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James
Rose and I walked into the house the next morning, both of us smiling like fools. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Everything about this week was absolutely perfect. I refused to allow myself to think about what was coming. There was no point in dwelling on the fact that this was all coming to an end.
“Do you think they’ll show up today?” Rose asked as we got to work.
“Who knows. Shane’s definitely met his match with Clarissa.” She smiled at me uneasily, refusing to look at me. “What is it?”
“It’s just sad,” she shrugged. “We finally made the decision to be together. Clarissa and Shane are together…sort of. And it’s all going to end.”
I had been thinking the same thing, but I couldn’t see a way out of it. The only thing I could ever offer her were a few getaway weekends where we’d have to hide who we were. And once I took over the company, that wouldn’t be so easy. Still…
“Rose, do you think you’d be able to get away a few times a year?”
“For what?”
“To spend the weekend with me,” I said hopefully. “We’d have to be careful, but…what if we could still see each other?”
Hope lit her face as she stared back at me. “I might be able to. But I’m not sure how I would explain it to my husband.”
“What’s his name?” I asked, though I knew that information was off limits.
“James—”
“Right, I’m sorry,” I sighed. “I just thought, if I knew who he was, maybe I could find a way for us to slip under the radar.”
“There has to be another way. If you’re serious about this…”
When I thought about what was to come, there was no question in my mind that I was serious about this. “If we could find a way…it couldn’t be here,” I said, turning away from her as I tried to find a way to make this work. “It would have to be someplace new, someplace neither of us could be traced to.”
“A new resort?”
I shook my head. “Too many people.”
“What if it was just an apartment?”
I turned to face her, curious as to where she was going with this. “That would look suspicious.”
“Not if the apartment was in your name. I could be a guest coming to see you. I could give a fake name.”
“And if someone followed you?” I asked, my hope dying a little more. “That’s too risky. All it takes is one nosy person to follow one of us, and how would I explain a second apartment to my wife?”
“But who would follow us?”
If only she knew the job I was going to be taking. As soon as I stepped into that role, I would be swarmed by reports that wanted the latest scoop. And while I wasn’t a vain man, I knew there would be no escaping the paparazzi that would follow me around.
I ran a hand through my hair with a sigh. “It’s not a good idea. We’d need something better than that. We’d need someone trusted that could help us out with meeting up.”
“Nobody knows we’re here together besides Clarissa and Shane.”
“Exactly,” I grinned. “That’s the answer. If we could get Clarissa and Shane to go with each of us somewhere, nobody would suspect. You would be going on vacation with Clarissa and I would go with Shane.”
“Do you think they’d do it?” she asked hopefully.
“It might not be as easy as we want.” I tried to think of any scenario that might stand in our way. “They might not want to see each other.”
“Or they might not always be able to leave. Shane has a business to run, and Clarissa…she’ll probably be looking for a husband.”
Just as quickly as hope came, I found myself doubting that any of this could become reality. And then there was the fact that every time we saw each other, it would be that much harder to say goodbye. Could I really put myself through that?
