A Weekend with Her Fake Fiancé
Autor
Traci Douglass
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14
HarlequinCHAPTER ONE
CERTIFIED NURSE-MIDWIFE Carmen Sanchez swiped the back of her wrist across her forehead, careful to avoid the blood staining her glove. “One more strong push and the baby will be out.” She gave Teena, her twenty-eight-year-old patient, an encouraging smile. “You can do it.”
“I can’t!” Teena panted, her head lolling to one side on the pillows. “I’m too tired.”
Fifteen hours of labor would do that to a person, but there was only one way out of this and it was through. Having Teena’s husband there for moral support would have been ideal, but the poor man was working on a fishing boat somewhere in the Bering Sea right now and couldn’t be reached.
“I know you’re exhausted, Teena,” she said, her Caribbean accent drawing out the name. “But you’ve done such a wonderful job so far. All you need is the strength to push one more time on your next contraction and you’ll have your son in your arms. Don’t you finally want to hold him? After all these long months? Think of your husband’s face when he sees his son.”
Teena bit back a sob and nodded.
“Right.” Carmen used her most authoritative voice. “Then push as hard as you can when I tell you, okay?”
The patient nodded and took a deep breath.
It was Teena’s first pregnancy, and she’d been a difficult case from the outset, with sickle cell anemia complicating matters. Carmen had worked in conjunction with an obstetrician and a hematologist to monitor the patient and provide a safe delivery.
Another contraction hit and time seemed to slow as Teena groaned.
“Go!” Carmen got into position. “That’s it. Good. Good. Push!”
Teena leaned up on her elbows and bore down hard, toes curled and muscles straining. Finally the baby’s head crowned, followed in short order by one shoulder, then two. At last the tiny infant slipped into Carmen’s waiting hands and her patient flopped back onto the bed, exhausted.
Carmen cut the umbilical cord, then handed the baby to a waiting nurse, who wrapped the new arrival in a blanket and suctioned its tiny mouth and nose. Soon the boy’s wailing filled the room and Teena cried again, this time with relief and joy.
Once the afterbirth was dealt with, Carmen took a moment to enjoy the wonder. Even after years in practice the addition of a new life into the world still amazed her.
She slipped out into the hall, walking over to the desk at the nurses’ station so she could decompress and document the backlog of charts awaiting her.
Before she’d finished with the first one, she was interrupted.
“Just the woman I was looking for.”
Carmen’s heart tripped at the deep male voice, and she glanced up to see Zac Taylor. The zing of attraction she felt was decidedly inconvenient, given he was a paramedic and they saw each other a lot, both in the course of their work and hanging out with mutual friends. Also, they’d spent a steamy night together a few months back, after copious amounts of alcohol at the Anchorage Mercy Hospital holiday staff party, and since then things had been a bit awkward.
Flings weren’t her usual MO. Actually, love—the romantic kind—wasn’t even on her itinerary, so the way her heart continued to flutter whenever he was around, despite her wishes, was beyond annoying.
It wasn’t that she was against hearts and fluff. It was just that she didn’t have time for such nonsense. Not with her mother to care for, in the early stages of dementia. Some days her mother was fine, other days she didn’t recognize her own family. It was heartbreaking, the slow loss of the person who’d been the one constant in her life. Plus, Carmen was saving to put her younger sister through nursing school at the University of Alaska this fall, after she graduated high school. Between her own busy work schedule and her responsibilities at home Carmen was lucky to have time enough to eat and sleep, let alone date.
In fact, given her past, it was probably better for her to stay alone anyway. Growing up with virtually nothing in the poorest part of Port of Spain, Trinidad, had taught her self-reliance and self-sacrifice. There had only been so much to go around, and you’d had to look after what you got.
Carmen considered herself a tough, responsible, independent woman. Prudent. She didn’t need a man to make her life happy. And if she was lonely sometimes—well, that was the price she paid for safety and security. Lord knew she couldn’t rely on anyone else to give her anything.
Only problem was, she needed a favor. From Zac.
She bit her lip and watched him through her lashes as she finished her documentation.
The guy was temptation on legs. Gorgeous and charming. And the very things that drove her nuts about him were the very reasons he was the perfect choice for her needs. He had a reputation as a player. Which meant he was not a man for long-term, serious relationships. But he sure fit the bill for Mr. Fix-It-Right-Now.
