“It seemed appropriate.” Allen appears behind me, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Seeing as you never got to go.”

  Never got to… go?

  My stomach falls through the floor.

  Oh, no…

  It can’t be.

  “You’re going on your honeymoon!” Nisha chirps, bouncing in place as she claps her hands.

  “A ten-day luxury cruise to the Caribbean,” Allen adds. “Paid for and ready to set sail.”

  “You leave on Friday!” Nisha says.

  “How… I…” I stutter, my consciousness going in and out of focus. “I need to sit down.”

  This cannot be happening.

  How do I stop this from happening?

  “I can’t get away from work right now,” I say, heat prickling the skin under my collar. “This is our busiest time of the year.”

  Allen laughs heartily. “I love your dedication, but you have more vacation days saved up than anyone in the company,” he says. “And don’t worry, Nisha has you covered.”

  “I sure do.” She salutes me with a grin. “And seriously, girl. Why do you have so many vacation days saved up?”

  “I… don’t get away much.”

  “Well that’s about to change,” Allen says, presenting me with a white envelope. “It’s all here, tickets, itinerary. Feel free to take a couple of extra days off this week to pack.”

  “Just imagine Nigel’s face when you tell him!” Nisha says.

  Oh God.

  Nigel.

  Tanner.

  “Um…” I stare at the envelope as it flutters in my trembling hand. “I’m not sure Nigel can get away right now.”

  “Of course he can,” Debra pipes up. “He told us himself he’s between jobs right now. What better place to be between jobs than on board the Caribbean Gem?” She narrows her eyes, taking a step closer. “Unless there’s another reason you don’t want to go on this cruise?”

  My heart beats in my throat. I look from Debra, to Nisha, to Allen. After everything he just said about the company, about their senior members being friends, family. What am I supposed to say? How am I meant to reject such generosity?

  There’s only one option.

  “Of course not.” I lift my terrified eyes to Allen. “This is incredible. Thank you, sir.”

  “It’s our pleasure,” he says, turning toward his office. “And remember, we want to see lots of photos!”

  I think I’m going to throw up.

  As everyone disperses back to their cubicles and offices, I make a hasty exit for the employee lounge. Pressing my hands into the edge of the counter, I stare into the sink, willing myself not to be sick.

  “Can you believe it?” I hear Nisha’s voice behind me. “A ten-day cruise? Maybe I should start looking for a husband, with perks like this!” She stands at my side. “Jesus… are you okay?”

  I turn to face her, the full gravity of what just happened pressing down on my stomach. “Nisha… I fucked up.”

  “What the hell is going on?” she says, lowering her voice. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

  “If I tell you something, will you promise not to tell anyone else?”

  Her eyes go wide. “Oh God. Did you kill your husband?”

  “What?”

  “You did, didn’t you? Went all merry murderess on his ass.”

  “I don’t have a husband,” I blurt out, unable to look her in the eye.

  “What do you mean?”

  Taking a deep breath, I turn around, the counter still holding my weight. “Debra told me I wouldn’t get the QSM position because I’m not married, that Allen and the executives don’t trust single girls because we’re flighty. So I panicked and told her I was married, thinking it would shut her up, and no one would have to know the truth. But then she demanded I bring him to dinner and my friend stood me up and… God, it’s such a mess.”

  “Dude… what the fuck?” she whispers.

  “I know.”

  “So who was that guy at dinner?”

  I swallow hard, taking a deep breath through my mouth. “Just someone I knew from high school.”

  This is a nightmare. The lie that keeps on punishing. It’s so twisted, I can’t even let my mind focus on the details… on the position I’ve landed myself in.

  I need to get away.

  Pushing away from the counter, I head for my cubicle. “I need to work from home today,” I say, turning to Nisha before I leave the lounge. “Please… please don’t tell anyone what I told you.”

  “I won’t,” she says. “But you owe me some serious details when you no longer look like you’re slowly dying.”

  Ethan is sitting on the couch when I get home. I made it several blocks and a subway ride without crying, but now that I’m through the door, all bets are off.

  I sit in the chair opposite him, holding my forehead between my fingers. The chest constrictions come hard and fast.

  “Erm… did that man flash his junk on the subway again?” Ethan says from behind the laptop on his thighs.

  “I think I’m having a panic attack.”

  “Christ.” He swivels his legs off the couch, leaning closer. “It’s only ten a.m. What’s happened this bloody early?”

  “You know how you were meant to pose as my husband?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I told you I recruited a sub-in from high school?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well… at dinner they were questioning us about our honeymoon, so I told them we didn’t have one—to make things simpler. But I got to work today and…”

  More chest constrictions.

  Just breathe, Storm. Breathe.

  “And… what?!” Ethan’s eyes bulge.

  I reach into my handbag, pulling out the envelope and tossing it to him like a Frisbee. There’s no way I can get the words out. I can barely think of the words.

  He opens it up, pulling out the two premium tickets. Realization settles on his strong brow. “Oh.”

  “Yep.” I wheeze another pathetic lungful of air.

  “Well… it’s not the worst thing.”

  I’m distracted enough to look up, pushing my eyebrows together. “What?”

