Page 10 of Fake it With Me

She was clean. A graduate student working on her PhD in marine biology. No criminal record, not even a parking ticket. No history of substance abuse, no questionable associations, no red flags whatsoever.

She seemed like a good person. Normal. Maybe a bit of a nerd, but that was fine. I was pretty nerdy about boat building.

My phone rang, the screen lighting up with a call from the security gate. I answered before the first ring finished.

“Sir, we have a problem,” Julian, the head of my security team, said.

My stomach dropped. “What kind of problem?”

“We caught a photographer trying to get past the gate. She’s claiming she’s not press, but she’s got professional camera equipment.”

In the background, I heard a woman’s voice filled with irritation. “The camera is for the whales! I’m a marine biologist, for god’s sake, not a—would you please stop manhandling my equipment?”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

“That’s not a photographer, Julian. That’s my guest. Let her through.”

“Sir, are you sure? Because she’s got a telephoto lens and, well, to be blunt, she doesn’t look like one of your typical guests.”

I heard Liza curse and call him some very colorful names. I didn’t blame her.

“I’m sure. Send her up to the house.”

I hung up and headed outside, still smiling. The mental image of Liza arguing with my security team about whale photography was somehow exactly what I’d needed.

The circular driveway in front of the house was paved with a grassy area in the center. A gorgeous maple tree stood in the center with a bench underneath. That was Daisie’s suggestion. The five-acre property was protected by a fence and a gate, but the back opened to the sea. That was a touch more difficult to secure, but unless someone had a death wish and tried to climb the steep rocky incline, they weren’t getting past the single gate that blocked the stairs I had put in.

I stood in front of the door, glancing over my shoulder. I believed in making good first impressions when I sold a boat. My house was massive. Stupidly big for two people, if I was being honest. But it gave off an amazing first impression with all of the windows and the sheer size alone. The front of the house wasn’t the best part though. It was the back of the house that faced the Atlantic that would really take a person’s breath away.

The car pulled up and stopped. Liza emerged from the back seat looking like she wanted to murder someone.

Her blonde hair had escaped from its ponytail, wild around her face. Her cheeks were flushed with anger or embarrassment or both. And clutched in her arms, like she was protecting a child, was a professional camera with a lens I knew wasn’t cheap.

She spotted me and her expression shifted from fury to something that might have been relief or might have been horror. Hard to tell.

“I am so sorry,” she said, the words tumbling out as she approached. “Your security team thought I was paparazzi and they wouldn’t believe me that I’m supposed to be here and they tried to confiscate my camera.” She stopped, seeming to realize she was babbling. “I might have called him a few names.”

“I heard.”

The driver popped the trunk and pulled out two of the sorriest looking suitcases I had ever seen. I couldn’t believe the airline even allowed the things on their plane.

“Is that it?” I asked.

She scowled at me. “I’m only here for a month,” she snapped.

She looked ornery as a wet cat, and something about that almost made me laugh.

“Sorry about the security team,” I said, grabbing her bags while she carried an oversized backpack and her camera. “They’re paid to be paranoid.”

“It’s fine.”

It wasn’t fine. That was what she really meant.

She paused and tilted her head back and slowly took in the exterior of my twelve-thousand square foot home.

“What the hell?” she muttered and shook her head.

“Excuse me?”