“Hey, Zac,” said Priya Shaw, coming out of another delivery room down the hall, and Carmen tensed.
Priya was a fellow midwife and friend. She also happened to be Carmen’s biggest rival for the supervisor position at a new state-of-the-art birthing clinic in California. The job paid twice what her current salary was here at Anchorage Mercy, and the extra funds would go a long way toward getting her ailing mother into an assisted-care facility for dementia patients and also help offset the tuition fees for her sister’s university education.
“Hey, P,” said Zac, but his focus remained on Carmen.
He leaned an elbow on the counter beside her and his scent—soap and fabric softener mixed with warm, clean male—wrapped around her, teasing her senses and making her far more aware of the man than she liked.
“Tell Lance I’ll call him later about this weekend,” Zac said to Priya.
“Will do,” she called back, tucking her long dark hair behind her ear as she picked up a chart and headed into a delivery room.
Priya was engaged to Zac’s best friend, local firefighter Lance Marranto—a fact that only made the favor Carmen needed more complicated. But she’d find a way to deal with it because she was a survivor.
First, though, she needed to finish this chart.
Carmen sighed and blinked down at her writing. Her normally crisp cursive was going a bit wonky from fatigue. Teena’s long delivery had burned through what little energy she’d had left, considering she’d already been up late with her mother before coming in for the delivery.
Mama’s memory had begun deteriorating faster recently, and the poor thing had a hard time remembering she was in Alaska now, and not back home on her warm tropical island. The night before last she’d wanted to go outside in her nightgown and walk along the beach, meaning Carmen had been up constantly to stop her. It was only early spring, and the wilds on the outskirts of Anchorage were hardly a place for a sixty-five-year-old woman to traipse around in the middle of the night.
Thankfully, Carmen’s shift was almost done now. All she wanted to do was hand over Teena’s care to the nurses on duty and go home for a shower and a long nap. Clara was on Mama-watch duty until tomorrow.
She yawned before she could stop herself.
“Long day?” Zac asked.
His stupid dimples were making him look far too adorable. Not that she noticed. Nope. Not at all.
“Long night too. Fifteen-hour labor.” Carmen stretched her arms above her head. “Patient finally delivered this morning.” She shuffled her sore feet, then closed the chart she’d completed and shoved it aside. “Why?”
“We just brought a patient into the ER and I’ve got a few minutes to kill. Thought maybe you’d like to grab a coffee. Looks like you need one. If you drive home now, you’ll fall asleep at the wheel.”
He smiled the sexy smile that always got her right in the feels. No man should be allowed to be that handsome. Seriously. The navy blue fabric of his paramedic uniform only made his dark skin glow more warmly beneath the overhead lights, and the material seemed to cling to all his rippling muscle and highlight his pure masculine grace.
“Does that kind of pick-up line work well for you?” Carmen frowned, reminding herself that Zac was off-limits, firmly in the friend zone. And that was where he needed to stay if her plan was going to work. “Telling women how awful they look?”
“C’mon,” he teased. “You know you want some caffeine.”
She wanted to refuse, but he was right, darn it. Plus, she needed to ask him her favor, and now seemed as good a time as any.
“Fine. One coffee. Let’s go.”
He chuckled. “You’re cute when you’re cranky.”
She nudged him toward the elevator, their shoes squeaking on the shiny linoleum floor. While they waited her pulse kicked up a notch. Not because of his hotness—not entirely, anyway. No, it was nerves. She hated asking people for help. Especially when it was for a problem she’d brought upon herself.
If only she’d kept her mouth shut when the head of that clinic in California had mentioned Priya and Lance’s engagement. If only she’d stopped herself from letting the easy lie roll off her tongue, sweet and potent, like the rum she’d used to serve to tourists when she’d bartended at that all-inclusive resort in Trinidad to make ends meet while paying her way through school.
Yes, I’m getting married too!
Ugh. The memory of her statement made during the interview still made her cringe.
Because she wasn’t getting hitched. Hell, she hadn’t even dated a man in months.
To her horror, the clinic owner had seized on that information and invited her and her nonexistent fiancé to attend the upcoming national midwifery conference, where they’d announce their choice of candidate for the new job.
So here Carmen was, needing a fake fiancé for the weekend.
