“Rise and shine, doll.”

I grumbled sleepily and sat up, my eyes barely opening more than a crack. “Doll?” I mumbled.

Nate was standing in the spare bedroom doorway, holding a tray with a stack of pancakes, bacon, scrambled eggs and a steaming cup of coffee. Despite all the delicious-smelling food, he looked far more edible.

His grey T-shirt stretched over his torso, highlighting the contoured muscles of his chest and stomach, and his broad shoulders made me want to cling to them. The sight of his stubble-lined jaw sent a tiny shiver through my belly, well and truly shaking me awake.

I quickly glanced over at the clock on the wall. It was eight in the morning. Relatively early, but considering I’d gone to bed within half an hour of stepping back inside Nate’s house last night, I’d actually had a very long sleep. No wonder I felt so exhausted—I’d overslept, and paradoxically, that always made me feel terrible.

Nate winked playfully at me. “Pumpkin and sweetums didn’t seem to work for you. I’m auditioning other nicknames.”

I grinned. “Well, doll is a slight improvement. What have you got there?” I nodded toward the tray. “Not for me, is it?”

“It is. I figured you’d be hungry after sleeping so long.”

My eyes widened. “Breakfast in bed, huh? That’s so nice, thank you!”

He shrugged. “I was hungry too. It wasn’t entirely unselfish.”

I smiled. “Don’t worry, we can all be selfish shellfish sometimes.”

Nate tilted his head slightly. “Did you say… selfish shellfish?”

My cheeks turned hot. I had no idea why I’d said such a ridiculous thing. I guess it sounded funnier in my head before the words actually came out. “Um. Yes.”

“Hm. I like it.” He stepped over to the bed and deposited the tray next to my lap, cool eyes coasting over me as I yawned and stretched. “I also like you in my shirt,” he added. “Looks a lot better on you than me.”

My stomach fluttered as his gaze remained on me, tracing the outline of my curves in the white shirt he gave me to sleep in last night. Hmm. This was shaping up to be a strange morning. A flirty compliment, a wink, breakfast in bed. Interesting… and not at all in line with last night.

“How’s the weather looking now?” I asked. There was a bit of grey sky peeking through the curtains, but I couldn’t hear any rain or thunder.

“There’s still a bit of drizzle, but the storm cleared up pretty fast,” Nate said. “Anyway, what do you think?”

He gestured toward the breakfast tray, and I quickly took a bite of one of the syrupy pancakes. As I chewed, I let out an involuntary sound not too dissimilar from that of a blissful orgasm.

Nate chuckled as I moaned. “That’s a good sign.”

I nodded. “Mmm. This is honestly one of the best pancakes I’ve ever had! Who knew you could cook?”

“Why wouldn’t I be able to cook?” he asked, head cocked quizzically to one side.

“Well, you’re good-looking and famous for all that investing stuff. I would’ve thought you spent all your time sleeping with gorgeous women or crunching numbers on your computer. Not cooking.”

He lifted a brow as I took a sip of coffee. “So you think I’m handsome, huh?”

I laughed. “I love how that’s all you got from that.”

“I love how you aren’t denying it.”

I smiled and shook my head, taking another bite of food. When I looked up again, Nate was still watching me. Caught in his heated gaze, I stared back at him. “Everything okay?” I practically squeaked.

He nodded. “Just wanted to make sure you’re enjoying it.”

I twisted my lips in thought. Was I missing something? Last night I’d been so certain that there was nothing going on here other than our platonic arrangement. But now I wasn’t so sure. First there was the breakfast and the flirty comments. Then the fiery gaze, so similar to the one he trained on me when we first met.

Come to think of it, there were also those comments he made at the festival yesterday about how my love life (or lack thereof) was no one’s damn business but my own. I was quite taken aback when he said that. Not because it was particularly profound, but because it was exactly what I thought about the situation.

It seemed logical to me that my private life should be mine and mine alone to be concerned with. Yet my mother was always harping on about it and chastising me for being single, and my friends weren’t much better. Of course they would never mock or deride me for being single like my mother so often did, but I didn’t miss the pitying looks they exchanged when I informed them that no, I still hadn’t met anyone, and no, I didn’t have any upcoming dates.

They were always bringing up random guys they knew as well, hinting they could set me up, or telling me about some hot new dating app they’d heard about. I loved them for caring about me so much and trying so hard to find someone for me, but damn, give a girl a break. None of their fixups ever worked, anyway.

But Nate really seemed to be on my level. He got me, and he was being so damn nice to me now. Flirty, too. So perhaps I was wrong last night when I thought he had no attraction to me. Perhaps I hadn’t been imagining that spark between us the first time we spoke.

