Deceiving Derek (7 page)

“Thanks. You’re a genius.” Magee arranged the
wrap around her shoulders, then stepped into flat silver sandals.
Standing at the dresser mirror, she finger-fluffed her hair around
her face and slipped dangly silver earrings into her lobes.

Susannah applauded. “Now the finishing touch.
Perfume.”

Magee grabbed the nearest bottle. She read
the label. “
Possessed
. Perfect. That’s how I feel after agreeing
to this weekend.” Aiming at the base of her throat, she pressed the
sprayer.

T-sss
.

She lifted her finger, but the pump stayed
down.

Ssssssst! T-ssssst!

“Ack! It’s jammed!”

A dense cloud of sultry perfume engulfed
her.

She yanked the sticky sprayer top. The round
bottle slipped out of her hands and bounced on the carpet, spitting
perfume on her legs before the pump finally dislodged.

It was not her day!

“Magee!” Coughing, Susannah tented her hands
over her nose.

Magee kicked the bottle toward her friend.
“Trash that for me, will you? And make sure Monster’s okay. I have
to clean up!” Racing through the kitchen, she cursed the dimwit
who’d situated the bath-room on the other side of the U.

At the bathroom sink, she dampened a
washcloth and dabbed it gingerly to her upper chest. On top of
everything else, it would not do to wet her dress.

At the third dab, a knock rapped on the
apartment door.

Her heart flew into her throat.
Justin!

No time. She had no more time. Had she
de-Possessed herself sufficiently? Justin Kane didn’t strike her as
a man who liked to be kept waiting.

Shaking her shoulders loose, she opened the
bathroom door.

Play it cool, like nothing’s wrong
.

And pray he’s lost his sense of smell
.

~*~

Justin planned to kiss her and get it over
with.

Not as soon as she answered the door, though.
That seemed crass. However, in order to pull off their roles as
lovers, they’d need to kiss in front of the Willoughbys at some
point over the weekend. They might as well accomplish the deed
before dinner and abolish any awkwardness Magee might be feeling
right from the beginning.

He raised his hand to knock again. Before his
knuckles met the wood, the door swung inward and a blast of heavy
perfume seared his nostrils.

His eyes watered.
Possessed
. He’d recognize the
cloying scent anywhere. It had been Tina’s favorite perfume, and
she’d never missed the opportunity to announce the expensive brand
to anyone who’d asked.

At least Tina had applied the musky scent
with a light touch. Magee emitted enough vapors to asphyxiate a
troop of enemy soldiers.

“Hi,” she said in a chipper voice. “I have to
grab my purse. Come in.”

She didn’t mention the perfume. Didn’t she
realize she’d overdosed?

Nose twitching, Justin trailed her into the
apartment. Only the distraction of her bare, tanned legs stretching
off into forever beneath her sassy, short dress prevented him from
asking for a gas mask.

She left him standing in the living room, and
the perfume stench slowly dissipated. Rocking on his heels with his
hands in his trouser pockets, Justin surveyed her apartment. When
Magee had pro-vided her Kitsilano address, he’d assumed she rented
an apartment. However, he’d expected some-thing new and
contemporary from the heiress-apparent to Sinclair Advertising.
This house, while sol-id-looking from the street, appeared every
day of its eightyish years. Magee had decorated the place nicely.
Rattan furniture cheered the living room and potted plants flanked
a bookshelf. In contrast, an ancient radiator rested against the
wall and, in the entrance, a white-painted ladder climbed into a
drafty attic opening.

What did she see in the place? Without a
doubt, she could afford better.

Justin’s lips curled. He sounded like his
father—the last thing he wanted. And this whole fake-girlfriend
scheme could have been torn from the pages of the Richard Kane
how-to handbook.

But Justin was stuck. Only a fool would
change his plans now that Magee had agreed to help him.

After another moment, his partner-in-mischief
sailed into the living room, a tiny silver evening bag hanging from
her shoulder. A tall blonde carrying a hairy gray cat accompanied
her. Neither woman appeared to notice the sickly-sweet perfume
billowing around Magee.

“This is my friend, Susannah.” Magee
introduced the woman to Justin. “She lives in the other up-stairs
apartment. Susannah, this is Justin Kane.”