Unfortunately, time was running out and Carmen had only been able to come to one conclusion: Zac Taylor was the best man for the job. He was smart, funny, and not interested in forever.
Exactly what Carmen needed.
The elevator dinged and they stepped on board, the doors closing before anyone else joined them. She felt Zac’s gaze on her and resisted the urge to fidget. She probably looked a mess after working all night, but it wasn’t like she was trying to impress anyone—least of all him.
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen her at the end of a long shift before. They hung out together as part of a larger group of colleagues at the hospital, including doctors Jake Ryder and Molly Flynn, trauma nurse Wendy Smith and her OB doc husband Tom, plus Susan—Zac’s EMT partner—and Lance and Priya, and some of the other local firefighters and their significant others. It was a large group and easygoing. Uncomplicated. The last thing she wanted to do was mess up that vibe by allowing her attraction to Zac to get any farther along than fantasy territory.
So, yeah. Zac was a friend. A friend from whom she needed a favor.
They got their drinks, then found a quiet table in the sunny atrium of the cafeteria, away from the other patrons. Sade’s “Smooth Operator” was playing on the sound system overhead and Carmen couldn’t contain her ironic snort. If there was a better theme song for Zac’s serial dating, she didn’t know it.
“What?” Zac leaned back in his chair, stretching out his long legs. He was a good foot taller than her petite five-foot-four-inch frame. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. Just tired, I guess,” she said, trying to pass off her inappropriate giggles as fatigue. “Are you off work soon too?”
“Nah. I wish... Pulling a double shift.”
He sipped his iced chai tea. Zac worked almost as hard as she did, always picking up extra runs when he could. Work hard, play hard, apparently.
The favor nagged in the back of Carmen’s mind, making her jittery. “Do you have plans next weekend?”
“Not sure.” Zac frowned at her over the straw in his drink. “Why?”
Her cheeks flamed hotter. To distract herself, she toyed with a copper-colored curl that had escaped the ponytail at the nape of her neck. Her hair never obeyed, no matter how hard she tried to tame it into submission. She blamed her mother’s Ghanaian ancestry as much as the ever-changing Alaskan weather.
“I have a thing.”
“A thing?” Zac raised a brow at her.
“A national conference. Next weekend. I was hoping maybe you could come with me, if you’re not busy.”
She clutched her cup so hard the stiff cardboard threatened to collapse. She was so not good at this sort of thing.
Calm down. There’s no reason to be nervous. This isn’t a real date.
As far as their one-night stand went—well, she had no idea. But, given the fact he’d never brought it up with her, she doubted he even remembered their fling. They’d both had far too much to drink. It was water under the bridge. No reason for her pulse to race or her breath to catch. She was just another notch in his already well-scored bedpost.
An odd pain pinched her chest. Which was ridiculous. And stupid. She didn’t want a relationship with Zac any more than he wanted one with her.
So why was all this causing her more stress than delivering triplets?
“Wait a minute.” Zac sat forward, his dark gaze narrowed. “You’re inviting me to go away with you for the weekend?”
He looked about as shocked as she felt at the proposition. Her throat tightened and she swallowed hard against the lump of unaccountable anxiety lodged there. “Yes. No. Well, not exactly.” Nerves made her fumble her words. “I mean, yes. I’m inviting you to come with me for the weekend. To pretend to be my fiancé.”
There. She’d done it. Asked for the favor. Now all she needed was for him to say yes.
Minutes ticked by like hours as Zac blinked at her in silence.
“Fiancé?” he said finally, his tone incredulous. “Uh... I’m going to need a few more details.”
“Like what?” She frowned.
“Like why?”
She gave a heavy sigh and closed her eyes. “Because there’s a new clinic opening in Big Sur, California, and I’m being considered for a supervisory midwife position there. If I get it, it would be a huge bump in salary. But Priya’s up for the job too, and the company was really excited about her and Lance getting married. Not that being married is a requirement or anything, but I got caught up in the moment, and I didn’t want to be outdone, so I told them I was getting married too.”
She sighed and opened her eyes, forcing herself to keep going even as she avoided Zac’s gaze.
“I realize how stupid it sounds, but the words just came out. And once I’d said them I couldn’t take them back without making a fool of myself or risking being thrown out of contention for lying. So, yes. They’re announcing the candidate they’ve chosen at the national midwifery conference and they asked me to bring along my fiancé to help me celebrate if I get the job.”
