it right now. Her focus was solely on getting the job. She’d worry about the details afterward.
“We need to think of a way to get Lance and Priya to believe this has been going on for months, in secret. Maybe we could tell them we had instant chemistry and couldn’t forget each other after the holiday party. That we’ve been seeing each other since.”
Never mind that for her, at least, it was partially true. She’d never really forgotten about Zac and the way he’d made her feel that night—sexy, desired, beautiful, precious—even if it had been fueled by too much rum-spiked eggnog and fuzzy thinking.
“We need to convince them that things got serious fast and now we’re ready for the next step.”
Zac sat back and shook his head. “It’s not going to be as easy as you think.”
Carmen hid her wince—barely. “Because you’re an expert in deception?”
“I’ve had some past experience with it, yes.”
She didn’t miss the flash of hurt in his dark eyes before he dropped his gaze to the floor.
“I mean, yeah, maybe your story could work. Lance has been bugging me about being off my game lately.”
Her curiosity was piqued again before she could tamp it down. It was silly to think their night together had anything to do with it, but a little flare of hope still fizzed inside her anyway.
“Off your game? Since when?”
“I don’t know. A couple months. I’ve been busy, okay? That’s all.” He sat forward and rubbed the spot between his brows with his fingers. “Listen, if we do this, what about all the little things couples know about each other? Birthdays, favorite colors, favorite foods, pets, personal peeves? Trust me, Lance will see right through the whole thing in two seconds flat if you don’t know all that stuff about me. Hell, he knows all that stuff about me.”
The tension inside her ratcheted higher. She’d already gotten herself neck-deep in this situation and the tide was threatening to pull her under. All she could do now was keep her head above water and roll with it.
“We’ll each write it down. Create a dossier of our lives then give them to one another to memorize.”
“A dossier?” Zac snorted. “What are we? Super-spies?”
“I’m serious. It’s only three days. We don’t need to know every detail—just the big stuff, like you said.” She sighed and gave him an exasperated look. “How much of that will come up anyway? We’ll be sure to avoid Lance and Priya as much as possible at the conference, just to be on the safe side. Shouldn’t be hard with such a busy schedule. Okay?”
“I still think this is a mistake.” After an aggrieved sigh and a flat stare, Zac said, “Okay.”
Her posture sagged with relief. He wasn’t making it easy, but she was glad to have it out of the way. Carmen checked her watch, then pushed to her feet and tossed her empty cup in the trash.
“Thank you. I’ll text you with the flight details. And maybe you’ll fill me in later about why you’re so reluctant to go with me.”
“Don’t count on it,” he said as she walked away.
Carmen glanced at him over her shoulder as she exited the cafeteria. “I never do.”
Maybe you’ll fill me in later about why you’re so reluctant to go with me...
After Carmen had left, Zac sat alone in the cafeteria to finish his break, knowing he could never tell her the truth. His past was a secret he didn’t share with anyone. For good reason.
God, he was such an idiot. He never should’ve accepted her offer, no matter how much he wanted to revisit the chemistry between them. There were things about him that made a return to The Arctic Star Resort reckless or insane.
Neither option made him feel better.
Never mind the fact he’d spent the last twelve years putting as much distance as possible between himself and that place. Now he was going to blow it all to smithereens in one fell swoop. All because of the chance to reconnect with the one woman he couldn’t seem to forget.
Damn. The Arctic Star Resort. The conference just had to be there, in the one place he’d vowed never to set foot in again, owned by the one man he never wanted to lay eyes on again.
His father.
The man who’d cheated on his mother and betrayed his family’s trust.
The man Zac would refuse to forgive for as