“Hi,” Susannah said. The overgrown cat bared
its vampire fangs and hissed at Justin. Susannah grabbed the cat’s
paw as it swiped toward him.

“Whoa!” He stepped back. He wasn’t partial to
cats, but neither did he dislike them. What did this one have
against him?

“Monster!” Magee admonished the animal. She
wagged her finger in the feline’s whiskered face. “Bad cat,” she
said in a curiously soothing tone. “You hear me? Baaad.”

The aptly named Monster squirmed in
Susannah’s arms and released a sour meow.

“Okay, okay.” Susannah lowered the cat to the
carpet. Ears flattening, the beast dashed into the kitchen, around
the stove, and out of sight.

Magee groaned. “He’s hiding under the bed
again, I just know it.” Long-lashed eyes widening, she glanced at
Justin. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have let him in. He’s shy with
strangers.”

“Unless they come bearing food,” her friend
said.

Magee chuckled. Fiddling with her purse
strap, she asked Susannah, “Can you find him and put him out after
Justin and I go? I shouldn’t leave him inside all night without a
litter box.”

Susannah nodded. “No problem.”

The soles of Justin’s feet tingled. “You
don’t have a litter box?” He lifted one shoe and wiggled the
heel.

“I don’t need a box for Monster. That’s the
Campbells’ department.” Quickly, she added, “The couple in the
basement suite. Monster’s theirs, not mine. I just feed him from
time to time.”

Justin turned up a hand. “Why?”

Magee’s gaze swung to Susannah’s in a
time-honored female expression Justin loosely interpreted as
Men
.

“In case he’s hungry,” Magee replied as if
the answer were obvious.

“He’s a co-op cat,” Susannah chimed in. “The
Campbells work twelve-hour shifts in a hospital, so Magee started
feeding the cat while they’re gone. Next thing we knew, the rest of
us were feeding him, too. All four apartments.”

Now Justin had heard everything. “A co-op cat
that’s afraid of people?”

“Shy,” Magee corrected. “He’s
shy
around
strangers
. There’s a
difference.”

“Uh huh.” And that difference was that
apparently the cat was as crazy as Magee Sinclair.

Funny how Justin hadn’t noticed this quirky
side to her before. But then, until nine hours ago, he’d been
devoted to Tina.

As devoted as he could manage at this stage
of his life, anyway.

Before tonight, he’d never allowed himself to
think of Magee as anything other than a business associate.
However, now,
because
of business, he had to take a personal
interest in her.

To think in terms of touching her, kissing
her.

Right, he still needed to kiss her.

Preferably without Susannah watching.

“Ready to go?” he asked, stepping in to help
Magee adjust a frothy shawl thing around her shoulders. He
maintained a polite distance, avoiding a lungful of Possessed.

She nodded, thanking him, then said goodnight
to her friend. “Don’t forget Monster.”

“I won’t,” Susannah said. “Have fun.”

Justin placed his hand on Magee’s upper back.
As he escorted her to the door, his fingers skimmed smooth, warm
flesh beside a spaghetti-thin dress strap. Her skin pebbled beneath
his touch, creating a ticklish hum against his palm.

He lowered his head to her ear. “Is it wise
to leave someone in your apartment?” he half-whispered.

“Susannah has a key,” Magee announced,
whirling to her friend. “You’ll lock up for me, won’t you,
neighbor?”

“Consider it done. And if you promise to tell
me all about your date, I won’t even steal anything.” Susannah
winked.

“See?” Magee shrugged. “She’s
trustworthy.”

“Point taken,” Justin conceded. Obviously,
the two women were close. Magee was nothing like Tina, who would no
more allow a neighbor to stay alone in her apartment than she would
a colony of red ants.

But then maybe he didn’t know Tina as well as
he’d thought. He’d never pegged her for mother material, that was
for certain. Until this morning, she hadn’t provided indication
that she
liked
kids. Was he so consumed by work that he
hadn’t heeded her signals?

He set his jaw. Any soul-searching needed to
wait until after he signed the Willoughby Bikes deal.

One step at a time. That was his motto, and
he was sticking to it.

