“Thanks for looking after me this morning.” It was far easier than she’d expected to express gratitude to Rory. No question, he had done her a solid by whisking her out of the warehouse before the others showed up and got an eyeful of her emotional breakdown.
“No problem.”
Amazing. She would have expected him to hold this incident over her for all eternity. Not to shrug off her thanks as though this was all in a day’s work for a highly in-demand furniture maker.
He must really feel sorry for her.
Certain there were few things worse than being the object of Rory’s pity, she said, “I’m really sorry to have taken you away from your work for so many hours, but I’m good to head back to the warehouse now.”
“No worries, and no rush on my part. I’ve been getting plenty done here.” He pointed to the kitchen table, where his sketchbook was open to a black-and-white drawing. Even from across the room, she could see that he was designing yet another gorgeous piece of furniture. “I’ve been wanting to get these ideas down for a while now. Your snoring was the perfect soundtrack.”
Ah, there it was. A snarky comment. Her rapidly beating heart settled. He must not pity her too much if he was game for teasing her the way he always did.
“You should have recorded them for instant playback,” she retorted.
“Who says I didn’t?” She hoped he was joking as he handed her another cup of coffee. “Probably best if you drink this before we head back.”
Though she felt almost completely sober now, she could use the caffeine infusion. Not to mention a little more time to get her head around things before facing everyone at work with a smile. Plus, one whiff from the mug told her that he stocked fantastic coffee, possibly even the same artisan brand that he’d stolen from her on her first day at the warehouse.
As she drank, she forced her brain to rewind the morning. First, the text with the news. Then, the selfie of the ring. Then, drowning her sorrows in a bottle of Prosecco. Then, Rory had arrived and—
Wait. No. He couldn’t have offered to go to the engagement party with her, could he?
And she couldn’t have reciprocated by accusing him of wanting to get into her pants, had she?
She couldn’t hold back her groan. This would teach a lightweight to drink. Next time she was upset, she was going to sprint around the block to work off her angst, or go to one of those places where you could throw plates against a wall, instead of getting hammered.
“Of course you’re off the hook for tomorrow,” she told him. “It was nice of you to offer to go with me to the engagement party, but it will be better if I go alone.”
“Are you sure about that?” With one eyebrow raised, he looked insufferably sexy. “To my way of thinking, showing up with me would go a long way to convincing both of them that you don’t give a damn what they do.”
“I love my stepsister,” she protested. It was a tiny bit harder to force out the words, “I’m happy for her.”
“Then she’s lucky to have you. But being supportive of her doesn’t mean being her doormat.”
“I’m not Brittany’s doormat!” Although hadn’t she had thoughts along those lines once or twice in the past? “Anyway, you’d be bored stiff at her party.”
“One thing I can say for you, Zara, is that I’ve never been bored when we’re together.”
Unable to figure him out, she asked point-blank, “Why are you so hell-bent on going with me?”
“You’ve met my sisters.”
Cassie was a regular visitor to the warehouse, making frequent candy deliveries to the makers in the building. Ashley had also been by for a couple of openings, as had a couple of Rory’s brothers. “I’ve met two of them,” she said, “and they’re great. But what do they have to do with anything?”
“I hate the thought of one of my sisters being in your position.”
Zara was about to protest that the engagement party was nothing she couldn’t handle, but she decided not to waste her voice when Rory already knew it had been bad enough to lead to Prosecco-guzzling and a two-hour morning nap on his couch.
“Okay, maybe going with a plus-one would play better,” she conceded. “But I don’t want you to go unless you’re absolutely certain that you won’t hate every second of it. Especially since it’s all the way in Camden.”
“I like Camden.” He was like a bull in her china shop. “What time does the party start?”
She just blinked at him. Even had her brain been working at top capacity, she would have had trouble making sense of his behavior. “At six, so I was planning to leave no later than four. But we can just meet there.”
“No way.” He outright rejected that idea. “We want them to think I’m besotted.”
“Besotted?” She couldn’t believe that word was in his vocabulary. “Just being seen together will be more than enough.”
“I disagree. In fact, I think we should dig a little deeper to make it really believable. Learn each other’s favorite colors and whatever else a couple does.”
Couple? He wanted to pretend they were a couple?
This day was going from bad to worse.
Rory Sullivan being this into pretending to be her boyfriend was clearly karmic punishment for something she’d done in the past.
Long-buried shame for her past misdeeds rose up to hit her hard in the solar plexus, and it took every ounce of self-control she had to shove the shame back down deep. So deep that she could pretend it wasn’t there if she tried hard enough.
That was when she realized he was smirking at her—a look Rory Sullivan had likely patented at birth—which meant this wasn’t karma. No, far more likely it was payback for stealing his parking space. “You’re loving this, aren’t you? Winding me up with all this pretend-boyfriend stuff?”
He didn’t bother to hold in his laughter. “You should see your face. The more I say, the greener you get.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “So you don’t actually want to pretend to be a—” She could hardly bring herself to say it. “Couple?”
No was the right response. Of course not would be even better.
“Actually, we probably should,” was the wrong answer on every single level. But one he gave anyway.
If only she hadn’t drunk so much earlier. More synapses might have been firing, and she would have done better than saying, “No one would ever believe it.”
“Sure they would.” He looked far too confident as he moved toward her. “Two single makers sharing a workspace all these months.” He was barely a foot from her when he stopped. “Plenty of people have probably wondered what we’re getting up to all those late nights when we’re the only ones left in the building.”
“Working!” She was horrified by any other possibility, particularly when the truth was that she’d had more than one secret fantasy after seeing Rory use his saws and drills and sanders without a shirt during a few particularly hot nights. “We’ve both been working. Separately!”
“You and I know that. But your stepsister and your ex don’t.” She couldn’t miss the naughty glint in his eyes. “All they’re going to see is that we can’t keep our hands off each other.”