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So why was all this causing her more stress than delivering triplets?
“Wait a minute.” Zac sat forward, his dark gaze narrowed. “You’re inviting me to go away with you for the weekend?”
He looked about as shocked as she felt at the proposition. Her throat tightened and she swallowed hard against the lump of unaccountable anxiety lodged there. “Yes. No. Well, not exactly.” Nerves made her fumble her words. “I mean, yes. I’m inviting you to come with me for the weekend. To pretend to be my fiancé.”
There. She’d done it. Asked for the favor. Now all she needed was for him to say yes.
Minutes ticked by like hours as Zac blinked at her in silence.
“Fiancé?” he said finally, his tone incredulous. “Uh... I’m going to need a few more details.”
“Like what?” She frowned.
“Like why?”
She gave a heavy sigh and closed her eyes. “Because there’s a new clinic opening in Big Sur, California, and I’m being considered for a supervisory midwife position there. If I get it, it would be a huge bump in salary. But Priya’s up for the job too, and the company was really excited about her and Lance getting married. Not that being married is a requirement or anything, but I got caught up in the moment, and I didn’t want to be outdone, so I told them I was getting married too.”
She sighed and opened her eyes, forcing herself to keep going even as she avoided Zac’s gaze.
“I realize how stupid it sounds, but the words just came out. And once I’d said them I couldn’t take them back without making a fool of myself or risking being thrown out of contention for lying. So, yes. They’re announcing the candidate they’ve chosen at the national midwifery conference and they asked me to bring along my fiancé to help me celebrate if I get the job.”
She exhaled slowly and hazarded a look at Zac. He was still watching her with an unreadable expression. Her heart beat harder against her ribs as her embarrassment rose.
“If it helps, the conference is being held at a fancy resort in the Yukon called The Arctic Star. All expenses paid—even transportation. All you’d have to do is request the time off work—unless you’re already scheduled to have the days free? The conference runs Thursday night through Sunday.”
Zac’s posture had stiffened now, she noticed, and his handsome face had gone a bit ashen. She wasn’t sure if his distress had been caused by her avalanche of babbling or the fact that she’d lied to a potential employer. Both were pretty awful.
When she couldn’t take the awkward silence anymore, she said, “Say something.”
He shook his head and frowned. “Like what? You want me to lie for you? Pretend I’m something I’m not?”
She winced slightly at the edge in his voice. “I know this is not what you expected from me. Honestly, it’s not what I expected from myself either. But now I’m stuck. Please? I never ask for favors, but I could really use your help, Zac.” Feeling desperate, she added, “It’s a five-star resort. They have room service, massage, a spa—the works. So you should have plenty to keep you busy while I’m in my seminars and interviews. And we’d only have to pretend to be a couple when other people are around. It’s all harmless, I swear.”
“Harmless? Lies are never harmless.”
Zac exhaled slowly, a muscle ticking near his tense jaw. His voice was quiet, as if he was speaking more to himself than her. She’d never seen him as anything other than a smiling charmer before, and she found the change both disconcerting and far too intriguing. She wanted to ask him why the idea bothered him so much when he was used to being with a different woman every week, but now wasn’t the time.
He took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders, seeming to come to terms with something inside himself. When he met her gaze again the flash of hurt and anger she’d seen there before had been replaced by a flat guardedness.
“You’re inviting me to a midwifery conference for three days at The Arctic Star Resort as your fake fiancé?”
Yep. That about summed it up.
He sat there for a moment, fiddling with his coffee cup, then finally looked up at her. “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
Crap. This wasn’t going well at all. Maybe she should’ve waited until later, when she’d had some sleep and some time to freshen up.
Carmen did her best to keep it light, regardless of the growing heaviness in her heart. “Seriously, Zac. I know this is coming out of left field, but I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t in a bind. I really need your help. It’s a free weekend of luxury for you. And if you’re worried I’ll lose my head and seduce you, don’t be. You’re not my type.”
“I was once.”
So he did remember.
She opened her mouth to answer, then closed it, doing her best to hide her shock over that revelation and failing miserably. Heat prickled her cheeks and she stared at the tabletop, squeezing her cardboard coffee cup tighter than necessary.
“That night was a mistake. We were both drunk and—well, things happened. But we’ve moved on, right? We’re friends. That’s all.”
He shifted and his leg brushed hers under the table. Her heart rate kicked up another notch.
“Please. It’s just for three days. No commitments, no strings attached.”
“Right. You keep saying that.” He tapped one long, tapered finger against the side of his plastic glass. Sudden images of those fingers on her body, the way he’d touched her, stroked her, made her beg for more, flashed through her mind, unbidden.
No. No, no, no.
“Isn’t there someone else you can ask? What about that guy in Radiology you were dating? Jim or John or whatever his name was?”
“Jeff.” Carmen cleared her throat. “No. I can’t ask him. We didn’t part well. I found out he was cheating on me with his department’s receptionist.”
“Right.” He scowled down into his tea, then sighed. “Look, it’s not you. It’s... Don’t you have men lined up around the block wanting to go out with you?”
Flattering as his compliment was, Carmen just felt more exhausted now than she had before the coffee.
“No. There’s not. Trust me. I’m not exactly a party girl around here. I work too hard. Besides, I asked you because I feel comfortable with you. We know where we stand. I won’t beg, though. I’m too proud and too tired. If you say no, then I’ll contact one of those online escort services to help me.”
Zac gave her a look. “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 rea
lly 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.
