“What?” I push away from Carter, feeling like Zack caught us doing something wrong. I won’t admit to anyone, not even myself, that I feel the loss of the weight of his arm around my shoulders. And I totally don’t stumble as I put space between us because my whole world just went . . . what did Carter say his grandmother called it? Cattywampus—that’s it. That’s what I am. But I’m fighting my way back to even-keeled with every passing second.

  Carter flashes me a sheepish smile. It’s one I’m sure has gotten him out of trouble his entire life, but it’s not working on me. Not now.

  “I got to thinking last night after we talked. I do wish you could be there to help me, but if not . . .” He pauses and gives me a hopeful look as though I’ve reconsidered and decided to go along with his plan for me to be his assistant. I cross my arms in response. “Right, so if you’re not there, I can at least say that I have an art-loving wife. And now I have a sweet story, with video proof, of how I got engaged on a private tour at the museum in front of her favorite piece in the collection.”

  I stare disbelievingly at him, trying in vain to process how something so outlandish could possibly seem like a reasonable idea to him. I mean, I’m the creative type and he’s all-business, so it’d seem like the roles should be reversed here, but somehow, he’s the one living in a completely upside-down, alternative universe.

  “That’s your grand plan? Instead of bonding over art itself, you’re going to . . .”

  I trail off, and he nods. “Say you’re my wife. So any mistakes I make, I can play off as ‘must’ve misheard the wife’ and it becomes endearing rather than stupid.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “You mispronounced brilliant,” Carter corrects me.

  “It was my idea,” Zack adds. “Carter told me about the assistant thing, and really, there’s no need for it to be such a thing, Luna. He just needs a good sales pitch.” He makes it sound like I overreacted to something completely sensible.

  I’m not a sales pitch. I don’t have any skin in the game with whatever stupidity Carter is going to pull. I trust there to be karmic justice sometime, when he’ll have to answer for his own lies and scheming. But Zack? It hurts that he can reduce my love of art . . . no, my existence . . . down to ‘useful as a sales pitch’. It shows just how far under Carter’s spell he’s fallen and how far guys like them will go to seal the deal.

  I’m furious. I can feel the heat rushing through my veins and hot tears threatening to spill. Not because I’m sad. I’m just one of those unlucky people who cries when I’m angry. I hate it. It always makes me feel like I look weak at the moment I’m trying to appear strongest.

  I manage to squeak out to Carter, “You’re exactly who and what I thought you were. I’m disappointed that you fooled me for even a moment into thinking you might be something more.” He’s gone stone still, other than the clenching of his jaw. To Zack, I ask, “You came up with this? Business at all costs, I guess, huh?”

  And with that, the tears escape so I whirl and run away. I’m sure it looks like I’m some tantruming child pitching a hissy fit with my outburst, waterworks, and escape for the hills. But it can’t be helped.

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  CARTER

  I review the file in front of me once more, then close my eyes. I’m ready for this. I’ve prepped the same way I have for every other deal I’ve sealed over the last decade. I just really need a win right now. Especially after the mess I made of things at the museum.

  I knew Luna would be surprised at the fake proposal. That was the point. Now, if I need to show a cute video of my art-obsessed wife, it’ll look like I’m a romantic husband who swept her off her feet. I’m all about putting my best foot forward, especially for a deal like this.

  But her reaction shocked me. Neither Zack nor I expected her to freak out so badly. Especially when everything had been going so well for the tour. I was having fun with Luna, listening to her talk about the art and seeing her in a new role where she’s comfortable and confident.

  And then it all went to shit.

  But it’ll be worth it. It has to be. I still agree with Zack’s assessment that this is my best option given the tutoring was a bust. And though he assured me that he’ll make things up to Luna, I expect an extra ‘tutoring’ invoice from her for her trouble. I’ll have to send it with some big apologies and maybe a Jackson Pollock coffee table book to smooth things over.

  One little in with Mrs. Cartwright. That’s all I need and this will be worth it. I can do the rest of the job of securing this deal with my skills, experience, and hard work. I’m ready for this.

