Chapter 5
Valerie
“Pose for a photo!” a familiar voice chirped as Grant led me into the pavilion.
Fake icicles dangled over our heads like wind chimes, hanging from an arch woven through with a garland of bright red hibiscus and glittery pine cones. The pavilion glowed like a tropical snow globe, and Sage hovered at the entrance snapping newsletter photos.
She lifted the camera in our faces, a wide smile on her lips that melted like a snowman on the equator. “Oh. It’s you two.” The camera dropped to her side. “Never mind. Your combined scowls will shatter the lens.”
“Relax. If we break the camera, I’ll have Purchasing order a new one,” Grant said, snaking a hand around my wrist before I could make a beeline for the cheese display. I needed cheddar on a cracker, and maybe a schmear of honey to tame the riot in my stomach.
What was I thinking proposing this ridiculous scheme? Whoever made up the slogan fake it till you make it, wasn’t faking it with Grant Delaney. A man who could simultaneously joke about shrimp skewer impalement while looking like a tax man I’d like to see with his sleeves rolled up… tie crooked…
Heat prickled the back of my neck, and I stifled a groan. This man was never touching my returns.
“What are you doing?” I hissed as he backed us up until we were standing under the arch.
“Practicing for the camera.” He smoothed a hand down his charcoal jacket. “Smile like the over-eager agent in your badge photo.”
“At least I don’t look hungover in mine,” I said, forcing a smile as the flash went off.
The camera captured us frozen like that—a forever photo of the time we pretended to be friends, in public, and no one died. Yet.
“This is really weird for me, guys,” Sage said, peering at the screen. Her expression twisted as if she saw one of her meddling ghosts hovering over our shoulders.
Grant reached past me, plucking a hibiscus from the arch.
The petals tickled my shoulder as he lifted it, his knuckles grazing my cheek before he tucked it behind my ear.
“Matches your dress,” he murmured, stirring the loose strands near my jaw.
“And it’ll distract everyone if you get lettuce stuck in your teeth at dinner. ”
“You’re diabolical,” I whispered, every nerve in my body sparking with tension.
He chuckled, his wolfish smile more predatory than ever. “Who needs a drink? Spells? What’s your poison?”
“Cyanide,” I muttered, shaking off his deliberate teasing before I added, louder, “Tequila Sunrise. Extra cherries.”
“I’ll have a white wine spritzer,” Sage said quickly, unable to resist snapping another photo as if the first one had been a hallucination.
Oh, she had no idea.
“Coming right up, ladies.” Grant winked and wove through the crowd toward the bar.
Sage clutched her chest as if she were miming heart palpitations. “What is happening?” She staggered toward me, her eyes nearly popping out of her head. “First you’re teammates, and now you’re posing for a couple's photo.”
“That wasn’t a couple's photo. It was a hostage situation that will end up on the company portal.”
“Oh, I’m definitely framing a copy. I’d planned to take a group shot, but forget that; you two are this year’s Christmas card. Season’s Greetings from the Tropical Island of Misfit Coworkers.”
“And how is Leo these days?” I asked, sidestepping her threat and finally making it to the cheese display. I grabbed a plate and loaded it with a mountain of dairy and wheat.
“My fiancé is wonderful, probably pining away for me right now by the massive stone hearth at our ski lodge. He says hello and that you still owe him for dismantling the backup generator.” She grabbed a plate of her own, officially abandoning her photo duties. “But don’t change the subject.”
I popped a cheese-and-cracker sandwich into my mouth and chewed with calculated slowness. Sage waited, tapping her heel against the floorboards like a ticking clock.
“Fine. I’ll tell you. They’ll run out of cheese before you give up.
” I filled in the gaps from the HR mandate to the waterfall, and ended with the miracle cold case shortlist. “So yes, we’re faking it.
The board will think we buried the hatchet.
I’ll sneak away tomorrow to find the waterfall to fix my glitch, and then I’ll get to live out my dream of uniting long lost souls. ”
Sage leaned a hip against the display and plucked a grape from the centerpiece. “Your plan is brilliant. I see absolutely no flaws. Nowhere in history have two extremely attractive sparring partners faked a relationship, and it ended in disaster.”
“I know what you’re doing.” I scooped up a handful of sugar-glazed peanuts.
“Just because I meddled in your love life, doesn’t mean you should meddle in mine.
Grant and I aren’t some agency charity case.
And we’re definitely not going to fall into each other’s arms the second we get a good look at what’s underneath our animosity.