  “So you have to go on some fancy cruise with your friend. What’s the big deal? Why are you like, shitting your pants over it?”

  I balk, the insinuation that it’s not a big deal shocking me out of my panic attack. “Not a big deal?” I laugh with zero humor. “Ethan… I hate Tanner Jonas.”

  “And Tanner Jonas is…?”

  “The guy who stood in when you abandoned me like a bad friend.”

  “We’ll circle back to that last bit in a minute,” he says, inching closer to look me in the eye. “Storm, what am I missing here? Why would you get someone you hated to be your fake husband?”

  I press my face into my hand. “I don’t know. He was there. I was put on the spot. And I guess he figured he owed me, or something.”

  Bringing my legs up underneath me, I curl into the chair like a cat, hugging a pillow to my chest. I never considered the repercussions when my impulses decided to take over my brain. All I wanted was that promotion, and to stick it to Debra. And now?

  What will happen now when the truth comes out?

  Forget the promotion… will I get fired? Thrown out onto the street, humiliated? In front of Debra? In front of everyone?

  “How did this happen?” I say, my voice trembling. “One minute my life was on track and the next it’s being derailed by Tanner Jonas? Again?”

  Ethan narrows his eyes. “What exactly did this guy do to you in high school?”

  Ha. What didn’t Tanner Jonas do? Shattered my confidence, ruined my senior year, made me the laughingstock of our class.

  Broke my heart.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say, shaking my head. “High school stuff.”

  A stray tear escapes my eye and I swipe it before Ethan can see. His face tenses with concern. He definitely saw.

  “So…” he reaches forward, placing his hand on my ankle. “What are you going to do?”

  The sun is warming up now, and I turn into the light of day, the late morning rays streaming through the living room window. What am I going to do?

  I could go into work tomorrow, tell Allen I made the whole thing up, that he wasted thousands of dollars on a cruise for a married couple that doesn’t exist. I could miss out on not only the promotion, but probably lose my job, too. I could humiliate myself in front of everyone again.

  I could let Tanner ruin my life, again.

  Memories flood my mind, rolling in like waves during a storm. I swore I would never be that girl again. Never let myself be a victim again. I’m way stronger than that now, and way smarter. I won’t be bested. Not by Debra, not by my peers, and not by some guy with nice bone structure.

  There is only one thing I can do.

  Parting my lips, I breathe deep into my lungs and turn back to Ethan.

  “I’m going to convince Tanner Jonas to come on a ten-day luxury cruise.”

  8

  Tanner

  Friday night did not end on a pleasant note. Me, Storm, and the guy selling hotdogs on the corner can all attest to that. In fact, the last words Storm said to me were see you at the reunion. There was nothing about Friday night that indicated I’d be seeing Storm Fernberg again sooner than that.

  Which is why I’m dumbfounded to see her standing on the other side of my door the following Tuesday morning, in New Jersey, hugging herself like she just saw an animal flattened by a car tire.

  “Uh….”

  “Congratulations, you’ve won a ten-day luxury cruise,” she says with mock cheeriness.

  I bunch up my face. “What?”

  “Can I come in?” she asks, brushing past me before I can answer. Once inside, she does a circle, taking in the surroundings. “Nice place. Not that I expected anything different… considering the ridiculous amount they pay football players.”

  “Um… thanks.” I close the door.

  Unraveling herself, she picks up a throw pillow from the sofa and appraises it. “I like the neutral color scheme.” She turns it over in her hands. “But I guess it’s easy to have style when you can afford an interior decorator.”

  “Do all of your compliments come with a side of snark?”

  Her eyes meet mine, dark and living up to her name. When she doesn’t say anything, I take another shot at it.

  “How did you know where I lived?”

  She twists the pillow between her fingers. “You would be amazed at what one can find out with a laptop and a Wi-Fi signal.”

  Side-stepping the weird vagueness of her answer, I opt for a more obvious question. “So… to what do I owe this random and totally unexpected drop in? I’m assuming you didn’t come all the way to Jersey to make passive-aggressive comments about my place of residence.”

  Storm drops the pillow back on the sofa, rummaging in her handbag before producing a white envelope.

  “She hands him a mysterious envelope suspiciously,” I narrate as she passes it over. “Am I being recruited for a top-secret mission? Because I hold secret powers that I’m yet to learn about?”

  “I work for a construction consultancy, not S.H.I.E.L.D,” she says irritably. “Why would I be handing out secret missions?”

  “You working for a construction consultancy we’ll get to in a minute. And I don’t know… perhaps you should tell me why you’re here instead of acting weird and silently passing me documents?”

  She huffs, sitting on the arm of the sofa with her handbag clutched to her chest. “Okay, so it’s like this. You know how you came to dinner with my company the other night?”

  “You mean when you roped me into being your fake husband with no prior warning or permission?”

  Her jaw tenses. “Yes. That.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, you might also remember that I told them we didn’t go on a honeymoon. Apparently, the company always gives employees a nice wedding gift, but because I never told anyone about my wedding—on account of there wasn’t one—they decided to go with a different gift.”

  “The Caribbean?” I pull the tickets out of the envelope. “Don’t people do blenders anymore?”