  I pick up my phone and dial, waiting nervously for the call to be picked up. I’m doing this myself, not having an assistant or associate reach out, because I want Elena Cartwright to know that I intend to provide the best degree of personal service I’m capable of. Plus, I know the value my last name and our company name carry and intend to leverage them as heavily as possible. “Hello, this is Carter Harrington with Blue Lake Asset group calling for Elena Cartwright, please,” I tell the woman who answers the phone.

  “Good news, young man . . . you’ve got her.” She laughs, but it ends with a bit of a cough.

  “Oh, good to speak with you, ma’am. I understand you are considering a new portfolio management firm,” I say politely. “I would love to meet with you to see if our firm would be a good fit for your needs.”

  “The first thing I’m looking for is someone who’ll leave all that pomp and circumstance behind. I don’t need all that razzle-dazzle. Just call me Elena.”

  I blink in surprise. The older generation, particularly those with wealth, tend to want all the fanciness and then some. But I can be chill if that’s what Mrs. Cartwright—I mean Elena—prefers.

  With a chuckle, I mimic her casual tone. “Well, I can sure do that.”

  That seems to be the right thing to say because it opens the floodgates, and suddenly, Elena is telling me all about her portfolio, from properties to funds and more. Zack said she knows her stuff, but she’s surprisingly well-versed on the details for someone with such a large and varied estate. And talking through what has been previously effective lets me see where I can offer something different to improve things for her.

  “At this point, I’m not worried about much, darling. I’ve got more money than I could ever spend.”

  “Of course! You and Mr. Cartwright worked hard so your family could be well-cared for in generations to come.”

  “We made dang sure of it, I tell you that for sure. I’ve always handled the financial stuff, but Thomas had a good head on his shoulders too. But his true love—other than me, of course—was art. I can’t tell you how many times that man painted me,” she says wistfully.

  I hope she means in a regal, Southern matriarch way, but her tone makes me think there are nude paintings of Elena Cartwright over their marital bed. Draw me like one of your French girls and all that.

  The very idea is jarring.

  But she’s given me the opening I need. “I can understand that. My wife, Luna, is quite the art lover too. She’s always going on about Rembrandt this and Pollock that, but my favorites are her own pieces. To see the way she creates . . . it’s beautiful, magical.”

  I may not have seen anything Luna has personally painted, but the way she brought the art in the museum to life, I can imagine her doing the same with her own work.

  “Oh, darling. That makes my heart melt like butter on a hot biscuit.” She sounds a bit choked up, and I say a silent thank you to Luna. “I tell you what, let’s have us a bit of dinner this weekend and we can talk about my portfolio. Do you need to check with Luna’s schedule to see when she’s available?”

  What? Why would I need to do that?

  And then it hits me.

  Elena means dinner with me . . . and Luna. My wife, Luna.

  “Oh, I’m not sure she can. She’s so busy, you know, and I try not to bore her with too much work talk,” I say, hoping Elena can be charmed into meeting with only me.

  “Nonsense. If she’s an art lover, she’d never forgive you if she missed out on seeing Thomas’s collection. I wouldn’t want you to be in the dog house. Why, I remember one time Thomas went to town with a friend. They were going to play a round of golf or something, I forget what. But they went to the movie theater instead, and he saw that tornado movie without me. You know the one with that cutie-patootie Bill Paxton? He knew how much I liked that fella, so whoo-boy, I was hotter’n an August day in Atlanta. Made that man sleep on the couch for two solid nights.”

  “You didn’t,” I tease, following along with her dramatic story-telling.

  “You betch’ur bottom I did, but do you know how he got out of the doghouse?” She pauses, and I can sense her smile through the phone. “He set us up a little picnic out back at sunset, and we had ourselves ice cream sundaes for dinner. He knew that ice cream is the way to my heart because we’d gone for milkshakes on our first date.”

  “Sounds like he was a good husband, even though he didn’t take you to see Twister,” I agree.

  “Oh, he took me, alright. I made him go watch it again. With me.”