Perhaps we’d even keep seeing each other once we returned from the islands.

That would be nice.

Nate excused himself a moment later. “I’ve just got to make a quick call,” he said, looking over at the clock.

I stood up a few seconds after he left. The coffee was already doing a number on my bladder, and I needed to pee like a racehorse, so I padded into the spare bedroom’s attached bathroom. I looked down and groaned. There was no toilet paper. Nate clearly didn’t have many guests staying in this particular room.

I stepped out of the room and walked through the house, trying to remember where the main bathroom was. Sighing as I caught the view from one of the windows, I wished for the hundredth time that this was my place. Nate had excellent taste. The floors were solid hardwood, and every room featured breathtaking views and abundant natural light. Even the kitchen was perfect with its marble slab counters and stainless steel appliances. For a second I pictured myself standing in it, whipping up cupcakes for my future children.

Getting a little ahead of yourself there, Georgie, I told myself. I didn’t even know if Nate was remotely interested in me yet. It was just a sneaking suspicion after his flirtatiousness this morning. But a girl could dream, right?

On my way down the main hallway, I heard Nate in his home office, presumably on the call he’d left the spare room to make.

“Hi, honey. I was wondering when you’d finally pick up!”

I froze in my tracks. Half of my mind was shouting at me to keep going down the hall, because I couldn’t stand around and eavesdrop on yet another one of Nate’s phone calls. The other half was screaming for me to stay and find out exactly who he was calling ‘honey’.

My nosy side won out. Again.

I shuffled a few steps back so he wouldn’t catch a glimpse of me from the doorway. Then I strained to listen. From what I was able to gather in the first few minutes, he was talking to someone named Ginny and offering her the little freebies I’d thrown into my pretend-boyfriend proposal to sweeten the deal.

“….managed to score some tickets to an animal sanctuary up north, and I know how much you love animals, Ginny…. Free spa stay with it…. Could go shopping afterwards. Then we…. Would love to take those clothes off….”

I took one tiny step closer, trying to catch more than a few snippets of the conversation. Whoever Ginny was, Nate was speaking to her in a sugary-sweet voice. I immediately conjured up an image of her in my head. Picture-perfect blonde sorority girl. Probably only twenty-one and loved bikini modeling in her spare time.

But… this Ginny person could just be a favorite employee at Nate’s firm, right? Maybe he was offering her the spa stay and the animal sanctuary tickets as an employee bonus. Maybe he spoke to all his employees in that tone… and also called them honey and talked about getting their clothes off.

Hm.

Okay, fine, I was grasping at straws, but I could’ve easily misinterpreted some of the things I’d heard so far. For example, when he said ‘would love to take those clothes off’, maybe that was actually perfectly innocent and I’d simply missed the context. I’d love to help you take those clothes off the clothes line, for instance.

Now that I was closer and wouldn’t miss a beat, it would be easier to tell the context of his words.

“Okay, we’ll talk about it again when I get back from this trip.” He paused for a few seconds, ostensibly to let Ginny speak. “Oh, it’s just a business trip. Nothing major,” he finally went on. “Love you too. Bye, honey!”

Well, that blew the employee theory out of the water. No one said ‘I love you’ to one of their workers. And that baby voice he was using with her… ugh! I was immediately overcome with wild jealousy, irrational as it may be.

I wasn’t sure why it hadn’t occurred to me that Nate might already have a girlfriend. A hot eligible bachelor like him could score any woman, but I never asked. I just stupidly assumed he was single when I marched up to him the other day and asked him to be my pretend boyfriend.

I slipped back into the spare room, my full bladder temporarily forgotten as my mind raced. During all our ‘getting to know each other’ chats yesterday, Nate hadn’t said a single thing about having a girlfriend. He hadn’t even mentioned anyone he was casually seeing. Then again, why would he? I didn’t ask.

The thing that annoyed me most about this was how he’d referred to the vacation with me as ‘nothing’. Just a business trip. That was technically what it was, seeing as I’d offered to pay him to come along with me, but from his tone of voice when he said it, I got the impression he was lying to this Ginny girl and leading her to believe it was a brokerage-related business trip. That just made me feel sorry for her.

I knew I was beginning to jump to conclusions like some clichéd character in a movie, so I decided to ask Nate about it like a rational human being. I didn’t want to start directly quizzing him about who he was on the phone with like some sort of jealous maniac, though, especially when I had no right to be jealous. So I had to be a bit sneaky.

“Everything okay? I thought I heard you wandering around.”

I looked up. Speak of the devil. Nate was standing in the doorway again, his forehead crinkled in a questioning glance.

