Page 30 of Salty, Spiced, and a Little Bit Nice

Gritting my teeth, I hammed it up for the picture as the heels of my boots found his toes and firmly dug in. A corner of his mouth curved up, hiding a wince.

“Aww, you two are adorable.” The waitress handed his phone back with a smile. “I hope there’s a good one in there.”

Thanking her, I pushed his arms away and stood up, then sat in his vacant chair. Alec scrolled through the pictures, leaning across the small table to show me. There were four or five photos,and although the first two were of me scowling at him, the last few were decent.

“This.” He double tapped on the last picture to enlarge it. “This is the one.”

The photo was perfect. It looked natural, even. The waitress had said something funny, and I was laughing at her joke. But Alec—the taiko drums did an encore here—wasn’t looking at the camera. He was watching me instead, with a small smile playing on his lips. Goosebumps erupted on my arms, because to strangers who didn’t know any better, his look could easily be mistaken as infatuation. No wonder the waitress had called us adorable.

Gah.What infatuation? I was losing the plot. Just business, remember? Maybe I should get a reminder tattooed on the inside of my eyelids so I wouldn’t forget.

He was oblivious to my exhausting mental gymnastics, his fingers still dancing across his screen. “It’s uploaded on Facebook, and you’re tagged. Both our families are excluded, so they can’t see anything. Should we change our relationship status? Is that still a thing?”

I poured more tea to avoid looking at him. “No one does that anymore.” I sure as hell wasn’t going to announce to the world that I was in a relationship, albeit fake, withthisman. Reopening my list-maker app, I asked, “Have we covered everything?”

“One more thing.” He put his phone down and looked at me, his gaze serious. “We shouldn’t be seeing other people until after we fake break up.”

“That’s easy. I don’t know anyone else here anyway, apart from you and Kim, and whatever free time I have, I’ll be at the shop.”

“You’ve met Rob.”

I feigned a dreamy sigh. “True, and I already like him better than you. Handsome, funny, and polite. What’s not to like?”

“I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to hear that.”

“Don’t roll your eyes at me. You can learn a thing or ten from your charming friend.”

“I’m good. Let’s talk about this weekend’s function. It’s a charity fundraising event for Jacqui’s foundation, supporting underprivileged women who want to start their own businesses. She’s inviting the who’s who of business owners in Port Benedict.”

“She’ll ask how we first met,” I said. “How long we’ve known each other.”

“Eighteen years.” His reply was quick. “You were ten, and I was twelve.”

My eyebrows shot up, impressed by how quickly he answered, without hesitating or struggling to remember. “Have we really survived that long without injuring each other?”

He chuckled. “Not that hard. We didn’t see each other for ten out of those eighteen.”

“Why did you leave?”

His eyes narrowed at my abrupt question. “What?”

“You left without saying goodbye. All Eric said was that you’d moved away. Why?”

“Job opportunity. With Rob. Too good to turn down.” He cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable. “We were never that close, anyway.”

That hurt, because even though he’d always been more of Eric’s friend than mine, I’d spent most of my teenage years mooning over him, and that deserved at least a courtesy goodbye, right?

It doesn’t. Stop being delusional. Stop thinking about the past.

“We’ve always kept in touch, but we’ve only been together for two years. Long distance,” Alec continued, and I realized that he’d gone back to the cover story for Jacqui. “You finally decided to move out here this year, because you couldn’t bear to be apart from me.”

“I couldn’t, huh?” I pushed my delusional, irrational thoughtsaside. “I shouldn’t have suggested this. How can I convince people I’ve been madly in love with you for the past two years? That’s going to be a hard sell. Why don’t you have an actual girlfriend, anyway? Someone to take photos with, bring to these functions, and protect you from flirtatious property magnates?”

“What’s with all the questions? If I’d known you were going to be so nosy, I would’ve stuck with Audrey.”

Folding my arms, I assessed him. “Seriously, though. On paper, women should be lining up-to-date you. You’re successful, mildly attractive, and can be charming if you want to.” My fingers made a circling gesture at his face. “You’ve got that tall, mysterious, and brooding appeal that most women seem to go for. Is something wrong with you?”

“Did you just call me mildly attractive?” His face broke into averyattractive grin. “I believe the word you’re looking for is ‘handsome.’”

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