She exhaled slowly and hazarded a look at Zac. He was still watching her with an unreadable expression. Her heart beat harder against her ribs as her embarrassment rose.
“If it helps, the conference is being held at a fancy resort in the Yukon called The Arctic Star. All expenses paid—even transportation. All you’d have to do is request the time off work—unless you’re already scheduled to have the days free? The conference runs Thursday night through Sunday.”
Zac’s posture had stiffened now, she noticed, and his handsome face had gone a bit ashen. She wasn’t sure if his distress had been caused by her avalanche of babbling or the fact that she’d lied to a potential employer. Both were pretty awful.
When she couldn’t take the awkward silence anymore, she said, “Say something.”
He shook his head and frowned. “Like what? You want me to lie for you? Pretend I’m something I’m not?”
She winced slightly at the edge in his voice. “I know this is not what you expected from me. Honestly, it’s not what I expected from myself either. But now I’m stuck. Please? I never ask for favors, but I could really use your help, Zac.” Feeling desperate, she added, “It’s a five-star resort. They have room service, massage, a spa—the works. So you should have plenty to keep you busy while I’m in my seminars and interviews. And we’d only have to pretend to be a couple when other people are around. It’s all harmless, I swear.”
“Harmless? Lies are never harmless.”
Zac exhaled slowly, a muscle ticking near his tense jaw. His voice was quiet, as if he was speaking more to himself than her. She’d never seen him as anything other than a smiling charmer before, and she found the change both disconcerting and far too intriguing. She wanted to ask him why the idea bothered him so much when he was used to being with a different woman every week, but now wasn’t the time.
He took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders, seeming to come to terms with something inside himself. When he met her gaze again the flash of hurt and anger she’d seen there before had been replaced by a flat guardedness.
“You’re inviting me to a midwifery conference for three days at The Arctic Star Resort as your fake fiancé?”
Yep. That about summed it up.
He sat there for a moment, fiddling with his coffee cup, then finally looked up at her. “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
Crap. This wasn’t going well at all. Maybe she should’ve waited until later, when she’d had some sleep and some time to freshen up.
Carmen did her best to keep it light, regardless of the growing heaviness in her heart. “Seriously, Zac. I know this is coming out of left field, but I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t in a bind. I really need your help. It’s a free weekend of luxury for you. And if you’re worried I’ll lose my head and seduce you, don’t be. You’re not my type.”
“I was once.”
So he did remember.
She opened her mouth to answer, then closed it, doing her best to hide her shock over that revelation and failing miserably. Heat prickled her cheeks and she stared at the tabletop, squeezing her cardboard coffee cup tighter than necessary.
“That night was a mistake. We were both drunk and—well, things happened. But we’ve moved on, right? We’re friends. That’s all.”
He shifted and his leg brushed hers under the table. Her heart rate kicked up another notch.
“Please. It’s just for three days. No commitments, no strings attached.”
“Right. You keep saying that.” He tapped one long, tapered finger against the side of his plastic glass. Sudden images of those fingers on her body, the way he’d touched her, stroked her, made her beg for more, flashed through her mind, unbidden.
No. No, no, no.
“Isn’t there someone else you can ask? What about that guy in Radiology you were dating? Jim or John or whatever his name was?”
“Jeff.” Carmen cleared her throat. “No. I can’t ask him. We didn’t part well. I found out he was cheating on me with his department’s receptionist.”
“Right.” He scowled down into his tea, then sighed. “Look, it’s not you. It’s... Don’t you have men lined up around the block wanting to go out with you?”
Flattering as his compliment was, Carmen just felt more exhausted now than she had before the coffee.
“No. There’s not. Trust me. I’m not exactly a party girl around here. I work too hard. Besides, I asked you because I feel comfortable with you. We know where we stand. I won’t beg, though. I’m too proud and too tired. If you say no, then I’ll contact one of those online escort services to help me.”
Zac gave her a look. “Arranging to spend the weekend with a guy you’ve never met and found on the internet? Yeah, great. Cause that’s not dangerous or anything.” He scrunched his nose, squinting at her. “Dammit. You really know how to put a guy on the spot, don’t you? Fine. I’ll go.”
