When he paused again, she squeezed her eyes shut, shame suffusing her cheeks with heat.
Finally, he sighed. “If you’re lying, Callie, do it well.”
TWO
“So I told them you were my boyfriend.” Callie fiddled with a strand of her dark hair, her face twisted into a grimace. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have dragged you into my issues.”
Thomas blinked at her, startled and somewhat confused, but not unhappy.
Nope. Not at all.
Callie and Andre had broken up. Finally. She’d said the split was a long time coming, and Thomas had to concur. To him, it had felt like centuries. Millennia.
Apparently, Thomas and Callie were also going to spend a week together in various tropical paradises. While being filmed, from what he understood. And while those weren’t necessarily optimal circumstances for wooing such a mercurial woman, they were certainly better than reading in his condo while she cavorted on the beach with her ex.
As far as he knew, he hadn’t tossed a coin into an enchanted well, procured a potion from a witch, or fondled a lamp of mysterious provenance. But he could think of no other plausible explanation for these miraculous turns of events, so maybe he’d missed something.
Most importantly, Callie had stopped crying, and that was enough to set his world aright once more. He could wait for clarity on everything else.
That said, he should probably determine a few key facts before they proceeded.
“Let me make sure I understand the situation.” He leaned against his hybrid’s sun-heated hood in the stifling humidity of the library lot. “Next week, we’re flying to three islands for one night each. And then we’ll choose one of those islands for the last three nights of our trip.”
She nodded. “Whichever one is our favorite.”
“And HATV will film us in the belief that we’re a couple.”
Her nod was a bit more tentative that time. “Yes.”
“Did we…” He hated to ask. It made him sound like a dunce, and he didn’t think even he could have missed such a crucial development. But he needed to know for sure. “Did we agree to date at some point?”
If so, he had no memory of it happening. And when Callie spoke to him, looked at him, or hell, just breathed in his general direction, she captured his full and utterly devoted attention in a way no other woman ever had.
So he’d probably remember if they’d talked about dating.
Callie was shaking her head so hard, she had to be giving herself a headache. “No. No. God, no. You were just nearby, single, and on vacation next week, so I thought you’d be a good candidate for the job.”
Too bad. Learning that he’d won her affections while in a fugue state of some sort would have been convenient. But no matter. He had a week to do the job while completely conscious.
“Thomas…” She was nibbling on that plump lower lip, a signature gesture that had caused him to fumble various writing implements over the past six months. “I should’ve asked you before saying anything to them. But I just”—her inhalation turned shaky, her eyes shiny, and he would have torn apart the concrete parking lot with his bare hands to assuage her distress—“I just need this vacation. So badly. Can you possibly play along with me? Or did you already have plans? I know this was meant to be your summer break.”
“I wasn’t doing anything important.” He shrugged. “I’d planned to read about American aviation during the Great Depression, but that can wait.”
Her eyes grew bright in a different, better way. “Last year, I read East to the Dawn, and I really appreciated Butler’s discussion of Amelia Earhart’s—” She stopped herself. “Never mind. That’s not the point right now. Are you really agreeing to go along with my stupid plan?”
“Not stupid.” Reaching out, he touched her elbow. Just for a moment, through the silky barrier of her blouse, but the contact still dizzied him. “Ingenious, given the urgency of the situation. And yes, I’m agreeing to your plan.”
Her lips parted, and she stared up at him for a moment. “I can’t believe you said yes.”
Any opportunity he could find to spend time with her, he’d take. Even if it meant relinquishing his favorite morning shifts to work in the afternoons and evenings. Even if it meant attending work gatherings at noisy, overcrowded bars. Even if it meant spending a week on camera and possibly making a fool of himself in front of a cable-television-viewing audience.
When Callie Adesso began working at the CMRL, the axis of his life shifted. From what he could tell, that shift appeared absolute and irrevocable.
And she’d been dating another man the entire time they’d known one another, until now.
If that relationship had been going awry for quite some time, as she’d said, maybe that would explain her seeming unhappiness the last few months. Because she didn’t smile at him the same way she once did, and they didn’t laugh and talk before or after their shifts anymore.
He hadn’t understood it. But maybe this unexpected trip would explain everything.
