Vivian Harper scanned her computer monitor, searching for a good image.

When she found a cute photo of a pair of stylish heels in an unusual shade of orange-rose, one sitting upright and the other fallen over on an aged, oak-planked floor, she pulled it up, wrote out two quick sentences, and pinned the picture onto one of her boards.

She was scanning for another good image when a voice came from the doorway of her office. “It’s time to go home.”

She didn’t need to look over to know the slightly dry voice belonged to her business partner, Jeff. “It’s not even eight yet.”

“It’s eight forty-two.”

Surprised, she peered down at the time in the corner of her monitor and discovered Jeff was right. She hadn’t realized it was so late. “I’m almost done here.”

Little red notification alerts at the top of the screen showed that more than a hundred people had already saved her last pin to their boards.

Jeff walked in, looking tired and slightly rumpled with his messy, light brown hair and five-o’clock shadow. He’d taken off his suit jacket early that morning, but he still wore the red-and-gold-striped tie.

He always wore a tie even though she’d told him a million times he could wear anything he wanted. The rest of the staff—including her—wore less formal attire to the office, usually unique and stylish. Today she was wearing red capris, a boatneck top with horizontal black-and-white stripes, with designer heels and a vintage scarf. But Jeff never wore anything but suits and ties—bought, Vivian suspected, at discount outlet stores.

Not that it mattered. He was still adorable with his loosened tie and his sleeves rolled up haphazardly.

“What are you working on?” he asked, moving around her desk so he could see her screen.

“I’m pinning.”

“You’re on Pinterest! For Pete’s sake, Viv, why are you wasting your time?”

“You know that a presence on social media is imp—”

“I know that, but your time is way too valuable for you to be doing it. Grace can be doing that. Hell, one of the interns could do all that messing around with pins.” He spoke the last words like they were describing a strange and mysterious disease. Then he muttered under his breath, “For Pete’s sake.”

Vivian tried to keep her expression composed as she kept scanning for images, but her lips wobbled slightly.

“What’s so funny?” Jeff demanded, slouching down into the chair next to her desk with a resigned sigh.

“Nothing.”

“Tell me.”

She darted a quick look over to him. “You do know that you’re the only real live person I’ve ever met who uses the expression ‘For Pete’s sake,’ don’t you?”

Jeff frowned at her.

She snickered. “Mel and I were talking about it this afternoon.”

“It’s a normal expression, isn’t it?”

“If you’re a friend of Beaver Cleaver maybe.”

Jeff maintained his frown, although his brown eyes were glinting with a matching amusement. “My mom used to say it.”

“I’m sure she did. It’s just one more irresistible feature of the Jeff Owen package.”

Jeff rolled his eyes at her. “But seriously, you can’t be wasting your time on social media. You’re already in the office fourteen hours a day. You need to delegate.”

Vivian quickly wrote out a couple of sentences and pinned one more image to a board before she lowered her hands and leaned back in her chair, turning more fully toward Jeff. “I know. I’d like to. But Grace doesn’t do the pins right.”

“I’ve seen what she does. They look fine.”

“Most of the images she picks are okay, but what she writes about them is not. Faith and Fabulousness is supposed to be about a Christian approach to culture. I don’t want our Pinterest boards to turn into covet factories.”

Jeff’s lips parted as he thought that through.

“It’s a fine line, but we have to hold it,” Vivian continued, “or we might as well close down the whole enterprise.”

“Okay. Okay. I get that. But the answer isn’t for you to do everything. The answer is for you to train Grace so she can do it better.”

“I know. As soon as I get some time, I plan on doing that.”

“Then it will never get done. You’ll never have extra time. You need to make time for it now so you don’t have to do everything forever.”

“Yeah.”

His eyes were serious now as they held hers. “Don’t tell me yeah like that. Tell me you’ll do it.”

She experienced a little inkling of resistance—as she always did when it felt like he was trying to control her—but she pushed it aside.