“Good.” The relief was sudden, short-lived, as one more complication came to mind. “There is one more tiny hitch. Lance and Priya will be there too. In fact, they’re flying up to the conference with us on the same private jet chartered by the Californian clinic. So we need to get our story straight ahead of time.”
“Hold on. Are you nuts?” He leaned forward slightly, his voice angry. “It’s bad enough we’re fooling the people who might be your new bosses. Now you want me to lie to my best friend too? Because as far as Lance knows I’m not even dating anyone. I mean, we don’t share all the intimate details, but he’d sure as hell have noticed if I had a fiancée sitting around somewhere.”
“Are you dating anyone?”
“No.”
“That’s good, then. One less thing to worry about.”
He arched a brow at her and her cheeks flushed anew.
“Darling, you’ve got yourself so turned around here you don’t even see what you’re doing.”
The fact that he was probably right only served to annoy her more. “You’re overthinking it. We get our stories straight, learn the basic details about each other, and keep our cool. It will be fine.”
She picked at the edge of the table and kept her gaze downcast, because if she looked at him right now he’d be able to see exactly how uncomfortable she was with this, and she needed to fool him into thinking she was completely okay with it all.
She was completely okay with it all.
Or she would be once things got underway, because she had no choice.
“Okay. Say we do make it through this weekend. What happens if you get the job, Carmen?” Zac asked. “You get the job and you show up for work and suddenly there’s no fiancé. How do you explain to the new bosses that I’ve disappeared from your life?”
“I’ll deal with that if and when it happens.”
Honestly, she didn’t have the brainpower to devote to it right now. Her focus was solely on getting the job. She’d worry about the details afterward.
“We need to think of a way to get Lance and Priya to believe this has been going on for months, in secret. Maybe we could tell them we had instant chemistry and couldn’t forget each other after the holiday party. That we’ve been seeing each other since.”
Never mind that for her, at least, it was partially true. She’d never really forgotten about Zac and the way he’d made her feel that night—sexy, desired, beautiful, precious—even if it had been fueled by too much rum-spiked eggnog and fuzzy thinking.
“We need to convince them that things got serious fast and now we’re ready for the next step.”
Zac sat back and shook his head. “It’s not going to be as easy as you think.”
Carmen hid her wince—barely. “Because you’re an expert in deception?”
“I’ve had some past experience with it, yes.”
She didn’t miss the flash of hurt in his dark eyes before he dropped his gaze to the floor.
“I mean, yeah, maybe your story could work. Lance has been bugging me about being off my game lately.”
Her curiosity was piqued again before she could tamp it down. It was silly to think their night together had anything to do with it, but a little flare of hope still fizzed inside her anyway.
“Off your game? Since when?”
“I don’t know. A couple months. I’ve been busy, okay? That’s all.” He sat forward and rubbed the spot between his brows with his fingers. “Listen, if we do this, what about all the little things couples know about each other? Birthdays, favorite colors, favorite foods, pets, personal peeves? Trust me, Lance will see right through the whole thing in two seconds flat if you don’t know all that stuff about me. Hell, he knows all that stuff about me.”
The tension inside her ratcheted higher. She’d already gotten herself neck-deep in this situation and the tide was threatening to pull her under. All she could do now was keep her head above water and roll with it.
“We’ll each write it down. Create a dossier of our lives then give them to one another to memorize.”
“A dossier?” Zac snorted. “What are we? Super-spies?”
“I’m serious. It’s only three days. We don’t need to know every detail—just the big stuff, like you said.” She sighed and gave him an exasperated look. “How much of that will come up anyway? We’ll be sure to avoid Lance and Priya as much as possible at the conference, just to be on the safe side. Shouldn’t be hard with such a busy schedule. Okay?”
“I still think this is a mistake.” After an aggrieved sigh and a flat stare, Zac said, “Okay.”
Her posture sagged with relief. He wasn’t making it easy, but she was glad to have it out of the way. Carmen checked her watch, then pushed to her feet and tossed her empty cup in the trash.
“Thank you. I’ll text you with the flight details. And maybe you’ll fill me in later about why you’re so reluctant to go with me.”
“Don’t count on it,” he said as she walked away.
Carmen glanced at him over her shoulder as she exited the cafeteria. “I never do.”
Maybe you’ll fill me in later about why you’re so reluctant to go with me...
After Carmen had left, Zac sat alone in the cafeteria to finish his break, knowing he could never tell her the truth. His past was a secret he didn’t share with anyone. For good reason.
