A Flighty Fake Boyfriend (Men of St. Nachos #2) - Z.A. Maxfield Page 0,15
friend. We don’t hook up.”
“Really?” That was definitely disappointment. “It seems a shame for you to go to all this trouble for a wedding you don’t want to attend with a guy you don’t even boink.”
“Yeah, that’s my style. I snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at every opportunity.”
“So…this guy who had to cancel at the last second. Just a friend? Really?”
“Yeah. We planned to get some sailing in. He’s got a boat.”
“Nice.” Epic rolled his window down to let his hand fly on the breeze. “What’s he do?”
“Actor.”
“An actor…He do anything I might have heard of?”
I hesitated before answering. “I doubt it.”
“I thought about being an actor.” Epic turned to me with a wry expression. “My parents couldn’t stand the idea.”
“It’s not really up to your parents, is it?”
“Well, no. But they’ll ride my ass until I decide what I want to do, and whatever it is will probably freak them out just as badly. They have a career in mind for me, and I hate it.”
“You finish college yet?”
“Yup. I got my BS at Santa Cruz and an MFE at Berkley Haas, but there’s no way I’m going into finance.”
Epic had a graduate degree? “Seriously?”
“What?”
“You have a master’s degree in financial engineering?” I couldn’t help my surprise.
He frowned at me. “Why is my education so shocking to you?”
“You…You’re twenty-three, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, but”—he began ticking things off on his fingers—“I took every advanced placement class I could in high school; I graduated early, so I went to college at seventeen; and the MFE only takes a year.”
“Still. That’s an amazing accomplishment.”
“What’s on your CV?”
“Undergrad at Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service in culture and politics. Master’s in foreign service.”
“Spy school.” He hissed the words.
“They originally tapped me for intelligence work, but there are two reasons I can’t do that.”
“What are they?”
“Illegal drug use in my past is one. I’d have never passed the polygraphs.”
“Oops. And?”
“I hate politics,” I said. “I’d have had a nervous breakdown in the first week.”
“I get you. Totally.” I felt his eyes on me. “But what does someone with your skill set do at an NGO that prevents human trafficking?”
“Now that is a very good question.”
He let a few seconds pass before asking, “You plan on answering it?”
“Later, maybe. If you’re very good. It’s complicated.”
He glanced out the window. “Everything worthwhile is…”
Chapter Six
The traffic concentrated dramatically around Santa Barbara. We crawled for some time before I could pull into the entrance of the resort complex. I parked beneath a porte cochere with massive, vine-covered arches. I got out, slipped on my jacket, and gave my keys to the valet while Epic exited the car and explored everything with a child’s delight.
“Holy cow,” he shot me a happy smile. "This is amazing."
“Right? This resort is the quintessence of old California glamor.” I tipped the valet, who opened the trunk for the bellman to get our luggage.
“Follow me, sir,” he said. His name badge read Arsenio, but thanks to Epic, I was now suspicious of badge wearers.
I’ve stayed in some pretty nice places, but the Four Seasons represented a different level of luxury. There was history here. Grandeur from a bygone era.
A lot of the wedding guests, if they were staying in town, would no doubt choose a less luxurious option. But I hadn’t taken a real vacation in close to six years. As soon as I saw the resort, I wanted to stay for the week after the wedding too. I had to have Laurie book the room for me because I didn’t have the clout to get a reservation in my name.
At reception, there was some confusion, and for a dreadful moment I saw my beautiful getaway disappear before my eyes. That was before I said the magic words.
“Lawrence Dunbar made the reservations, so they might be in his name.”
The receptionist didn’t blink, but Epic gave one of those owooga double takes you only see in cartoons. “What did you just say?”
“Oh, of course.” The receptionist, whose badge read Gale, smiled. “You’re Mr. Dunbar’s guests.”
“Lawrence Dunbar?” Epic clutched his heart.
“I’m not sure what you mean by guests,” I told Gale. “Mr. Dunbar meant to meet me here, but he had to cancel at the last minute.”
I took out my credit card, but she waved it away. “Mr. Dunbar phoned yesterday and had you upgraded to the Santa Cruz suite.”
“Wait. I wasn’t meant to have a suite.”
“The—Oh my God,” Epic gasped. “Your plus-one was Lawrence Dunbar?”
“Mr. Dunbar took care of everything. He left a note,