Fiancee for Hire Read Free Page B

thing, so that’s what you need to do.”
    And Kelli hadn’t argued, eager as she was to seem agreeable and compliant, not to mention her excitement at seeing the old pal she’d roomed with back in grad school. Mac had waved his magic American Express wand, and Anna had boarded a plane for Mexico, arriving a day before Kelli.
    “I’ve been e-mailing a bit with your groom,” Anna said, scooping up two pieces of Kelli’s luggage and loading it onto a cart. “Stoic kind of guy, isn’t he?”
    “You could say that.”
    “You always did like them a bit detached. Honestly, I’m a little surprised you’re settling down.”
    “Why’s that?” Kelli asked, hoping she hadn’t already blown her cover three minutes off the airplane.
    “It always seemed like you went for these unavailable guys who hated commitment as much as you did. Like you figured if you didn’t get attached, you wouldn’t get hurt if he left the way your dad did or like your mom—” Anna stopped, wincing. She squeezed Kelli’s hand and gave her an encouraging smile. “Well anyway, obviously, I was wrong about that. I’m so glad you found the one.”
    “Me, too!” Kelli said, trying to fix her face into the expressing of a glowing bride and not a woman who’d just been unwittingly psychoanalyzed by one of her closest pals.
    “Come on,” Anna said, steering her toward the doors. “It’s a two-hour drive to Todos Santos, and we’re supposed to meet Mac for dinner at this great little restaurant near the beach.”
    Kelli glanced at her watch, frowning. “So soon?”
    “I guess he’s really eager to get started on the wedding plans.”
    He’s really eager to have Zapata’s spies see us publicly planning a wedding , Kelli thought, but grabbed the rest of her luggage and followed Anna out to her rental car.
    They talked throughout the drive to Todos Santos, with Anna chattering happily about potential wedding sites she’d scoped out. “He said money’s no object, so I’m coming up with a few different options for themes and settings,” Anna said. “Have you guys set a date yet?”
    “We’re still talking about it,” Kelli said, wishing Mac had spent more time briefing her on their fake wedding and less time prepping her for how to react in a gun battle. Not that she wasn’t grateful, but she hated the awkwardness of fibbing to a friend.
    “How did you two meet, anyway?” Anna asked. “I wanted to pump him for details, but he didn’t seem the type to cough up that sort of info.”
    “Not unless you waterboard him,” Kelli said. She cleared her throat, reminding herself that Mac had instructed her to stick as close to the truth as possible.
    “This is why the plan works,” he’d coached. “It’s actually believable we’ve been smitten with each other for years.”
    No shit , Kelli thought, and smiled brightly for Anna.
    “You met my friend Sheri, right? At that one party a few years ago—”
    “Of course, right, the brunette? She had twins, didn’t she?”
    “Exactly. Anyway, Mac is her older brother. We’ve known each other forever, and I always had a bit of a crush on him.”
    Anna grinned and banked left to avoid hitting a tumbleweed blowing across the desert landscape. “So Sheri set you up?”
    “Something like that,” Kelli said. “It was kind of a whirlwind engagement, to be honest.”
    “You’re not knocked up, are you?”
    “Of course not.”
    “So how did he propose?”
    Kelli bit her lip. She’d pictured a million scenarios with Mac over the years. Mac tied to her four-poster bed licking her nipples. Mac pressing her up against the kitchen counter and taking her from behind. Mac ravaging her on a beach with waves crashing around them and the hot sun beating down on their naked flesh.
    But never this. Never a proposal.
    “We were walking on the beach in Kauai just after sunset,” Kelli said, sticking as close to the truth as she could. “And he pretended he was bending down to pick up a