Page 6 of Fake It for Christmas

I lifted my eyebrows. “I don’t know what I expected you to say, but it certainly wasn’tthat,” I told him. “You’re sad because of some home renovation TV show?”

He nodded, forlorn. “It’s my favorite show. Tonight I found out they’re having a contest asking anyone in the States to apply to be featured, but… it’s only for couples. And I’m not in a relationship, to say the least.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. “Tough.”

“And even if it wasn’t my favorite show, I certainly can’t afford to fix up my house on my own.”

“What do you do for work?”

“I work at the front desk of the inn down the street,” he said. “Which really just means I do odd jobsall aroundthe inn, because Harvey’s old, and he’s owned the place for his whole life. I was only supposed to work there for one summer after college, but now I’m 26, and well—shit. Whiskey makes me ramble. Sorry.”

“Good thing I enjoy your rambling,” I told him.

“You like my rambling, and you liked that I looked sad?” Shane asked.

“My grandparents are friends with old man Harvey, actually,” I told him. “They’ve told me about him and the inn.”

As Shane told me about a few stories from the inn, pure, white-hot envy pooled somewhere deep in my stomach.

I ran my fingers over the base of my martini glass as I watched him speak.

One thing was certain: I was never going tolieto anyone.

My grandparents did live nearby, and I had been staying with them since getting here. Like me, they were very tight-lipped about my parents having ended up in a luxury prison in New York. I knew word might spread around town eventually, but for now, I was able to hide out.

My parents got caught embezzling—fucking stealing—millions of dollars from innocent acting students and their parents in New York. And since I’d always been their golden child, helping them run the acting school, I was very much seen as guilty by association.

Sorinelle Acting School had been my whole life. Practically since I’d been born. All my friends had been made there, and after attending it, I started teaching classes there full-time years ago.

Now it was gone forever. In a flash.

I’d never done anything wrong. I hadn’t even known the crimes my parents were committing, every day. But by association, I was now a blacklisted outcast back in the city to anyone who’d been involved with the school.

Shane’s life here in tiny little Bestens, Tennessee at the inn sounded amazing in comparison.

He took a sip of his drink now, nodding at me.

“So, yes,” he was saying. “I do a lot of odd jobs all around the place.”

“My grandparents told me about the… what was it, aquailinfestation, at the inn?”

Shane’s eyes brightened. “You heard about that?”

I nodded. “A little.”

“It wasn’t an infestation,” he said, grinning. “We just had multiple little quail families all born at the same time a few months back. We’d look toward the back lawn of the inn and see the babies following after their moms every day.”

“Fucking adorable,” I said.

Shane ran a hand across his hair, which shined under the pendant light.

There was something about him I liked.

Something genuine. Like he was exactly who he seemed to be—kind, sweet, and always 100%himself.

“Wow,” Shane said. “You hear stories about the inn, even when you’re out auditioning and acting in New York City. I’ll be damned.”

“Well,” I said. “Tryingto act. Kind of a cutthroat game out there.”

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