  I laugh in surprise. For such a wealthy, influential couple, it sounds like the Cartwrights were remarkably normal. Maybe even a bit simple in their lives together.

  “That’s why I’m tellin’ you, you’d best bring your Luna to see this art or you’re going to be sleeping on the couch and planning ice cream dates.” Her voice has gone from congenial to hard, as though testing to see whether I’ll accept her wise advice.

  I don’t think. I don’t consider. I certainly don’t plan, which is my modus operandi. But nevertheless, the words spill out. “Of course, I’m sure she’d be thrilled to come.”

  I knock on Luna’s door with my heart in my throat and my head buzzing. I’ve fucked up and I know it, but I’ll fight to see if there’s any way at all I can rescue this messy situation I’ve gotten myself into. Hopefully, Luna’s calmed down and Zack’s smoothed things over with her too because I’m about to throw a whole new cow in this tornado a la Elena Cartwright.

  But it isn’t Luna who answers the door.

  “Who’re you?” a tall, slender brunette demands. She’s about Luna’s age and dressed in wide-legged slacks and a tank-style blouse. Her makeup is expertly applied and her hair looks as though she’s had it professionally styled. The only thing missing to complete the picture of the perfect businesswoman are the shoes, as her bare toes wiggle on the wood floor of Luna’s apartment.

  “Uhm, I’m looking for Luna.” I glance around, double checking that I haven’t gone to the wrong apartment, but behind the woman, I can see Luna’s art-filled space.

  “Didn’t answer the question. Try again.” The order is mildly softened by the glint in her eyes as she openly assesses me with a look up and down.

  “That’s Carter Harrington, Zack’s friend and all-around annoying scammer in a business suit,” Luna’s voice calls out, sounding flat and dull.

  The woman in the doorway goes near feral in an instant. Stabbing a perfectly manicured finger into my chest, she charges, “You’re the asshole who fucked over my friend and made a fool of her at the one place she feels most at home? Should’ve known.”

  She’s much harsher than Luna, but the insult doesn’t hurt nearly as much as Luna’s does.

  “I didn’t make a fool of her,” I argue. Deciding I need to handle this at the source, I push past the woman and into the apartment to find Luna sitting on the kitchen countertop.

  She’s wearing shorts and a baggy T-shirt, and she looks lost—her skin bare and pale, her eyes vacant, and though she’s sitting cross-legged and upright, there’s something that makes it feel as though she’s shrinking away from me.

  “Luna? What’s wrong?” I go up to her, setting the bag I brought with me on the counter next to her. My first instinct is to gather her in my arms, which surprises me. I’m not usually overtly caring that way, but something about Luna in this moment makes me want to pull her into me and press my lips to her hair soothingly.

  But she flinches away from me. “Seriously?” she says quietly.

  “I was hoping Zack had—”

  She huffs. “Zack and I are fine. You and I are not.”

  Okay, apparently Zack only fixed one problem. I don’t know how he did it, but I wish I had a secret Luna language book right about now so I could do the same.

  “Back away from her and no one gets hurt,” the woman from the doorway orders as she holds up karate hands.

  “Samantha, Carter . . . Carter, Samantha,” Luna says, gesturing from the woman to me and back.

  “I’d say nice to meet you, but that’d make me a liar and I pride myself on honesty, so . . . yeah, hard no to that.” She frowns at my outstretched hand as her hands go to her hips. “Because from what I hear, you pulled a ridiculous stunt . . . proposing to Luna, who you hardly know, at her job, where she felt pressured to go along with it so she wouldn’t look stupid to her coworkers and the guests, and catching it on video, with her wearing what is unanimously voted the ugliest outfit in existence—I added that part myself—and ruining her favorite piece of art with a super stressful memory, just so you can get some poor old lady to give her money to you. Am I wrong?”

  She sneers as though my very existence is distasteful and whatever I could say is most certainly going to be a lie.

  “Well, that’s not exactly—”

  Luna cuts me off before I can even start. “I don’t need you to protect me, Sam, even if you’re on a pretty good roll—and absolutely accurate.”