Jeff was her partner—they were sixty-forty partners in Faith and Fabulousness, with her holding the controlling interest. He wasn’t an employee. He was allowed to have a say in the company and give her his opinion even when it was different than hers.

Plus she knew he was right.

“Okay. I’ll work with her on it. After the retreat.”

Jeff nodded. Since their company retreat was in two more days, he could hardly argue that she needed to do it before.

Instead of leaving as she thought would be reasonable, he reached over and dragged her cute wicker inbox over toward him on the desk. Then, without asking, he started culling through the stack of papers.

She sat and watched him, thinking he was both annoying and incredibly attractive despite his fuddy-duddy fashion sense.

A flicker of curiosity crossed her mind about when he would start dating again. His wife had walked out on him more than two years ago, and the divorce had been finalized a year ago.

Despite his stubbornness and occasional bossiness, he was a sweet, old-fashioned guy. Surely he would want to get married again.

She couldn’t help but wonder what kind of woman he would choose.

She was tempted to ask, but she didn’t. She had a feeling he wouldn’t appreciate her intruding on his personal life.

They were close because they were partners, but even back in college—where they’d met—they’d never been intimate friends. It was more like their life paths fell in line with each other perfectly, traveling in exactly the same direction.

“Okay,” he said, starting to organize the papers in her inbox into three stacks on her desk. “Some of these shouldn’t be on your plate at all. Who gave you all these book proposals?”

“I asked Garrett for them. I wanted to see what’s come in.”

“Well, Garrett should have narrowed them down a lot more before he passed them on to you. It’s ridiculous for you to look at some of this garbage.” He shook his head. “The Gospel According to Gardening.” He started to drop the clipped papers into the recycling bin.

Vivian leaned over to reach for them before they could fall into the bin. “That could be an interesting concept.”

“There’s nothing interesting about that proposal.”

After skimming the top sheet, she sighed and released it back into recycling.

“Garrett needs to narrow it down to a few of the best. I’ll talk to him.” Jeff had been working while she was looking at the proposal, and he’d now organized her entire inbox. “Okay, these are the only things you should do tomorrow.” He patted one of the stacks. “Then this stuff can wait until you get back from the retreat. And this other stuff shouldn’t be on your desk at all.”

She tried to take the last pile from his lap, but he held it out of her reach.

“No,” he said. “Someone else can do this stuff.”

“But I like to—”

“I don’t care what you like to do. This company can’t run without you. What would happen to all our jobs if you have a nervous breakdown from stress and lack of sleep?”

She made a face to show she wasn’t happy, but she didn’t object any further.

Thirteen years ago, during her first year of college, she’d started a blog so she could ramble on about her thoughts about fashion, travel, food, books, and decorating from a Christian perspective. Slowly she’d gained a following, and the blog had become more and more popular. Seven years ago, she’d teamed up with Jeff, who’d been talking to her about the blog’s potential since college, and they’d turned the blog into a profitable company. It was far more than a blog now. They had an online store, published a line of books, and put their name and brand behind a wide variety of cultural products.

She’d still just be doing a blog if it hadn’t been for Jeff. She knew culture, and she had a lot she wanted to say about how Christians could be “in the world” but not “of it.” But Jeff was the one who understood business and made the whole enterprise run.

They now had a staff of six full-time employees and a revolving set of four or five interns. They had a stylish office suite in Raleigh, and she was making more money than she’d ever dreamed was possible with her particular skill set.

None of it would have happened without Jeff.

He was standing up, holding the stack of papers he’d stolen from her inbox against his chest. “You know, if you’d relent and do all your work online like the rest of us, I could organize everything for you before it ever got to you.”

She shook her head. “I like to read on paper. I like images online and words on paper.”

“Luddite.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “And just think about where the recycled paper industry would be without me.”

“Out of business,” he said with a chuckle, leaving her office. “Don’t work too late.”

“Same to you.”

Jeff always chided her for working too late, but he almost never went home before she did.