He and Magee exited the apartment. The door
clicked shut on Susannah, leaving them alone on the diminutive
landing between the two upstairs apartments. The strong scent of
Magee’s perfume swept around them like a thick coastal mist.

Justin steeled himself against the impending
onslaught.
Carpe
diem. Seal off the nasal passages and seize the day
. Or, in
this case, the woman.

Clasping her hand, he tugged her close. “How
about we start practicing right away?”

She blinked. “What do you mean?”

“A kiss.”

“A kiss?”

“A kiss.” The idea increased in appeal every
time he said it. He hovered his mouth above hers. Her pink lips
parted.

God, she was beautiful.

He inhaled. A mistake. Possessed coursed up
his nose and blazed a trail down his throat.

He leaned back. Regrouped. Tried again. This
time closing his stinging eyes.

An image of Tina’s angry face swam into his
mind.

Damn it
. He couldn’t kiss Magee under these
conditions. No way. No how. No chance.

He needed air—and a guilt-free
conscience.

Susannah’s movements within the apartment
foyer provided the ideal cop-out: would she interrupt them?

Magee must have shared his concern, because
they glanced at the door in tandem.

“On second thought, let’s save the kiss for
later,” Justin said. He held his breath while she nodded.

She descended the staircase ahead of him, out
of earshot.

“Much later,” he mumbled. Like after she’d
taken a shower.

~*~

Magee rubbed the stem of her wineglass and
slipped a wobbly smile to the middle-aged couple sending her
strange looks from the table nearest hers and Justin’s. As their
practice date progressed, it grew more and more apparent that she
wasn’t fooling anyone. Not one stinking soul.

Not the lanky guy in valet parking who’d
sneezed several times while helping her out of Justin’s sleek,
black sports car.

Not the headwaiter who’d seated them as far
from the other diners as possible, on the portion of the terrace
restaurant bordering Beach Avenue.

Not the tittering party of four sitting
downwind from them in the warm, mid-July ocean breeze fluttering
off English Bay.

And definitely not Justin.

Magee had to face the facts. She reeked. She
knew it, and so did every other patron within a three-table radius
at The Dock.

Despite her attempts to banish the Possessed
from her body—at home and then again in the restaurant washroom
upon their arrival—the heavy perfume lingered. It was like the
musky fragrance had saturated her every pore and now discharged at
regular intervals like a time-released migraine capsule.

At least Justin had spared her the
embarrassment of telling her she smelled. However, she’d noticed
him brushing his nose as they’d walked into the restaurant. And, in
the car on the drive over, only a deaf person would have missed the
pinched-nostril tone to his voice indicating he’d breathed through
his mouth. He hadn’t been as crafty as he’d probably thought when
he’d changed his mind about their practice kiss outside her
apartment door, either.

No, she knew the truth. He would have
suffocated had he kissed her. He might have collapsed on the
spot!

She had to muster serious damage control if
she wanted to maintain Justin’s faith in her ability to handle the
weekend. She needed resolve. Steely-eyed determination.
Fake it until you
make it
.

Therein lay the secret to her success.

Halfway through their meals of grilled
Pacific salmon, she set down her fork and raised her wine-glass in
a toast. “Here’s to this weekend, Justin. To Willoughby Bikes and
CycleMania. I promise I’ll do whatever I can to ensure the path to
signing the deal runs smoothly.”

Justin smiled. Lifting his glass, he
responded, “To our little charade…”

“To us…”

“To you—my newfound Tina. I can’t thank you
enough, Magee. I’d be up to my ass in concrete if you hadn’t agreed
to help me.”

Magee maintained her composed facade. It
wasn’t like she’d had much choice. As he’d pointed out at lunch,
her father’s company would also benefit from the deal.

And, oh boy, did Sinclair Advertising need
the revenue.

Justin sipped his pinot gris. “Speaking of
the charade, I’m worried about confusing names in front of Nathan.
I should start calling you Tina tonight.”

Magee’s wineglass knocked her teeth. “You
want to call me Tina?” Had she missed something?

Nodding, he divided his remaining salmon into
serviceable mouthfuls. “You’ll have to use her name when we’re with
the Willoughbys,” he said as he swabbed a forkful in dill sauce.
“It can’t hurt to get used to doing so now.” He ate the fish.