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“And your fiancée, too?”

“Yes, her too! It sounds like a great time, Chris. Thank you for the invite.”

“I’ll have my assistant send over all the details. Great to talk to you, Patrick. See you soon.”

With that, we end the call, and I’m left simmering in a soup of excitement that slowly, second-by-second, turns into something a little more like anxiety.

I am supposed to go to Finland with Chris and his family.

And I am supposed to bring my fiancée.

No problem. Not an issue. I can find a fiancée. It can’t be that hard to find a gorgeous woman who wants a free trip to Finland. All she’d have to do is cozy up to me when we’re around the Moreno family. Put on a good show of wanting to have a family with me. At first, I think about picking up the phone and tasking Molly with it, but aside from the fact that she’ll be appalled by the idea, I don’t know where she’d even find someone like that.

Do I just go to the nearest bar? Or will the women there think I’m lying?

Of course they will. What man would really offer something like that, strings-free?

There’s some commotion outside the window, and I look up to find Cami laughing and bending down to help clean up the spilled contents of a box. A tall man from the software engineering department laughs with her, and she sticks a bow on his head. He sticks one on hers in return.

“Merry Christmas!”

“Happy holidays!”

I don’t know why the interaction makes me tense my jaw; maybe because the two of them are wasting company time. Now, it’s past nine and they are officially on the clock.

The man walks away, and Cami reaches up. I think she’s going to take the bow off her head, but she just touches it gently, smiles, and turns around to keep going about her work.

It hits me as I watch her move back to her desk, looking down at something on the surface there.

Cami is the only other person I know with a personality like Chris’s. Joyful, all the time. Insisting on these decorations, even with all the work it took for her to win me over. Getting here at God knows what time just to set up a hot chocolate stand and start putting up decorations.

Simply put, she would be the perfect option for a fake fiancée.

The best woman I could bring along with me to Finland.

And I don’t even have to go to a local bar to try and find her. She’s right here, festive clothing and all.

CHAPTER 6

CAMI

My heart thunders in my chest as I straighten up and walk to Mr. Dunne’s door, feeling like a kid being called to the principal’s office. Everyone in the office pretends not to notice, not to care, but they’re all peering at me over their monitors, shooting glances at each other like What is that about?

I have no idea.

That is, unless Mr. Dunne somehow saw or found out about the letter I just typed up on a company computer, then printed with a company printer.

Oh my God.

What was I thinking?

I should have waited until I got home. Better yet, I should have taken my mother’s perpetual advice and given myself some time to think it over, rather than jumping straight into the decision.

“Always good to let things percolate,” she says, anytime me or my sisters are struggling with a decision. “Jumping into things usually leads to regret.”

Then again, haven’t the past ten years of working at Dunne Tech been percolating? Not jumping into things? Doing the same thing, year after year, just waiting for a magical change?

Well, that is, except for me breaking things off with Jeremy. That was certainly a deviation from the day-to-day. And my mother didn’t think I gave that decision enough time, either.