  I can feel that the horrible summarization Samantha gave is likely word-for-word how Luna described it. She said she was disappointed in me. Honestly, at the time, the words had next to no impact on me.

  I might be seen as successful, and my mom might give out praise for merely breathing. But in my family, it’s well known that I run a far and trailing second behind my brother Cameron, especially in my dad’s eyes, so I’m quite accustomed to ignoring disapproving comments. I should’ve given her words more consideration, not because of what she said but because of what it took for her to say them.

  I swallow my pride and say the one thing I never admit. “I’m sorry. I did have fun with the tutoring and the tour, despite initially thinking art would be boring. I think that’s because of the teacher.” I smile, hoping to salvage things with Luna. I have zero hopes that she’s going to help with my fake-wife situation with Elena at this point, but I would like to leave things friendly so that this whole mess doesn’t affect her and Zack’s relationship. And so that his birthday party next year isn’t a completely painful clusterfuck.

  “Keep it coming,” Samantha tells me, waving her hand. “More groveling, Prince Charming. I’m sure you’ve got it in you—somewhere in that tall . . . muscular . . . Greek god body of yours.” Samantha’s eyes are tracing every inch of me with appreciation bordering on ogling. I don’t think I could feel more exposed if I were a Thunder Down Under stripper on-stage in a G-string.

  Luna laughs lightly, covering her mouth, but Samantha seems to have given her a boost. “Yeah, whatcha got?”

  I glance between the two women, so different but asking for the same thing. With a resolved sigh, I go all in with full theatrics, dropping to the floor—on both knees so that there’s no mistaking what I’m doing this time and clasping my hands in a pleading move.

  “Luna,” I say seriously, my eyes locked on hers. Slowly, as though she’s a wounded bird that might fly away if startled, I place my hands on her bare knees. When she allows it with a tiny smile, I begin . . .

  “I’m soooo sorry,” I wail dramatically, flinging my head into her lap, my cheek pressed to her thigh. Though I’m close to a danger zone of contact, I look up at her from the submissive position with puppy dog eyes. “I never meant to hurt you. Please forgive me. I will never look at the scattered chaos of a Pollack again without thinking of you and our broken engagement,” I howl as I shake her in my grip.

  “Shh!” she hisses, but she’s laughing as she swats at me. “My neighbors are going to call the cops if you keep that up!”

  But then, we both laugh, and it feels like things might be okay. I sit back on the floor, my legs stretched out in front of me as I lean on the cabinets opposite Luna. “Also, someone very wise told me that one sure-fire way to get out of the doghouse was an ice cream sundae, so there’s a couple in there.” I point at the bag I dropped on the counter.

  Samantha grabs it first. “If you think for one second that you’re getting one of these, you are sorely mistaken.”

  Before I can argue or agree, Samantha already has both sundaes open and is licking the whipped cream off the top of one. Luna snatches a spoon from the dishes drying by the sink and digs into the other one.

  “I wouldn’t think of depriving y’all of a sundae.” I wait a couple of bites and then ask, “Is it working?”

  Luna flashes a look to Samantha, who lifts a shoulder. “You said he’s a good kisser.”

  “Sa-man-tha!” Luna shouts, and that must be all the neighbors can handle because there’s a loud clunk against the wall.

  “Sorry!” Luna yells over a hunched shoulder. But she laughs like she’s not that worried. “I’m always quiet, and the one time . . .”

  “Did you say that?” I ask, curious beyond belief.

  “What?”

  “That I’m a good kisser.”

  “Maybe.” She eats a bite of ice cream slowly, her cheeks hollowing as she sucks it from the spoon and her eyes fall as though she can’t admit that while looking directly at me. It’s sexier than it should be and my cock notices how much shapely leg her shorts reveal and that she’s definitely not wearing a bra beneath her T-shirt. “Did you really enjoy the tour?” The question is weighted with meaning.

  “I absolutely did.” There’s also a lot rolled into my simple statement. Warning sirens go off in my head, reminding me about who Luna is and who I am, so I back away from whatever’s happening between us strategically. “But I still think Picasso was drunk as hell.”