The F-Word

Expensive. I think back to last night. The shoes. The purse. The scarf. Yup. This trip is gonna be pricey, and way outside what even a well-paid PA can afford.

“Don’t worry about cost,” I say briskly. “It’s on me. Her annual bonus—ouch!”

Bailey’s glare is as hard as her punch. I grab her wrist. She starts to come at me with her other hand so I drop the phone and grab it too.

She’s furious. Fiery with anger. I haul her closer and she loses her footing and tumbles against me. For a heartbeat, her body is pressed to mine and I flash back to last night, that doorway, that kiss…

“Matt? Did I lose you?”

I swallow hard, let go of my PA, and scramble for the phone on the floor.

“Thirty minutes,” I say briskly.

“Make it forty-five,” my sister says. “Tell Bailey I’ll meet her at the main entrance to Nordstrom’s.”

“Will do,” I say, but it’s a lie.

I don’t have to tell Bailey anything. Considering how things just went, I’ll have to go on this little trip with her.

* * *

She sits as far from me as she can in the ’Vette. She’s not just angry, she’s totally pissed off.

“You had no right to involve your sister in this,” she says coldly.

“You involve people in conspiracies,” I say, trying to lighten the mood. “This is a simple shopping trip.”

“There’s nothing simple about your sister knowing that we’re going to—that we’re going to—”

“Spend the weekend in a suite-that’s-not-really-a-suite together?”

Okay. The look she shoots me makes it clear bad jokes are not the way to improve her mood.

“Look,” I say, “all Casey knows is that you’re going to a family thing and you want to knock their eyes out.”

Another look that could kill. “I am not that kind of person,” Bailey says,” nor do I wish to become one.”

Nor do I wish to become one. I can almost hear my Mom applauding.

“And you’re leaving out the fact that you’re going to the we

dding with me so you can pretend to be my—my lover.”

She says the word as if it’s a synonym for leper. I want to laugh, but sanity prevails.

“Casey doesn’t have to know anything about that.” I shift a little behind the wheel. Truth is, I don’t want my sister to know the full plan. There’d be too many questions and raised eyebrows and jokes and speculation when there’s nothing to speculate about. “All she needs are the basics. You’re going to a family function you don’t really want to go to, and you want to make the whole crew sit up and take notice.”

“Not everybody. Just my cousin.”

“Venomous Vi.”

If I hoped for a laugh, I don’t get one. All I get is a hmpf and a narrow-eyed glare.

“And how do I explain your presence today?”

“You don’t. I’ll just say I’m along for the ride.”

“And why, exactly—just for my own information—are you insisting on going with me?”