The Fiance Thief by Tracy South Page B

can tell you’re a pack rat.”
    “And you aren’t?”
    “If I don’t need it, I toss it out.”
    “Very cold-blooded of you,” Claire said.
    Alec poked around some more, coming across the refrigerator and minibar in the corner of the room. “I guess I win the five dollars,” he said.
    “Certainly not. In order for you to win the five dollars, we would have had to see all those people out in the open, drinking. If they’re doing it behind closed doors, then all bets are off.”
    “I can’t believe these people,” he said. “They object to seeing an open bottle of wine outside, but they’ll let people fornicate in their rooms all they want.”
    Claire put her hands over her ears. “I hate that word.”
    “Fornicate?”
    “I’m warning you. Don’t say it again.” She shuddered.
    Alec sighed and plopped himself down on the couch beside her. “This is a hell of a mess. I’m sharing a bedroom with a girl who blushes at the word fornication. And, you know, you haven’t been as friendly to Miranda as you could be.”
    She tucked her legs under her and slid away from him a bit. “You’re wrong,” she said. “I’ve definitely been as friendly as I can be.”
    “But can’t you pretend that you’re trying to get right back to being best friends with her? At least for my sake?”
    “She’s not going to blame you for my behavior,” Claire said. “In fact, you could probably go up there right now and pour your heart out to her, telling her how difficult and unreasonable I am. Ask her if, as my oldest friend, she has any pearls of wisdom for you.”
    “That’s not a bad idea,” he said. He was beginning to have a budding admiration for Claire’s talent for deception. Too late, he saw that he had misread her.
    “Don’t you dare,” she said. Her eyes were angry, and her cheeks were flushed. She wasn’t teasing.
    “Claire, calm down.” He took her hand and gave it what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze. “I was only kidding. You know I would never betray you.” Having taken her hand, he didn’t want to let it go. He held on to it firmly, hoping she wouldn’t pull it away.
    She didn’t. “Anyway, I’d say that Miranda feels better with me not embracing her with open arms. I think it makes her feel like she’s paying her dues.”
    He opened his mouth to disagree with her, but felt her soft hand in his and reconsidered.
    “All in all,” Claire continued, “I think it’s going pretty well. This lying stuff isn’t as difficult as I believed it would be.”
    That was an understatement. Claire was so good at it, in fact, that he wasn’t sure she hadn’t been a con artist in another life. No need, though, to let her get too overconfident. “You spun some elaborate tales, all right. You had my family trading gemstones back and forth so fast that I was considering opening up my own jewelry store.”
    She looked at their two hands joined together and said, “Aren’t there some pearls or opals stashed at the family manse somewhere?”
    “The closest thing we have to a family manse is the mining camp where my great-grandparents lived before they moved to town. My great-grandfather might have brought my great-grandmother a lump of coal and a celebratory bottle of moonshine, but that’s about it for the finer things in life.”
    He wished he could read the look she gave him. “I thought you were some snotty-nosed rich kid, someone who took privilege for granted.”
    He didn’t tell her that he had spent most of his life cultivating that air. By some fluke of public school zoning, he’d gone to school with rich kids, and had just naturally fit in with them, adapting their habits, acquiring their tastes. He’d never deliberately tried to pass himself off as someone with money, but he hadn’t tried to correct that impression, either.
    Claire continued. “So if you aren’t from some swanky family, then why are you so hard-hearted about my land? Where’s your populist edge?”
    “I don’t