“Good.” Marc nodded slowly. “When are you heading to Aruba?”
“Sunday.”
“I won’t fly with you, but I’ll be there every step of the way. If you see me, I’m doing my job wrong.”
“Understood.”
“You need an alias. Give me a name, and I’ll have IDs made up for you.”
“I don’t care. Use any name.” He snapped his fingers. “Grant E-n-y-n-a-i-m.”
“Seriously?” Marc asked.
Grant raised and lowered a shoulder. “You have a better suggestion?”
Marc opened the door. “No. Grant Enynaim it is. I’ll be Marc Let’s-fucking-come-back-alive.”
For the first time that day, Grant smiled. “I want to see that passport.”
Marc laughed. “That’s funny.”
Grant sobered. “Good because if I sound out of touch when I speak, I need to correct that. Instead of working out in the gym tonight I’ll jog near the Charles and meet some people. I can’t imagine it’ll be hard. I’ll spend some time with them, listen to how they speak, and have that issue remedied by Sunday.”
Marc laughed again then stopped when Grant glared at him. “You’re serious. Of course you are.”
Viviana Sutton slowed her pace so Audrey could catch up. Her friend wasn’t out of shape, in fact she had a figure that men jogged backward to take a second look at, but she didn’t like to get sweaty. With her hair in a fashionable French braid and her designer spandex, Audrey looked like a bouncy model in a sportswear commercial.
Viviana, on the other hand, was in cotton jogging shorts and a loose, faded T-shirt. She’d tied her hair back without the benefit of a mirror and considered this portion of her daily run, the part where Audrey joined her, her cool down phase.
From the time they were young children, everyone knew Audrey would move to the big city. She was too pretty for a small New England town. Everyone expected her to end up on the big screen in Hollywood or married to some sinfully rich man. She left right after high school but surprised everyone by working for an environmental advocacy agency—saving the world one water source at a time. Living her dream.
She has her life together—me, not so much.
No one ever expected much from me.
Viviana had grown up working for her father’s construction and large machinery rental company. She’d commuted to school from home and continued to work for her family after college because her family had needed her.
She didn’t consider herself ugly, but she was realistic. Women like her didn’t inspire devotion from men. They liked her. She could walk into a bar fight and leave with a new male best friend. She could fish as well as the best of them, parallel park an eighteen-wheeler, and no amount of swearing offended her.
Was it wrong to dream of being irresistible to someone? No wonder I’m an easy mark.
“You’re not thinking about him again, are you?” Audrey asked.
“Who?” Viviana parried.
“Forget him.”
“I can’t. What is wrong with me? He didn’t even try to sleep with me. That bugs me more than the money he took. Do you realize I haven’t had sex with anyone but myself for . . . holy shit, it’s been over a year. I’m going to die alone.”
“Now you’re talking stupid. Let go of who you were in Cairo, New York. Do you know why I moved to Boston? I didn’t want to be the person everyone thought I was. I wanted to do me on my own terms. You don’t think you’re sexy, so men don’t see you that way. I’m not actually prettier than you, I just think I am.” Audrey’s concerned expression took the bite out of her words.
Viviana smiled. Good try, Audrey. “No, you are.”
“As long as you believe that I always will be. Listen, I’m your friend, and I love you. You pay half the rent so if you want to keep the first job you came across when you moved here and hide out in your room, I’m cool with it. I love having dinner made for me when I come home. I love having someone clean up after me. I wouldn’t be a good friend, though, if I didn’t tell you that you’re not my mother. You don’t have to feed me. You don’t have to do my laundry. All I want is to see you happy, and I don’t think you are.”
Viviana sighed. Good friends saw too much. “That stung.”
Audrey nodded. “You need a win—something to boost your confidence. You need to pick a man, bring him home, and fuck his brains out. You’ll feel better, I promise. Then we’ll go get our nails done, maybe have our hair highlighted. We’ll have a whole beauty day.”
“I think you have it backward. Shouldn’t I get the makeover first?”
Audrey threw her hands up in frustration. “No, that’s the point. You are beautiful just the way you are. I’ll prove it to you. See that guy who just jogged by?”
“What guy?” Viviana scanned ahead of them and her breath caught in her throat. “Oh, that one.” Male perfection. Broad shoulders. Tight ass. Muscular legs. If the front of him looked anything like the back of him he was way, way, way out of her league. “What about him?”
“You need to fuck him.”
Viviana swallowed hard. “Sure. I bet he’s single and has been waiting his whole life for me.”
“If you don’t want him, I’ll fuck him.”
“Do it. I don’t care,” Viviana said in a terse voice. She didn’t expect the shove Audrey gave her.
“Wake up, Viv. This is your chance to recreate yourself and be the woman you want to be. You can do it. Decide you want him and go get him.”
“I can’t.”
“Because you’re scared. What’s the worst thing that could happen?”
Are we ignoring the possibility that beautiful people can also be crazy psychos? Yes, well, then—“What if he says no?” And I confirm what I’m already beginning to believe: that I’m universally, sadly quite resistible.
“What if he does?” Audrey smiled in encouragement. “You’ll still be the woman who saw what she wanted and had the courage to go after it. What he says doesn’t matter. What you think about yourself does. Do you believe a man like that would find you attractive?”
“Maybe?”
“Not good enough.”
“Yes?”
“Say it like you mean it.”
“Yes.”
“That’s better. Now, get in front of him somehow.”
“Why?”
“So he can see your killer body. You have one, you know. Cut across the corner over there. Get in front of him. Then drop something. He’ll stop and help you pick it up. After that give him some long looks, touch his arm a few times, lean in. You’ll know if he’s interested.”
“I don’t know if I can do that.”
“How long have we been friends?”
“Forever.”
“Trust me?”
“Completely.”
“Then go get him, Viv. Remember, this isn’t about him—it’s about you.”
Chapter Two
‡
Grant wasn’t used to feeling unsure of himself, but meeting people on the bike path wasn’t turning out to be as easy as he’d imagined. Shortly after he’d approached a group of young men and women, they’d bolted with insulting speed. He’d tried to start up a conversation with a man who was picking trash off the grass and was treated to a barrage of profanity simply because he asked if the man enjoyed his job.
Frustrated, Grant had thrown himself into the secondary reason he was there—jogging. His phone rang. He almost let it go to voicemail but decided taking a call from his sister, Kenzi, might improve his mood. “What’s up, Kenzi?”
“Game night on Saturday. Are you in?”