God, he was such an idiot. He never should’ve accepted her offer, no matter how much he wanted to revisit the chemistry between them. There were things about him that made a return to The Arctic Star Resort reckless or insane.
Neither option made him feel better.
Never mind the fact he’d spent the last twelve years putting as much distance as possible between himself and that place. Now he was going to blow it all to smithereens in one fell swoop. All because of the chance to reconnect with the one woman he couldn’t seem to forget.
Damn. The Arctic Star Resort. The conference just had to be there, in the one place he’d vowed never to set foot in again, owned by the one man he never wanted to lay eyes on again.
His father.
The man who’d cheated on his mother and betrayed his family’s trust.
The man Zac would refuse to forgive for as long as he lived.
It was because of his father that Zac trusted no one—because of his father that he kept everyone at a distance, never letting anyone too close, never trusting anyone enough to get hurt.
It was because of him that Zac feared he was cut from the same lying, cheating cloth.
And maybe he was, considering the state of his personal life. He was a serial dater—a player, according to the local gossip mill—and he’d cultivated that reputation carefully, never letting anyone close enough to see what he feared most—that perhaps beneath the charade it was entirely too true. That perhaps he was just like his father.
He rubbed his eyes, sighing at fate, or luck, or whatever the hell had brought this mess into his life. He’d thought he’d left it all behind him for good. Started fresh, created a new future of his own making. Yet, here it was, right back on his doorstep again, and he had no one to blame but himself.
It wasn’t like he could say no to Carmen. She was his friend. Never mind that he’d been secretly crushing on her since their incredible night together after that holiday party, or that what his best friend—Lance—teased him about was true. He was off his game. Because of her.
It didn’t matter. Nothing could ever come of it.
He didn’t do relationships and she was way too good for him. Had been back then—still was today.
Knowing that didn’t make him want her any less, though.
Lost in thought, he didn’t notice Lance walk up to his table with a half-eaten sub sandwich in one hand and a water bottle in the other until it was too late.
“Dude, shouldn’t you be out cruising for trouble? You’re on call today, right?”
The well-muscled firefighter plopped down uninvited in the seat across from Zac, his white T-shirt with the Anchorage Fire Department insignia embroidered on the chest pocket stretching tight over his chest, dark circles shadowing his blue eyes. All the Anchorage first responders had been pulling extra shifts lately, gearing up for tourist season in the spring.
“Your rig’s still parked out in the ambulance bay.”
“Susan’s manning the radio. She’ll text me when she needs me.”
Zac stared out the window beside him, as much to get his head together as to avoid looking at his best friend, who would too easily read that something was wrong in Zac’s face. He’d never had a poker face, despite the genes he shared with his father.
He sighed and squinted at the cars coming and going outside. “Let me ask you something, Lance. Did you ever do something so dumb, so out of your comfort zone, so crazy, that you ought to have your head examined for even considering it?”
Lance snorted. “You’ve met Priya, right? Still can’t believe she said yes when I asked her to marry me. She’s way out of my league, dude.”
Zac chuckled. “True. Still, things have worked out okay for you guys, right?”
“Right.” Lance halted, mid-bite of his sandwich. “Wait. Are we talking about women? Because I’ve been wondering when you’re gonna get back out there again.”
Sighing, Zac scrubbed a hand over his face. He’d walked right into that, dammit. He was probably overthinking all this. Maybe Carmen was right. Maybe he should just enjoy the fact that a beautiful woman had asked him to spend the weekend with her, all expenses paid and no strings attached. Chances were his father wouldn’t be at the resort anyway. He was probably off somewhere else, supervising his worldwide hotel empire. Zac hadn’t kept up with the family business much since he’d left, preferring peace of mind to profit reports.
“Oh, man.” Lance shoved his last bite of sandwich into his mouth, muffling his words. “The way you’re all quiet, with that sad look on your face, this is definitely about a woman. Don’t tell me the great Zac Taylor, player extraordinaire, has finally fallen.”
Zac blinked at his good friend. No. He hadn’t fallen. That was insane. Sure, he liked Carmen. And, yeah, they were friends. More than friends, if you counted that one night. But, no, he wasn’t in love with her. Zac didn’t do love. Not anymore. Keeping his boundaries intact was easier, safer. No messy emotions involved.