***

A half hour later, Vivian finished answering the most pressing emails in her inbox and was about to turn off her computer when she got a Skype alert.

When she saw it was her parents, she took a moment to check her face, making sure she looked decent. Then she put on a cheerful smile and pulled up the call.

“Hi there!” she said when she saw both of them in the video image reflected back at her. “How are you?”

“We’re doing just fine. We’re in Belize right now,” her mother said.

“I thought you were in Mexico City.”

“We just flew down from there today. We’re going to be working with a church here for the next two weeks. They’ve set up a temporary medical clinic and need some help with it. We just heard about the opportunity, so we came right away.”

Vivian’s parents had retired from full-time ministry five years ago, but they were anything but retired. They spent at least half their time on short-term mission trips and service projects all over the world.

“Is it the same church in Belize you worked with two years ago?”

“Yes. In the same village. The pastor called us and told us about the clinic and some of the needs they have, so here we are.” Her mother always did the talking on their Skype calls. Her father was a man of few words, but he always smiled and nodded after everything her mother said, so she knew he was participating in the conversation.

“That’s great,” Vivian said. “I’m glad you were able to get down there.”

“How are things with you, Vivian?” her mother asked.

“They’re good. Really good.” Vivian felt a little flutter in her chest as she added, “Our latest book—the one on shoes—has been on the USA Today best-seller list for two weeks.”

She saw her mother glance over to her father with a particular expression. Then she said, “That’s wonderful, dear. I guess a lot of people like that kind of thing. Shoes.”

Vivian felt a familiar sinking feeling at the implication of that remark. “It’s really not as trivial as it sounds,” she replied, holding on to her smile. “The book is really on the gospel in culture.”

“Of course it isn’t trivial, dear. I’m glad you’re able to entertain people with that.”

Her father nodded his agreement.

Then her mother added, “Did you hear about your sister’s latest community service project with the kids at her school?”

The lump in Vivian’s throat was old, familiar. From the beginning, her parents had always believed all she did was “entertain” people in a trivial, superficial way. Her sister was the principal at an inner-city mission school in Milwaukee, and her brother was a doctor working with poor villages in the north of India.

And Vivian blogged about shoes and gardens and the recent trends in fiction.

She didn’t come out of that comparison looking good.

She finished the conversation, trying to push down the feelings of not being good enough. As they were wrapping up, her parents both told her they loved her and were praying for her.

“I love you too,” she said with one last smile. “I’m praying for you too.”

Then they said goodbye. Vivian closed down Skype and then shut off her computer.

Then she sat staring at the blank screen for a minute.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting when a familiar voice came from her doorway. “Time to go home.”

She turned her head and blinked at Jeff. “Yeah. Right.”

Jeff came over, turned her chair to face him, and then grabbed her upper arms to lift her up. He was a few inches taller than her, but her heels made up some of the difference. “Time to go home,” he said again.

She let out her breath and smiled at him. “I was just leaving.” She got her red purse out of the bottom drawer of her desk and turned off the antique lamp on her desk.

“I’ll walk you home,” Jeff said.

“You don’t have—”

“I need the exercise anyway. I’ve been at my desk all day.”

Vivian lived in an expensive apartment, about half a mile from their office suite. Jeff had a house in one of the Raleigh suburbs, so he always drove to work.

They walked down three flights of stairs and out onto the sidewalk without speaking, and then they turned in the direction of her apartment.

“I heard you talking to your parents,” Jeff said, sounding casual, idle, like he was just making conversation.

“Oh. Yeah. I guess I had the volume too loud. Sorry.”

“Didn’t bother me. How are they doing?”

“Fine. They’re in Belize now. Working with some sort of health clinic with a local church.”

“They do a lot of that kind of thing, I guess.”

“All the time.” She felt exhausted and strangely depressed, which wasn’t really like her. She was normally an upbeat, optimistic person. Everyone said so.

“Do you always put on your game face before you talk to them?”