“Sorry. I was looking for another bathroom. There’s no toilet paper in there.” I nodded toward the spare room’s bathroom door.

Nate slapped his forehead. “Shit. How could I forget?” he said. “Sorry, I’ll go grab some for you.”

He disappeared before I had a chance to ask any of my questions, but I figured they could wait till I’d relieved myself. Three minutes later, I emerged from the bathroom and found Nate in the kitchen, pouring himself more coffee.

“Want another one?” he asked, holding up the mug.

“Yes, please,” I replied, perching on a stool at the attached breakfast bar. “Hey, I forgot to ask you something pretty major. Silly me.”

He frowned. “Oh?”

“Do you have a girlfriend?” I asked. Nate arched an eyebrow, and I hurriedly added, “I mean, I’d feel pretty bad if you did while I’m dragging you along on a vacation to pose as my boyfriend. But I guess it never occurred to me to ask.”

It was a winning strategy—frame it as part of our arrangement to make it look like that was why I was asking. Not because the thought of him having a girlfriend made me crazy-jealous.

Nate hesitated for several seconds. Then he finally snorted with amusement and slid a cup of hot coffee across the counter. “No, I don’t have a girlfriend. Don’t you think I would’ve mentioned it if I did?”

That was certainly a long pause before he answered.

I shrugged and blew on the cup of coffee. “Thanks. And I never asked, so who knows?” I tried to keep the frostiness out of my voice as my mind raced. He wasn’t necessarily a liar, liar, pants on fire. But who else could Nate have called ‘honey’ and said ‘I love you’ to, if not a girlfriend?

Something dinged in my mind like a poker machine. Family! Duh.

My eyes flitted up to meet his. “Oh, another thing. You mentioned your direct family members yesterday, but what if my mom asks about extended family? Do you have any cousins I should know about? Or nieces and nephews?”

Nate nodded. Bingo. I bet Ginny was a little cousin who loved animals, spa retreats and clothes lines. “My mom had a sister. She has two kids—my cousins, Simon and Kate. But we aren’t close.”

“Oh.” My optimism was waning again. “And that’s it?”

“Yup. Like I said yesterday, Dad left when my brother and I were young, so we don’t even know his side of the family. And Robert hasn’t got any kids, so no nephews or nieces.”

Kids. That could be it. Ginny could be a daughter from a previous relationship that he’d somehow failed to mention. “And you? Do you have any secret kids out there?”

He snorted. “No.”

This time I couldn’t keep the disappointment out of my voice. “I see. And back to the girlfriend thing… you’re not even seeing any women casually? Friends with benefits?”

“No, I’m not seeing anyone at the moment. Not even casually,” Nate replied with a grin. If you asked me, that grin was suspiciously over-the-top.

“Right. Okay.” I focused on my coffee again.

Who was Ginny if not a female bedroom buddy? I racked my brains, but I couldn’t think of anyone a man might call at eight-thirty in the morning to offer a free trip to whilst also saying he loved her and calling her sweet-nothing nicknames... except a girlfriend or very close family member. And why would Nate lie about family?

There was no reason to do that, but there was a reason to lie about having a girlfriend. Lots of guys did it for lots of different reasons. Sex was the biggest one. So perhaps Nate was acting flirty with me because he wanted a bit of side action on the vacation, but he knew I’d never agree to that if I knew he had a girlfriend.

He said it himself last night. Occam’s razor: the simplest explanation was nearly always the right one. In this case, the simplest explanation was that Ginny was a woman he was seeing.

On top of that, I was totally kidding myself in thinking that the ‘would love to take your clothes off’ comment was somehow taken out of context. Please. It was anything but innocent. I was a fool for ever thinking otherwise.

“Is everything okay?” Nate asked, knitting his brows with concern. “You’re acting weird.”

I looked up at him, into those sparkling grey eyes. There wasn’t a hint of guilt flashing in them, which made me desperately want to believe he was telling the truth about not having a girlfriend. But I’d been fooled by men with pretty eyes before. I’d missed the red flags and signs everywhere, all because I was so easily seduced by an innocent gaze.

I wouldn’t let that happen again.

I knew I could just stand up and tell him that I overheard his phone call; make him admit that he did in fact have a girlfriend. A girlfriend whose clothes he couldn’t wait to take off, apparently. But right now, it seemed clear to me that Nate wasn’t willing to tell me the unvarnished truth, or else he would have when I gave him the chance. So how could I trust what he said even if I bluntly told him what I knew? He would probably just lie right to my face again.

I steeled my nerves. “Yes,” I said lightly, trying not to let on that I was pissed. I still wanted him on my trip, after all, if only for my own sake. “Everything is just fine.”