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This would cost her a small fortune but would be worth every penny to keep the focus on her cousin’s wedding bliss and off McKenzie’s latest heartbreak. She’d have to hire someone from Seattle to fly to Tennessee with her, rather than use a Nashville service. She couldn’t risk her family bumping into a purchased date and knowing what she’d done. How embarrassing would that be?
Down the road, once they were past Reva’s wedding and McKenzie was back in Seattle, she’d tell them the truth.
But to keep everyone happy and her own life a lot less stressful, McKenzie needed a wedding date pronto.
“I’m not sure I want to know.”
Oh, flipping pancakes! Ryder!
Face going hot, McKenzie minimized the computer screen and wished she could hide her mortification as easily as she turned to face him.
He leaned against the doorjamb, his brows drawing together, and an odd look on his face. “Did something happen to you and the guy you’ve been seeing?”
What was he doing there? Okay, so she was at the hospital in the dictation area, but had he forgotten he didn’t like her and kept his distance?
Too bad he hadn’t avoided her just now.
“You could say that,” she admitted, taking a deep breath and not meeting Ryder’s intent gaze. Maybe if she didn’t look directly at him, he wouldn’t see how horrified she was that he’d caught her looking at escort services. Desperate times called for desperate measures.
“I thought you two were long-term.” He studied her as if he was trying to solve some great mystery.
McKenzie sighed. He’d already caught her looking at dating agencies, had seen her raccoon-eyed last week. What more could it hurt to admit she’d been dumped? She could hide the truth for only so long before word got out among her coworkers, anyway.
“We were, only now, we’re not.” She shrugged as if it wasn’t a big deal. As if she hadn’t spent the last week trying to figure out what it was about her that eventually always drove away the men in her life.
“Good riddance. He wasn’t right for you.”
McKenzie’s jaw dropped at Ryder’s unexpected and rather forceful comment. The two men had met only a couple of times and had never had a conversation as far as she knew. Why would Ryder have thought Paul wrong for her?
“Paul is a nice man. I will win him back,” she murmured, then blushed when she realized she’d made the claim out loud. Why had she? Yes, she was distraught at the breakup, cared for Paul and had thought they’d marry, but win him back? They’d barely spoken since his devastating text.
“You weren’t the one to end the relationship?” Disbelief filled Ryder’s voice.
Yeah, right. McKenzie had never been the one to end a relationship. Not ever.
Ryder had straightened from the doorjamb, had moved further into the tiny room.
McKenzie’s heart rate sped up and she swallowed as she stared up at him.
She wished she could just disappear. Poof. Be gone.
Ryder gestured to the computer where he’d seen her search results. “Are you planning to try to make him jealous?”
She glanced at the screen, no longer lit with her escort service search. She hadn’t, but his thinking that was better than his knowing the truth. “Do you think it would work?”
Maybe if Paul thought she was moving on he’d come to his senses, realize he didn’t want to lose her, and they could get back to their normally scheduled lives.
Ryder’s dark brow lifted. “Is that really what you’re doing? Hiring a date to make your ex jealous?”
Ugh. She sounded pathetic. Would admitting the truth, that she needed a date for her cousin’s wedding be more, or less, pathetic?
“It’s really none of your business,” she reminded him, then blurted out something so crazy she couldn’t believe she’d said it. “Unless you’d like to make it your business by being my boyfriend for a weekend?”
* * *
Ryder never sought McKenzie out. Never.
But he hadn’t been able to get her sad eyes out of his mind no matter how he tried.