She stared at him in surprise. “What?”

Despite her question, she knew immediately what he was talking about. She always prepared her expression before she talked to her parents—the same expression she prepared before she met with potential investors or fans of the blog.

Her game face.

It was a good way to put it.

“You know what I mean,” Jeff said, speaking lightly, casually, as if he were just sharing a passing thought. He was by nature a serious, intentional man, so whenever he used this tone, she knew he was doing it on purpose. “Your game face. Your things-are-all-good-and-I’ve-got-everything-under-control face.”

She gave him a little scowl. “How do you know what my expression was like? You weren’t in the room.”

“I could hear it in your voice.”

“You make it sound bad. It’s my normal expression.”

“It’s not bad,” he said, slanting a quick look at her, as if checking to see what she was feeling. “It’s just not… completely real.”

“Why shouldn’t it be real?”

“The way you look right now is real.”

“What’s your point? You’re my partner.” She reached over to take his arm companionably. “I don’t have to try to impress you.”

“Why do you have to try to impress your parents?”

She didn’t answer the question, and she let Jeff’s arm slip out of her hand.

“They’ve got to be proud of you,” Jeff added.

When she looked over, she saw that his eyes were on her face, even as they walked. She gave a little shrug.

“They must see everything you’ve accomplished.”

“Sure.” She tried to smile but didn’t really succeed.

“What we’re doing is really worthwhile. So many Christians have no idea how to interact with culture—engage it in a way that’s thoughtful and productive and meaningful. They really have no idea how to do it. Instead, they put up artificial walls or else absorb everything without ever thinking it through. We don’t have to run health clinics or schools to do God’s work in the world.”

She nodded. “I know that.”

They walked in silence for a minute.

Then finally Vivian added, “I just don’t know that my parents know it.”

They’d reached her apartment building, and Jeff pulled to a stop. He turned her around so she was facing him. His hands remained on her shoulders, even after he’d repositioned her body. She gazed up at him, her heart starting to beat strangely, wildly.

When he didn’t say anything, she swallowed hard. “What?” she asked hoarsely.

He opened his mouth like he would say something, but then he must have changed his mind.

“What?” she demanded.

“I think your parents will see everything you’ve done,” he said at last, after something like reluctance twisted on his face. “But even if they don’t, it doesn’t devalue your work in the world.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

She nodded because she knew that was the right answer. She had no idea why she felt so trembly and emotional.

It was strange and unsettling and almost embarrassing.

They stared at each other for another minute, and for just a moment she was convinced that Jeff was going to slide his hands up into her hair, lean in toward her, maybe even kiss her.

She was actually holding her breath for it.

She wanted him to.

Wanted it desperately.

Then he gave his head a little shake and took a step back. “All right. Good night.”

“Good night. Thanks for walking back with me.”

“Anytime.”

He waited until she’d gotten inside before he started back down to the parking garage he used.

Vivian took a few deep breaths and pulled herself together.

She must be tired. And maybe kind of emotional after her talk with her parents.

She’d never responded to Jeff this way before.

She relied on him for everything. She certainly wasn’t going to be foolish enough to let a few stray feelings get in the way of the good of her company.

She’d turned thirty last year. She was single. She had no children. She hadn’t committed her life to the kind of service her family believed in.

Her work was the only thing she had to show for her life in this world.

***

Two days later, she and Jeff were in his old Mercedes on their way down the Outer Banks of North Carolina toward The Balm in Gilead Center for Rest.

Jeff had been the one who had heard about this place—a spiritual and physical rest and retreat center—and he’d been the one to convince her to come visit it as a possible location for a company retreat. He’d been the one to insist that the retreat last an entire week instead of the three days she’d suggested.

Because it had been his idea—and because she had no time to tackle it herself—she’d given the retreat to him to plan and organize after she’d signed off on the concept.

Now she was regretting the decision. Jeff was being very quiet about what he had planned for the week.

