Page 11 of Love on Deck

“What?” It was hard to think with the weight of his attention on me like this. I prided myself on my ability to be unfazed by hot men, but Jack was breaking down all my carefully erected walls right now with his smoldering eyes. He wanted this badly—like, really badly.

“Just the first day.” He stepped closer, bringing a soft cloud of cologne that had no business smelling so good. “If we break up now, it’ll be obvious that I made the whole thing up. Just give me one day—the first day on the boat—and we’ll break up after dinner tomorrow night. Then I won’t look like such an obvious liar.”

I gazed at his beseeching eyes. Honestly, I didn’t want to be caught in a lie, either. There was no mistaking how relieved Amelia was. How would she feel if I told her the truth? Maybe tomorrow night we could have an amicable break up in front of everyone and the focus could return to the wedding we were all there to celebrate.

“Fine. One day.”

Jack grinned. His arms went around me and he laid a kiss on my cheek, but he backed up almost as quickly as he’d approached. “You’re the best, Lauren. I owe you. Big time.”

“Yes, you do.” I stepped back so he couldn’t touch me again. It sent a weird buzz through me that I didn’t want to own. “And we will not forget it.”

He dipped his head. “I’ll be off then.”

“Shouldn’t we come up with a plan first?”

“For what?”

“For believability. How we got together. All of that.” I’d seen enough movies to know that in fake dating relationships, this question always came up. “Or do you just want to wing it tomorrow?”

“No, you’re right.” He shifted closer. “We need to come up with our story. So? How did it happen?”

I studied the bit of collarbone peeking just out of his collar. “You felt awful about the way our date turned out, so you pursued me relentlessly until I agreed to go out with you again. Then you charmed me until I decided to give you a chance.”

“Hmm.” He bent his knuckle and lifted my chin so I was forced to look him in the eye. “We want it to be believable though, right?”

“Yes.” I backed up and his hand fell. “Which is why there would have to be some serious effort on your part. Amelia knows how angry I was after our date.”

Jack was quiet for a second. He folded his arms over his chest. “I really made that bad of an impression on you?”

Was he surprised by this? “That’s a safe analysis.”

“Can you put it behind us for a day? Just so we seem a little bit like we like each other?”

“We can’t even come up with a believable story for how we got together, Jack. I don’t know if we’re going to fool everyone for an entire day.”

He nodded softly, his eyes flicking over my face. “What if we say we just ran into each other?”

Literally. “It’s the truth, I guess.” Both at the airport and again here.

“Yeah. It is. So I ran into you and we got talking, and then boom... the next thing we knew, my arms were around you and the rest is history.”

The image invoked warmth I shouldn’t feel, so I shoved it aside. “That’s... not actually a lie.”

Jack grinned. “So maybe we can make it a little believable. I have faith in us, Lauren.”

“That makes one of us.”

“So, what are you doing tonight that kept you from going out with the girls?” His gaze swept the room and stopped on the nail buffer blocks and chocolate-covered strawberries.

I cringed. “Clubs aren’t really my scene. I decided to stick with the original bachelorette party plan.”

“Which was green goo and hygiene?”

“A spa night in, yes.”

“Don’t let me keep you from your exciting evening, then.”

“Rejuvenating evening,” I corrected, rolling my eyes. “Tomorrow my skin will glow.”

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