And if that pang of loneliness inside him nipped a bit harder when Carmen was around, well, that was just the price he paid.
This weekend wouldn’t be about anything more than helping out a friend. That was all it could ever be where he was concerned.
He had too many secrets and shadows haunting him for it to be anything else.
Zac focused on the snowplow driving by, clearing the parking lot from the fresh three inches they’d just gotten.
You had to love March in Alaska.
“Well?” Lance asked, drawing Zac back to their present conversation. “You gonna tell me her name or what?”
Zac shook his head. “There is no name because there is no mystery woman.”
His friend’s gaze narrowed as he zeroed in on Zac’s face. “Nope. Not buying it, dude. Something’s up with you, and it’s not just because you haven’t been playing the field lately.”
“Why are you so concerned about my private life anyway, man?” Zac shrugged and gave his friend an irritated glance. “Mind your own business.”
“Don’t even try to change the subject.” Lance grinned. “I’m right, aren’t I? You are hung up on someone. I knew it! You’ve been acting differently since that holiday party. Been hanging around the apartment more...keeping to yourself.”
Despite knowing this would benefit his ruse about Carmen, Zac winced internally. It rankled. Zac liked his privacy. The scandal following his father’s affair had been splashed all over the tabloids, and having the spotlight glaring on him had been uncomfortable, to say the least.
It didn’t help that he’d acted out back in the day too. He’d only been sixteen when the news had broken about his father’s infidelity and he hadn’t handled it well. In fact, he’d crashed the new sports car his parents had bought him and injured the girl he’d been dating at the time, who’d been his unlucky passenger. She’d made a full recovery, but Zac still lived with the guilt of his recklessness.
One more reason he’d left his parents and all their money behind. The wealth had corrupted his dad. Who was to say it wouldn’t do the same to Zac?
Needing to get out of his own head and away from the pain of his past, he tried to change the subject again. “You and Priya ready for the wedding?”
Thankfully, this time Lance took the bait. “I guess... She’s in charge of all that. I just show up when she tells me.” He tossed his empty water bottle into the recycling bin nearby. “Like this fancy conference thing we’re going to next weekend. If she gets this new job it’ll mean a move to California. Not sure I’m ready to leave Alaska behind, but I guess sand and surf wouldn’t be a horrible change. Plus, we could always come back to Anchorage to visit.”
Zac nodded, not ready to reveal that he and Carmen would be at the conference too, and Carmen would be competing for the same position.
“Well, I don’t know what you got going on behind the scenes, but I’m telling you, dude, one of these days you’re going to find someone who’ll knock those player socks right off you,” Lance said, standing. “You’ll end up in wedded bliss just like the rest of us. See you later.”
Sooner than you think, buddy.
Standing too, Zac checked his watch. “I should get back to the rig. Help Susan check inventory.”
“I’ll walk with you.” Lance followed him out of the cafeteria. “Break’s over.”
They rode the elevator to the first floor and headed down the hall toward the ER.
“No man is an island, remember?” Lance said, apparently not about to let the matter drop.
“Maybe I am.”
Zac knew he sounded defensive—but, damn. Soon Lance and Priya and everyone else at that stupid conference would be all up in his business, so sue him if he wanted to fly below the radar just a little bit longer.
“Islands suit me. Some tropical place with fruity drinks and beaches for miles. I like that kind of island.”
They rounded the corner into the controlled chaos of the emergency room, where people were rushing around and the air was filled with the sound of babies crying and clacking gurneys. The scent of antiseptic and lemon floor wax mingled around him like a comforting blanket.
Across the way, Zac spotted Carmen talking to Wendy Smith at the nurses’ station and stopped short.
Lance glanced between Zac and Carmen and then clapped him on the shoulder and chuckled. “Sounds a whole lot like Trinidad to me, dude.”
Zac barely noticed his friend walk away, his attention focused on the gorgeous midwife with the warm green-gold eyes and even warmer heart. He’d agreed to help Carmen and he would. He’d go to her conference and play her besotted fiancé and keep his promise—because that was what he did. He wasn’t his father. He was trustworthy, moral, strong. He’d play her perfect date, wine and dine her to within an inch of her life, fool her potential bosses, and help her get the job.
He’d keep his emotions and his past out of it.
And maybe, if he told himself that enough times, he’d start to believe it.