  “It’s a ten-day cruise leaving from New York and stopping in Grand Turk, Puerto Plata, St. Thomas, Philipsburg and Tortola. These tickets include a premium room, plus a bunch of activities on board, spa passes, fancy meals, the works.”

  “Huh.” I slide the tickets back into the envelope. “I guess crime does pay. Well… happy sailing, or whatever it is one says before leaving for the high seas.” I hold the envelope out, but she doesn’t take it. She has the strangest look on her face—definitely not the expression of someone who has just scored the trip of a lifetime for free.

  “There are two tickets in there,” she says.

  “Okay.”

  “And they’re both meant to be used.”

  “Well, obviously.” I huff a laugh. “Somehow, I don’t think you’ll have trouble finding a friend to fall on that grenade.”

  Her brow hardens. “The tickets are meant for me… and Nigel.”

  We stare at each other for a long moment before the penny drops.

  Nigel.

  Oh.

  “You can’t be serious,” I say.

  “Of course I am. This gift is my honeymoon, I can’t just take a friend on it.”

  I laugh, putting the tickets on the table seeing as she won’t take them back. “You’re not actually suggesting we go on this trip together?”

  “What other choice do I have?” she bursts, her tense, frozen demeanor finally spilling out all over my hardwood floors. “They’ve already met you. They know what you—what Nigel— is meant to look like.”

  “Then lie.” I spread my arms out wide. “Take a friend and make up a bunch of couple anecdotes. You’re creative, I’m sure you can come up with something.”

  “Somehow I think they’ll notice the difference between you and Bianca in the photos.”

  I pause for a breath.

  “You’re still friends with Bianca?”

  “Of course I’m still friends with Bianca,” she says, her forehead creasing with annoyance, like the answer was obvious. Like we all stay best friends with the people we hung out with at seventeen. “But that’s not the point. The point is, the office is expecting you to be on the cruise with me, not some random friend.”

  “No, they’re expecting Nigel Thorn to be on the cruise with you. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m not actually your husband. You know I’m Tanner, right?”

  “Ugh, like I could forget.” She crosses her arms, staring up at the ceiling. The panic in her eyes reminds me of that night at the bar, when her co-worker came up to us and started firing questions.

  “Look, I know you said you made up this whole marriage thing for a promotion, but don’t you think you’re taking it a bit far?”

  She deadpans me. “What?”

  “I mean… this job, this construction company you work for. Is it really worth it, with this big extravagant façade? Sailing off on a cruise ship with a cover story and a counterfeit husband?”

  Her collarbones lift as she inhales, not moving her eyes from mine. “Who are you to question if this is important to me or not? You don’t even know me.”

  My stomach twists like it’s on the end of a dough hook. She’s right, I don’t know her, not anymore. That became apparent when I saw her on Friday at the bar. Sure, her hair is way shorter, and her face is more refined, minus the fleshiness of teenage youth. But it’s more than that. Storm barely resembles the girl I used to know. There was a time I knew her intimately, when she told me all her hopes and dreams for the future. And I can’t help but wonder if that girl is still in there somewhere.

  My eyes fall on the pillow behind her, to the stringy parts that hang from the corners. Tassels, the decorator told me.

  “Why did you stop doing your crafty stuff?” I ask.

  “What?”

  “Working with threads stuck to a clipboard. You used to love being creative.”

  “What makes you think I’ve stopped being creative?”

  I snort. “Well… the words construction and consultancy come to mind.”

  Daggers. The same ones she gave me at the dinner table when I was hamming up our relationship.

  “It must have been nice to move on from high school and keep doing all the things you loved to do,” she sneers.

  My insides lurch. “You of all people know it was a bit more complicated than that.”

  Her daggers retreat, replaced by understanding… a memory, maybe.

  “I just think it’s a waste. You were so good at all that creative arty stuff,” I go on. “It’s a shame to lose it.”

  “I haven’t lost it,” she says defensively. “I have an Etsy store called Stormcloud Creative that I run in my spare time. And part of getting this promotion means more money to keep it running.”

  A smile tugs at my lips. “That’s cool. What do you sell?”

  Her body straightens, a professional calmness layering her face. “I make unique jewelry and accessories out of repurposed materials.”

  “Repurposed materials?”

  “Yes. Items that otherwise would have been discarded, thrown into a landfill even.”

  I bring my eyebrows down in confusion. “So you make it out of trash?”

  “Not trash…” She stiffens “…pre-loved resources.”

  “Huh.” I nod. “So… why don’t you just make a living from Etsy?”

  She rolls her eyes. “You can’t just make a living from Etsy,” she says with aggressive air quotes, like I just said the most idiotic thing in history. “You need to advertise, have an initial investment, build a customer base. It’s expensive, not to mention the market is already saturated.”

  “With jewelry made from trash?”

  She fixes me with another glare. Okay, I might have said that last bit to bait her.

  “So you make jewelry on the side, but spend most of your time working for a construction consultancy because what, you have a secret hammer fetish?”

  “I’m sorry, when did I sign up for a career counseling session?” she says, flapping her hand in the air. “Am I, like, getting charged for this?”

 

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