“So what’s the agenda?” she asked at last. They were only twenty minutes from their destination now, and he hadn’t mentioned anything about the schedule, so she had no choice but to ask directly.

He glanced over at her briefly before turning back to the road. “Agenda?”

“Yes. The agenda. You’re the one who’s planning this thing. Am I allowed to know the agenda?”

“Sure. It’s just that there’s no real agenda.” He wasn’t looking at her, and his voice was light and casual.

She found both things very suspicious, very unlike Jeff. “What do you mean there’s no agenda. You were supposed to plan the retreat.”

“I have. But it’s a real retreat. It’s not a weeklong business meeting in a nice location, which is what a lot of companies call retreats. We’re here to rest and refresh ourselves. We’re not here to get things done.”

“Okay. I get that, and I’m okay with it—although I think it would be fine if we do some brainstorming and future planning while we’re here.”

“Maybe we will. But I’m not planning it in as a thing to get done.”

His chin was sticking out in that stubborn way he had. Vivian sighed. “Okay. Fine. But we’re still going to have to do something to fill up our days. What exactly are we going to be doing for a whole week?”

“The rules of the center require anyone who stays there to do a certain number of physical activities a week and a certain number of creative activities a week. So we’ll do things like swim, play tennis, paint, or whatever. They have all kinds of options.”

“Okay. That will take us about three hours a day. What are we going to do with the rest of our time?”

“Hang out. Read. Rest. Relax. Lay on the beach.”

She rolled her eyes. “So basically we’re paying for the whole staff to have a weeklong vacation.”

“Exactly.” Jeff gave her a quick little smile. “We get the vacation too though. You haven’t had one in four years.”

“I was in Paris just a few months ago.”

“But you were doing stuff for Faith and Fabulousness the whole time. You haven’t really taken time off in years.”

“And what about you? You haven’t had a vacation in…” She thought back. “Almost three years.”

The last vacation he’d taken had been with his wife. They’d gone to the Cayman Islands.

He hadn’t taken a vacation since, although she was sure he’d really needed one after the divorce.

“I need the rest too,” he said.

She studied his face, his intentionally casual expression. Then she sucked in a breath. “Did you plan this whole thing just to get me to take some time off?”

A quick flicker of his brown eyes proved that she was at least partly correct in her suspicion. But he said dryly, “Don’t overestimate your own importance. As if I would spend all this time and money just to get you to relax.”

She shook her head, feeling strangely fluttery for no good reason.

She worked a lot. She knew she did. And the nature of their work led to a good deal of stress. But she also loved what she did and didn’t want to be doing anything else. She wasn’t on the verge of a breakdown or anything.

She didn’t need an intervention or a forced vacation.

It felt strange to her that Jeff would have gone to such an effort for her. It made her feel very… fluttery.

“What?” Jeff demanded, shooting her looks of close scrutiny.

She shook away the flutters and made a face at him. “I’ll play along,” she said. “I’ll be part of his retreat. All of us have been kind of stressed lately, so I suppose it will be good for us. But I’m not any more stressed than anyone else.”

“I never said you were.”

“And I don’t need a rest any more than you and the others do.”

“I never said you did.”

“And I’m not cutting the budget of any of my projects just to pay for this. The money has to come out of your budget.”

“I’ve already planned for that.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “You’re going to have to rest and relax this week too, you know.”

“I know.”

“You’re not any better at it than I am.”

“I know that too.”

She frowned. “Why are you being so agreeable all of a sudden?”

He gave her an adorable smile. “Maybe I’m already getting into the relaxation mood. I’m going to be completely laid-back this week.”

She couldn’t help but laugh.

Jeff was a lot of things—and most of them good—but he wasn’t any more laid-back than she was.

***

Vivian had met Cecily Evans, the director of Balm in Gilead, on the two times when she and Jeff had come to check out the place before they’d made the decision to use it for their retreat. Cecily was a few years older than Vivian and was very attractive with ash-blond hair, a slim figure, and a prim, old-fashioned style that Vivian really liked.

