False Pretenses by Tressie Lockwood Page A

shore. Cullen reached for her hand, and she let him hold it. “You looked sad when I first saw you.”
    “Me?” She considered lying and bit her lip. “I guess I was a little. I went to one of those fancy parties and regretted it.”
    He stopped walking. “Let me guess, bunch of snooty people looking down their noses at you, talking about nothing but business?”
    She laughed. “Oh no, we can’t forget the two women that told me exactly how much my dress and shoes cost and where I bought them. Then they proceeded to advise me on where to go the next time.”
    His brows dropped low. “I’m sorry.”
    She waved her hand, shaking her head. “Don’t worry about it. For those two, I really feel like they meant well. They had no clue how insulting they were. It was the other one.”
    “The other one?”
    “I don’t want to talk about her. How about you? How did your day go?” The truth was that Natasha bitch got under her skin more because of how she’d clung to Nathan and the way he didn’t bother shaking her off. Right in Alyssa’s face he had made it obvious they either had a thing going or had one previously. Even if she was a fake girlfriend, the least he could do was show her some respect. After all, he had invited her to the party.
    “Alyssa, are you listening?”
    She blinked. “Oh, yeah, sorry. What were you saying?”
    He shared stories of dealing with the rich, having to take the blame for what he didn’t do. Alyssa patted his arm and commiserated with his plight. He had her tearing up at the sad stories one minute and laughing at his jokes the next.
    “I think you can be a writer,” she told him.
    His eyes widened. “Me? No. Don’t tell me you don’t believe me.”
    “Of course I do. I just meant the delivery is so good. You should make money off this stuff. Then again, I guess you’d lose your job if you exposed the crazy that’s in your household.”
    To her surprise, he seemed to consider her words with all seriousness. “You, my beautiful Alyssa, have a good mind of your own. If I’m not careful, you’ll make me fall in love. Then where will we be?”
    She snorted. “Yeah right.” She started to walk off, but he caught her hand and drew her back. A misstep landed her in his arms, and she sucked in a breath. “I think I should get back.”
    “Stay a while.”
    “I can’t. It’s late.”
    “Aren’t you on vacation?”
    She couldn’t explain. Matter of fact, she didn’t want to explain. Not if it meant he would stop talking to her. Being with him felt good, even if he didn’t stir the longing that Nathan did. Cullen was fun in his own way, and the complication of wanting to spread her legs for him wasn’t there to confuse her. Okay, it might be nice to kiss him. No, that’s wrong. I do not juggle two men at a time. Not my thing.
    “Tomorrow morning,” he urged when she didn’t say anything. “Meet me on the beach where we first met.”
    “I—”
    “Alyssa!”
    Her throat went dry, and she jerked from Cullen’s hold. She peered over her shoulder and realized Nathan was storming in their direction. She couldn’t see his face in the shadows, but she’d recognized the voice and with it the height and build. The moon behind the clouds made it likely he only guessed it was her standing there with no one else nearby.
    She spun back to face Cullen.
    “Don’t say anything!”
    “Don’t say anything!”
    She blinked at the fact that he’d spoken the same words, but then figured he meant pretend it wasn’t her so she wouldn’t have to leave. On her part, she wasn’t ready to let this new friend go, so she didn’t want Nathan and Cullen finding out about each other. She’d sunk low.
    “Tomorrow,” she assured him and darted along the sand until she reached Nathan. He grasped her arm and peered over her shoulder. She pushed past him and started walking in the opposite direction.
    “Who was that?” he demanded.
    “Just somebody I met at the beach party—the real