Grant's hot, but he lacks redeemable qualities. Besides, I have a list, remember?”
Sage laughed and immediately covered it with her fist. “Yes, I remember the soulmate list. It’s like you ripped it out of a teen magazine and misted it with Eau de Impossible Expectations.”
I waved away her mockery. “Nothing on my list is impossible.”
“Let’s see…” Sage ticked the items off on her fingers. “Hands that look good holding a mug—weirdly specific—but okay. Jingle bells have to play when you kiss—what, like magically?”
I shrugged. “Fireworks are cliché. I prefer bells. And we are witches.”
“True,” Sage admitted and kept going. “Must make you laugh so hard you can’t breathe.
And…” She tapped her fingers against the cheese table like a drumroll.
“Believes love isn't just a grand gesture.
It's a million tiny ones given every day. Val, this is the list of a woman destined for thirty cats.”
“Oh! That reminds me.” I sliced off a wedge of brie with a miniature knife. “I added to the list. Must cry at animal adoption commercials.”
Sage nodded solemnly. “Every time that song plays, I get misty.”
“See? My plan is safe. Grant would have to have an out-of-body experience to even come close to fulfilling my list.”
“What list? The names of the ex-boyfriends you keep locked in your basement?”
Whirling around, I found Grant standing behind me, balancing our drinks on a tray like he moonlighted as a cocktail waiter. A bowl of cherries sat beside my tall glass of tequila, orange juice, and a heavy splash of grenadine.
“You said extra cherries, not leave some for everyone else.”
He handed Sage her drink, waited until I took mine, then claimed his own and ditched the tray.
“Don’t tip him,” I muttered to Sage, sliding my bowl of cherries closer to my cheese plate like I was guarding treasure.
Sage sipped her wine. “Grant, I hear congratulations are in order. If everything goes smoothly, this time next year, you’ll be Valerie’s boss.”
I almost choked on a cherry. Grant thumped me between the shoulder blades while my eyes watered. I gulped my drink just in time to hear him muse,
“Thank you. Assuming she makes the cut with the board and relocates east, I already have a contractor in mind to remodel her office. He specializes in walk-in freezers.”
Sage threw back her head and laughed. I stared at the cheese knife in my hand and wondered why they didn’t make them sharper. Missed opportunity, clearly.
“We’re supposed to be faking a friendship,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Even in front of your friend? The one you’ve probably told everything to?” Grant furrowed his brow. “Seems like extra work.”
“He has a point. Save your energy.” Sage adjusted the camera strap around her neck. “But as much as I’d love to be the third wheel on your slow-motion act of self-destruction, I have memories to capture. Steve twerking on the dance floor won’t immortalize himself.”
The three of us glanced at the platform in the center of the pavilion. I winced as a man with shaggy blond hair and an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt jerked his shoulders to the beat of the steel drum band.
“Later, liars,” Sage gave a little shimmy as she sauntered toward the action, camera at the ready.
Grant bumped his shoulder into mine. “So, are we haunting the cheese stand all night, or do you want to fake it on the dance floor? You can bring your cherries.”
I fought back a grin. Grant was funnier than I remembered.
Then again, it was hard to find him amusing through the red haze of a CC’d email—sent from two thousand miles away, after he bribed a West Coast conspirator—with the subject line: Status Update on Your Missing Water Bottle: Did You Check the Roof?
Yes, I checked the roof. By the time I found it, pigeons had built a nest around it. Grant Delaney owed me a new water bottle.
I eyed the dance floor and shuddered. “I’m going to need way more tequila before I attempt whatever Steve is doing out there. Maybe we should just stand next to each other and smile.”
“Good plan.” Grant folded his arms over his chest, his suit jacket pulling tight across his broad shoulders. “Let’s not overwhelm anyone with our fated connection.”
The band played an entire set while we sipped and waved like a pair of glowing plastic reindeer on a front lawn. We got plenty of weird looks and more than a few double takes. A tipsy Joan even approached cautiously, poking Grant’s sleeve to confirm whether we were the real thing or wax figures.
I half-expected him to shout “boo” when she made contact, but he just slung an arm around my shoulder and tucked me against his side.
Honestly, that was somehow creepier. Especially since, for all his teasing about my height, my shoulder slotted perfectly under his arm, as if fate were playing a joke like, "See here, kids—this is how the height difference trope happens."
“Just checking." Joan giggled, jotting something down in her magical ledger. "I’m so pleased you two are finally coming around.”