Not that Vivian could pull off the style herself, but she liked it on the other woman.

Cecily greeted them when they arrived, wearing a pretty, pink blouse and pencil skirt, and she gave them each a folder with information on the center. Grace and Mel were already here, and the rest of the staff would be coming later.

The building had formerly been a luxury hotel, and it was still in excellent condition, decorated with an elegant beachy style with a lovely tile floor and tasteful art on the wall. Vivian’s room was on the third floor, right next to Jeff’s. It was large and airy and recently refurnished. It had a large balcony with sweeping views out onto the ocean.

Vivian was impressed.

“Thank you,” she said to the man who had carried her luggage up. His name was Zeke, and he was a strange, gruff man with an untrimmed dark beard and the worst taste in clothes she’d ever seen.

Today he wore a pair of orange shorts and a blue T-shirt that didn’t match at all.

He grunted, which was more of an answer than she’d ever gotten from him before.

Jeff had taken his stuff to his own room, but now he walked into hers. “What do you think?” he asked.

“It’s great,” she told him with a smile. “That view is amazing.”

Zeke was standing nearby with a silent scowl.

She shot him a few looks, wondering why he wasn’t leaving. She already knew that tips weren’t allowed at the center, so he couldn’t be waiting for that.

Jeff arched his eyebrows. “Phones.”

She groaned softly and slumped a little. One of the rules of the center, she already knew, was no laptop, phones, or electronic devices that connected to the internet were allowed. It was one of the ways to ensure a complete break.

From the beginning, Vivian had believed the policy was ridiculous.

“I think it’s a bad idea,” she said, holding her phone protectively.

“I don’t care what you think. You knew the drill coming here. You might have left your laptop at home, but that’s not enough. You have to give up your phone too.” Jeff had that stubborn look again.

“What if I don’t use it? I’ll just keep it for emergencies?”

“Hannah and Derek are covering the office,” Jeff said, shaking his head. “They’ll take care of any emergencies. You said you’d play along.” He held out a hand, palm up. “So hand it over.”

She groaned again but gave him her phone. Jeff immediately stepped over to Zeke and handed him both Vivian’s phone and Jeff’s own phone.

Vivian gave him a little sneer.

“It will be good for you to be disconnected for a little while,” Jeff said.

Vivian rolled her eyes at him. “Who’s the boss around here anyway?”

Jeff met her eyes. “You’re not the boss of me.”

For some reason the texture in his voice gave Vivian little shivers up and down her spine. She was hit with a wave of attraction that came out of nowhere and was completely inappropriate.

She liked Jeff. More than almost anyone. And she thought he was very cute in his own way.

But he wasn’t her type of guy. She usually went for stylish, successful men, most of whom eventually proved to be assholes. Plus Jeff was her business partner, which meant he was completely off-limits for her.

She couldn’t be indulging these waves of attraction for him.

She really needed to get them under control.

“You okay?” Jeff asked softly, although Zeke and his scowl had already left the room.

“Yes,” she said, just slightly breathless. “Of course. I just didn’t want to give up my phone.”

His forehead was wrinkled, as if he didn’t believe her, but he didn’t push the subject. “I’ll stop by in an hour so we can go down to dinner together,” he said.

She nodded, giving him a bright smile. Her game face. “Sounds good.”

Jeff still looked a little confused, a little suspicious, but thankfully he left the room.

She waited until the door had closed with a click. Then she put her purse on the table near the window.

She’d known what she would have to do when she came to this place. She’d known she would have to give up her phone.

But she was good at planning, and she wasn’t good at going along with things that didn’t make sense to her.

She opened a small zipper pocket of her purse and pulled out another smartphone.

She wasn’t going to go a week without a phone. She would just have to keep it secret and only take it out when no one else was around.

If there was anything she did well, it was make things happen the way she wanted them.

Jeff really should have known better.