was easy. Rachel closed her eyes, then blew out the candle.
Megan leaned in close and whispered, “You wished for the promotion, didn’t you?”
Of course she had, but she didn’t particularly like Megan pointing it out.
Ever since her firm had won the bid to design a glitzy new hotel in Reno, she’d been evaluating her chances to become project manager. Her only real competition was Phil Wardman, a man with far less experience and technical ability than she had. But he had something she didn’t. Phil happened to be one of those backslapping, buddy-buddy kind of guys that Walter Davidson just loved. They talked sports, sometimes even played golf together, and more than once Rachel had seen them going out to lunch. Personally all that familiarity made her uncomfortable. After all, what did any of that stuff have to do with a person’s ability to do a job?
Over the next four days at the ski resort, she hoped to tip the scales in her favor, finding subtle ways to suggest to Walter that she really was the best candidate. In the end, she had to trust that any sane person would promote someone with qualifications over someone with schmoozability.
“Actually,” Rachel told Megan, “I wished for my husband to make it home in time to come on the retreat with me.” She sighed again. “But I’m afraid that’s not going to happen.”
“Maybe next time.” Megan punched a button to answer a call, staring pointedly at Rachel. “And then we’d actually get to meet him.”
Rachel smiled indulgently, then, gathering up her shopping bags, the flowers and the cupcake, went into her office. She deposited the bags on the floor and placed the roses on her desk—one dozen American Beauty roses that had cost way more than she ever should have spent. But they were exactly what her sweet, loving husband would have sent her.
Her sweet, loving, imaginary husband.
Rachel sat down in her chair and traced her finger over the wedding ring on her left hand, which contained a stone just big enough to be impressive, but small enough not to be ostentatious. They could do wonders with cubic zirconia these days. Unless somebody pried it off her finger and held it under a jeweler’s loupe, nobody would ever suspect that it wasn’t a real diamond.
And then there was the photograph, the one she and Jack had asked a passerby to take of the two of them on the Riverwalk in San Antonio. She’d had the photo enlarged, framed it and placed it on her credenza. And because she’d created just the right profession for Jack that explained why he was rarely in town, nobody got suspicious as to why they’d never met him.
The ring, the photo, and a flower delivery every once in a while—that was all it had taken for everyone here to believe that she was actually married.
Okay, so it was a little deceptive. But the moment she’d heard of the job opening at Davidson Design six months ago, she’d wanted it desperately. A small firm with a hot reputation—what better place to make her mark? Then she’d gotten word through the grapevine that Walter Davidson had a strong preference for married job candidates, a qualification that was a little difficult to acquire on short notice.
So she’d faked it.
In the end, she’d gotten a job she loved, and Walter Davidson had gotten a talented, dedicated architect, who was going to help him put his small but growing firm on the map. Nobody was hurt. Her plan had worked perfectly.
She sighed. Okay. There was one tiny little glitch. She’d underestimated the way she would feel every time she looked at that photograph.
She turned slowly and stared at it, playing back in her mind the one night she and Jack had spent together. She remembered every moment of it—every kiss, every touch, every whispered word in the dark. He’d made her feel as if she were somebody else entirely—a hot, wanton, reckless woman who never met a sexual position she didn’t like, a woman who would throw modesty and respectability and good behavior to the four winds and engage in a hedonistic sexfest that would have made a Roman emperor blush.
And it had scared the hell out of her.
She remembered with painful clarity how she’d felt when she woke before dawn and realized what she’d done. Fortunately she’d had the good sense to walk out of that hotel and leave temptation behind. Just thinking about that night made her cheeks flush with embarrassment. What kind of woman has wild, breathless sex with a man she doesn’t even know? Repeatedly?
A woman who can’t resist a handsome face and a gorgeous body. A woman who lives in a fantasy world instead of reality. A woman who’s not in complete control of her life.
She’d tried to tell herself that she’d felt some kind of connection with Jack after the day they’d spent together, a meeting of minds and not just bodies. Finally, though, she came to her senses and realized she was just deluding herself. Such self-deception was nothing more than an excuse to justify her outlandish behavior.
What she couldn’t figure out, then, was why she’d spent a good portion of every day since wondering what it might be like to see him again.
She had to stop this. She had her career to think about. The last thing she needed was to get waylaid by thoughts of a man who had undoubtedly put another notch in his bedpost before she’d even left the hotel. And seeing him again was a moot point, anyway. It wasn’t going to happen. He was a thousand miles away in San Antonio. He could be her imaginary husband as long as she needed him to be, and nobody would be any the wiser.
And she would never have to be tempted by him again.
BY TWELVE-THIRTY, JACK HAD checked out four of the five architectural firms and come up empty. He’d found a few women named Rachel, but none that he recalled seeing naked in San Antonio.
The elevator doors opened on the thirty-eighth floor, and Jack stepped out. This was his last chance. If she didn’t work for Davidson Design, he didn’t know where to look next. He took a deep breath, opened the brass-trimmed glass doors and strode to the front desk. The receptionist, a bright, bubbly redhead with short, shaggy hair, held up her finger without glancing at him, asking him to wait as she answered one call after another.
Jack gazed around the room. Typical corporate look, with beige walls, modern art, leather furniture, track lighting. He decided he’d rather die and go to hell than be surrounded by this frigid atmosphere. At least hell would be warm.
And right in the middle of the ice box sat a leather-clad guy, his shirt open almost to his navel, with a neckful of silver chains and a couple of random piercings and tattoos. A boom box sat on the chair next to him. He leaned over and checked out his reflection in the coffee-table glass, patting a stray strand of blond hair back into place. He flipped his wrist and glanced at his watch, then tap, tap, tapped his fingertips against the arm of his chair.
“Hey, lady!” he called out to the receptionist. “I got a schedule to keep!”
The receptionist covered her mouthpiece and responded in a heavy stage whisper. “I told you it’ll be just a minute! Will you keep your shirt on? At least until I tell you to take it off?”
With a disgusted shake of her head that made her short red hair flutter, she tapped a button on her console, then finally turned her gaze up to Jack.
“May I help—”
Her mouth dropped open. She froze in that position, staring at him, her eyes as big and bright as a pair of flashlight
