“Livi, maybe you can help me get Callie up to her room,” Noah said, his eyes wide and pleading.Please don’t freak out.
“I was just telling your brother that it’s absolute nonsense for him to trek all the way out to the Holiday Inn. Now that we know he and Callie are together, they should just stay in the same room. Don’t you agree?” his mother asked.
He silently pleaded with his sister to suddenly be old-fashioned. He could not share a room with Callie, but if he refused, this whole charade would be over before it even began.
Liv narrowed her eyes at him, just for a moment, and then turned to their mother. “Of course. That makes perfect sense.”
Shit.
“There, now. It’s settled. Off you go,” his mother said with a wave of her hand.
Mrs. Cole started in again as Noah gathered their bags. “Calandria, have you been taking your vitamins? You know you are supposed to—”
“So good to see you, Mrs. Cole,” Noah said, cutting her off and guiding Callie towards the elevator. “Livi, are you coming?”
The three of them piled into the elevator, Noah once again laden down with all their luggage. Blood roared through his ears, his heart pounding. How the hell had they lost control of the situation that fast?
As soon as the elevator doors closed, Liv hit his free arm. “What the hell was that?”
Chapter 5
“Start talking,” Liv demanded, crossing her arms, her eyebrow raised expectantly as she waited for Noah’s answer.
The hotel room was large and airy, decorated with textured wallpaper in soft grays and blues with gauzy white curtains obscuring the ocean view. The room was dominated by a king-size bed made up with more tasseled and braided-edged throw pillows than most home goods stores. Across the room, facing the bed, was an enormous mirror in a gilt frame, giving the illusion that the room was twice as large. At the moment, however, all he could focus on was his sister’s furious expression.
“I’m sorry. We wanted to tell you first,” Noah said as he dropped their bags in a heap at the foot of the bed.
Oh shit, we’re going to be sharing a bed.
He tossed throw pillows aside and helped Callie to a seat at the head of the bed where she could lean back against the tufted headboard. If he focused on making Callie comfortable, he couldn’t think too hard about the sour feeling in his stomach from lying to his sister or the sudden rush of blood to his groin at the idea of sleeping next to Callie.
Liv’s eyes darted between the two of them, zeroing in on the way Noah fussed over the position of Callie’s pillows. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I would have known. You would have told me.”
“It was my idea to keep it a secret,” Callie said. “We didn’t want to make a big deal out of it until we knew it was real.”
“Since when do you keep anything a secret from me?” Liv asked Callie. It was impossible to miss the hurt in her voice.
“We didn’t want you to find out this way,” Noah said.
“So you thought you’d tell me at my wedding?” Liv sank down to sit on the edge of the bed, still eyeing them both suspiciously. “You have never had a serious girlfriend. Ever.”
“I know.” The words came out sharper than he’d meant for them to.
“And now all of a sudden you’re with Callie.”
“Yes.” He focused on arranging and rearranging their luggage, as if that made any difference. If he looked Liv in the eyes, he was afraid he would crack and tell her the truth.
Callie sank lower on the bed, nestling down amongst the piles of pillows, her shoes discarded somewhere along the line and her feet tucked up under her. Noah was momentarily distracted by how adorable she looked, an oasis of pink cheeks and red hair and curves surrounded by pillows. His hand clenched at his side as he thought of how those curves had felt tucked against him in the lobby, how they would feel beneath him...
No. That is not what this is about. Fake dating does not mean real fucking.
“How long?” Liv demanded.
“Excuse me?” he asked.
“How long have you been keeping this from me?”
The hurt in her voice ricocheted through him, lodging pieces of shrapnel in each of his organs.
