“I need to finish up some work,” Cade said without looking away from his screen or pausing his typing. “I can find a spare room on the yacht if you’d like to go to sleep now.”
I blanched at the thought of kicking him out of his own room.
“No, no. You’re fine.” I flitted around the space and pulled out different drawers in search of where my yarn and crochet hook had been unpacked. I finally found them in the last drawer I checked at the bottom of the dresser. “I like to crochet for a bit before bed. And our ruse won’t last very long if the others don’t think we’re making the most of private nights together on a luxury yacht. We need them to think we’re going at it right now.”
His typing stopped on a dime, and he raised a dark brow at me.
I replayed the words in my head, my cheeks warming, but it was the truth. At least, I assumed the other three couples were all doing it.
I cleared my throat and sat against the headboard next to Cade, quickly changing the subject.
“So…a couples retreat,” I said lightly, stealing a sideways glance at him. “That was unexpected.”
Cade’s attention returned to the screen. “It’ll be fine if you can stick to the script from now on.”
Well, that would be a little tricky, since our script was lame as heck and only covered the bare minimum.
I set the yarn on my lap and continued crocheting a little mouse I was making for Whiskey, while mulling over how to tell Cade that without hurting his feelings.
“It’s not my acting I’m worried about,” I said slowly. Taking a breath, I continued, “Dr. Lovejoy?—”
“She’s not a real doctor.”
My eyes rolled toward the ceiling. “Blisssaid we’ll be digging into our emotions and getting personal. Are you sure you can make that believable?”
“For the UK division of Westbrook Capital?” Cade breathed a laugh. “I can fake anything.”
I winced. He sounded confident, but…”I’m just not sure they bought it so far.”
One side of Cade’s mouth turned down. “Why? It went fine.”
“Well, Harrison seemed really surprised to see me.” I glanced at the door, remembering just how shocked his brother had been. “Am I that different from your exes?”
His shoulder gave the barest hint of a shrug. “I don’t introduce women to my family.”
The easy dismissal made me stare.
“Hold up.” I opened and closed my mouth before finding the words. “You’re telling me you’ve never brought a girlfriend home to meet the family, and now you expect them to believe we’reengaged?”
This man was insane.
“That’s how they’ll know it’s serious,” he said. “Because I brought you around.”
Oh boy.
“No wonder Harrison was so freaked out,” I muttered. “You can’t just surprise your family with a fiancée out of the blue.”
“It’ll work if you tone down the acting,” he said. “You were laying it on pretty thick out there.”
I lowered my crochet hook and frowned. “Is that a bad thing?”
His tone flattened. “It’s making them like you too much, so everyone will hate me for dumping you when this is all over.”
I was officially not following. “Didn’t you hire me to act madly in love with you?”
“To sit next to each other and sleep in the same room? Sure.” His upper lip curled. “Not whateverthatwas with the handholding and love letters and gushing over how we met—which was also conveniently off script.”
I couldn’t believe he was so touchy about this…but then it clicked. “You’ve never been in love, have you?”