found himself saying. “It’s not that bad. All we have to do is…break up.”
Sandy looked at him as if he were crazy. “What?”
“Look,” he said again. “Vandenberg really likes you, right? He made that more than clear this morning. All you have to do is pretend that you and I are an item for a few weeks, until this project is over. Then we stage a fight and break up.”
As McCade spoke, the idea began to appeal to him. He would have the chance to play Sandy’s lover for several weeks. It was a role he could assume with absolute sincerity, and who knows? Maybe, with a little time, Sandy would want him to play it permanently, and much more realistically.
“We can set this up so that I’m the bad guy,” he said. “You know, I’ll dump you. It’ll look as if I led you on and—”
“We pretend we’re an item?” Sandy asked, trying to get it straight. “How much of an item? I mean, what exactly does that mean?”
McCade kept his face expressionless. “It means we keep up this charade by pretending that we’re lovers.”
Sandy glanced away, frowning slightly. How
did
lovers act? It had been so long since she’d been in a relationship. Did people still hold hands, or walk with their arms around each other? Did they kiss each other hello and good-bye?
She felt a rush of heat to her face as she considered the ramifications of having McCade kiss her regularly over the course of the next weeks. After a few days she’d probably become totally incoherent. After a week she’d probably throw herself at him. No, this definitely wasn’t a good idea at all.
“This isn’t going to work.” She went out the door.
McCade followed, several steps behind. He smiled. This was going to work perfectly.
SEVEN
“O KAY ,” S ANDY SAID. “We’re all clear on the schedule for this weekend?” She glanced around the conference table where James Vandenberg sat surrounded by her technical crew.
Late Friday night, the video crew was heading up to the Grand Canyon. Simon Harcourt owned a small cabin just outside of the national park and he frequently hiked down into the canyon with his family. This weekend, Video Enterprises was planning to hike with him and get it all on tape. A hike into the Grand Canyon would provide perfect footage for the bio piece—Simon Harcourt at play in Arizona’s own natural playground. It was all about the environment, about good health, family living,
and
the canyon itself would provide a pretty spectacular backdrop. “Now, if only we can get a guarantee we’ll have good weather.”
“This is Arizona,” Frank said. “That’s about as good a guarantee as you can get when you’re talking weather.”
McCade was sitting across the table from her, and she glanced up to find him watching her. Again. All during the meeting she’d been aware of his steady, heated gaze. He’d been playing the part of her lover for the past few days, and even though he didn’t touch her at work, he always watched her this way. Whenever their eyes met, he would smile. It was an outrageously sexy half smile. Combined with the look in his eyes, McCade almost succeeded in making even Sandy believe he was remembering every little touch, every single caress of a steamy, passionate night spent making love to her.
She pulled her eyes away from McCade and cleared her throat. “We should be able to get all the footage we need on Saturday and Sunday,” she said to her technical crew. “But be ready to stay longer. Keep Monday and Tuesday open too. And Wednesday, while you’re at it.” She softened her words with a smile. “I don’t want to hear any whining about prior engagements if we need to stay up north a few days longer. Got it?”
At the murmured agreement from her crew, Sandy stood up. “Let’s hit the road, then.” It was nine o’clock and time to get the equipment vans going. They had an eleven o’clock shoot with Harcourt at a local mall.
“Yo.”
Sandy looked up from her
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