Trace cleared his throat, and she tore her gaze away from the window. He stood in the middle of the room, in the generous space between the bed and the sitting area, with her trunk parked beside him.
“Oh, right. Um…” She walked down the small hallway to the right of the door and found it bisected a large closet area and dead-ended in a white, tile-and-marble bathroom, complete with a soaking tub and spacious glass-enclosed shower. “Over here.”
When he appeared, she noticed he’d shed his parka. Instead of diminishing him, the loss of the bulky outer layer only highlighted just how tall and broad he was au naturel, or, in this case, in a blue Captivity Air fleece pullover that turned his eyes to sapphires and jeans that hugged thighs roughly the size of tree trunks.
What would it be like to have one of those bad boys lodged between hers?
Let it go, Izzy. That bear daddy must remain in the wild.
She swallowed hard and waved a hand toward the closet. “Thanks,” she managed to say when he set it on a luggage bench for her, treating her to a show of flexing thighs and glutes beneath wash-softened denim, back and shoulder muscles rippling beneath the fleece, and forearms traversed by veins and dusted with dark hair. He even peeled the tape back for her.
Too bad he was her client.
He straightened, turned, and very possibly caught her checking out his ass. One dark eyebrow winged up.
Really too bad.
He cleared his throat again, looked around the elaborate closet, and finally, back to her. “If you’ve got a couple more minutes to spare, maybe I can get around to that explanation I owe you?”
“Anything for my groom-to-be.” She turned and retraced her steps to the main room of the suite, looked around, then crossed to the sofa and sat.
“About that.” He dropped into one of the chairs by the table and ran a hand through his hair. “I apologize for springing that on you like I did. Captivity Air and Freight employs Maddox and Wyatt.” He rested his forearms on his knees and stared at the floor between his feet. Really big feet. “I don’t want them—or anyone else—knowing I’m considering selling my interest in the business until we’re ready to pull the trigger on the deal.”
“That makes sense.” She kicked off her shoes and tucked her legs under her. Settling into the corner of the sofa closest to the table, she turned to face him. “In fact, the firm would consider it best practice. For certain things, transparency is too disruptive. But I don’t travel with my mergers and acquisitions credentials pinned to my shirtfront.”
“You might as well have.” He turned those blue eyes on her. “Chuck promised me someone who would blend in and pass for a tourist, and then you show up looking like a big city corporate attorney. I didn’t know what to do about it, but then your luggage exploded with all the”—he moved his hands over his chest—“and the”—he opened his palms and did a quick V-hands at his lap—“and the big box of condoms comes skidding out, and I thought it looked like everything a woman would pack to visit her, uh, significant other, and I just blurted it out.” He winced. “Sorry.”
“All right. I get it. It’s okay, I guess. I didn’t plan to be dressed like this when I arrived in Captivity, but everything worked against me.” She considered the ethics, but, frankly, she hadn’t lied to anyone. Nor had Trace, in a strictly literal sense. He hadn’t said they’d known each other or been seeing each other. He’d said he planned to marry her if he could convince her. That he didn’t honestly mean to try, and she had no intention of being convinced didn’t, technically, make the statement any less true. “I don’t care if a few people at Captivity Air think we’re involved. I wouldn’t have voted to create an elaborate cover story, but this one works to our advantage and undoing it now would create wrinkles in something we both want to go very smoothly.”
He let out a breath. “I appreciate you playing along, but—”
“It’s not completely selfless on my part,” she hastened to assure him. “Believe it or not, the stakes for me to complete this deal are almost as high as they are for you. So, if you, as my client, are more comfortable with a minor fabrication, then who am I to—?”
A knock on the door interrupted her. “One minute.” She got up and padded over to the door. A peek through the peephole showed the girl who had joined Rose behind the desk, holding something. She opened the door.
“A very special welcome to Captivity, from management.” The girl smiled, complete with adorable twin dimples, as she presented a silver ice bucket containing an uncorked bottle of chilled champagne and two glasses.
“Oh. Goodness.” At a loss, she turned to Trace, whose face remained impassive. No wiser, she turned back to the girl. “Thank you.” She took the bucket, and the glasses. “Lilah, right? Hold on just a second. Let me put this down and find my purse.”
“No, no.” The girl reached for the door handle. “Please enjoy the gift. Compliments of the Captivity Inn.” With that, and a last smile, she backed out and closed the door behind her.
“Well, dang.” Izzy brought the bounty over to the sofa and set the bucket and glasses on the small, hand-hewn wood table before returning to her corner of the sofa. “Why is the management of the Captivity Inn specially welcoming me?”
Trace stared at her a long moment, like she’d just missed a really obvious answer on a test. Without answering, he got up, walked over and lifted the bottle. After pouring her a glass, then him, and sinking the bottle back into the ice, he settled himself at the other end of the sofa. When he held his flute aloft toward her she tapped hers against his and watched him lift the glass to his lips. Just one sip, she promised herself, since she’d already had the wine on the flight to Anchorage, and then the supplement. He swallowed, looking absurdly attractive with the fragile flute in his manly hand.
“They’re welcoming you as my prospective fiancée.”
A cough of shock sent her single sip of champagne on a sudden reverse course. It sprayed at high velocity into his face.
Holy shit. She unwrapped the linen napkin tied around the neck of the bottle and handed it to him. “Oh my God. I’m sorry,” she said as he wiped his face, “but why would they assume anything about us? You didn’t tell Rose or Lilah about”—she lowered her voice—“convincing me to marry you.”
“No.” He tossed the napkin on the table. “But I told Mad and Wing, so…”
“So? What are you saying?” She put her glass on the table and battled a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. “One of them told Rose or Lilah? Why would they do that?”
“Uh, Isabelle, this isn’t Los Angeles. In a place the size of Captivity, a local getting serious with an outsider causes a big ripple. News like that travels fast. I hadn’t counted on it traveling quite this fast, but—”