Megan went beyond fuss and edged right into human torture.
A bouquet of black balloons.
Candles that wouldn’t blow out.
A six-foot rabbit belting out a singing telegram.
A T-shirt that read, I’m Not Old, I’m Chronologically Challenged.
“Any messages for me?” Rachel asked.
“No,” Megan said with a smile. “But I have something for you.”
Oh, no.
Rachel glanced quickly over one shoulder, then the other. She saw nothing suspicious, but that didn’t mean a thing. It could come from anywhere at any time, so she had to stay on her toes.
“Please, Megan,” she said. “I know it’s my birthday, but—”
“Hey, calm down, will you? It’s no big deal.”
That hardly made Rachel feel better. Megan thought a dancing chimpanzee was no big deal.
“Please,” she said imploringly. “Just tell me…” She took a deep, calming breath and let it out slowly. “Just tell me it’s not a stripper.”
Megan looked horrified. “You’re kidding, right? A stripper? Would I do something like that?”
The answer was an unqualified yes. A stripper. A guy with a boom box and a G-string beneath his tearaway pants, ready to bump and grind his way through a routine that would make Madonna die of embarrassment. Everyone would come out of their offices to watch the show, and she’d have to tolerate it or look like a bad sport.
That Walter allowed such behavior amazed Rachel. But it was just one more expression of his core ideology: the employees who played together stayed together, and if a few practical jokes masquerading as birthday surprises enhanced that mood, he was all for it.
Rachel sighed inwardly. What had happened to workplaces where people were stuffy and uptight and gave out birthday cards with rhyming verses that weren’t dirty limericks?
Then Megan reached for something underneath her desk, and Rachel braced herself.
“Here you go,” Megan said, and set a cupcake on the counter. Rachel held her breath, eyeing it warily. A cup-cake? Surely there was more to it than that.
“Lighten up, will you?” Megan said. “It’s way too small for a stripper to jump out of.”
True.
Rachel let out the breath she’d been holding. Well. That wasn’t so bad. A nice, conservative cupcake topped with white frosting and a single pink candle. That she could deal with.
“I know you said you didn’t even want a cake,” Megan said, “but everybody needs a cake on their birthday. Even if it’s a little one.”
“Well…thank you, Megan. I appreciate that.”
Megan motioned to the end of the reception desk. “And those roses are for you, too. They came while you were out to lunch. Aren’t they something?”
Ah. The flowers. They’d arrived. And they were something, all right. Just the kind of flowers sent by a man crazy in love with his wife.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Jack is very sweet. I’ve told him time and time again that flowers are a silly waste of money, but he won’t listen.”
“Too bad he couldn’t make it back to town for your birthday.”
“He tried to catch a flight out, but he couldn’t. It’s along way from South America, you know, and the access is pretty bad. He has to take a flight whenever he can get one.”
Megan rested her chin on her hand. “Wow. It must really be tough to have your husband gone all the time.”
Rachel let out a theatrical sigh. “I do miss him.”
“Easy to see why,” Megan said with a smile. “He’s gorgeous. Well, his picture is, anyway. Are we ever going to get to meet him?”
“Sure. Someday soon. I promise.”
Actually, the real answer to that question was Not in a million years. But Megan didn’t know that. Neither did anyone else at Davidson Design. And they never would.
Megan flicked a lighter and lit the candle on the cupcake. “Go ahead. Make a wish.”
That was easy. Rachel closed her eyes, then blew out the candle.
Megan leaned in close and whispered, “You wished for the promotion, didn’t you?”
Of course she had, but she didn’t particularly like Megan pointing it out.
Ever since her firm had won the bid to design a glitzy new hotel in Reno, she’d been evaluating her chances to become project manager. Her only real competition was Phil Wardman, a man with far less experience and technical ability than she had. But he had something she didn’t. Phil happened to be one of those backslapping, buddy-buddy kind of guys that Walter Davidson just loved. They talked sports, sometimes even played golf together, and more than once Rachel had seen them going out to lunch. Personally all that familiarity made her uncomfortable. After all, what did any of that stuff have to do with a person’s ability to do a job?
Over the next four days at the ski resort, she hoped to tip the scales in her favor, finding subtle ways to suggest to Walter that she really was the best candidate. In the end, she had to trust that any sane person would promote someone with qualifications over someone with schmoozability.
“Actually,” Rachel told Megan, “I wished for my husband to make it home in time to come on the retreat with me.” She sighed again. “But I’m afraid that’s not going to happen.”
“Maybe next time.” Megan punched a button to answer a call, staring pointedly at Rachel. “And then we’d actually get to meet him.”
Rachel smiled indulgently, then, gathering up her shopping bags, the flowers and the cupcake, went into her office. She deposited the bags on the floor and placed the roses on her desk—one dozen American Beauty roses that had cost way more than she ever should have spent. But they were exactly what her sweet, loving husband would have sent her.
Her sweet, loving, imaginary husband.
Rachel sat down in her chair and traced her finger over the wedding ring on her left hand, which contained a stone just big enough to be impressive, but small enough not to be ostentatious. They could do wonders with cubic zirconia these days. Unless somebody pried it off her finger and held it under a jeweler’s loupe, nobody would ever suspect that it wasn’t a real diamond.
And then there was the photograph, the one she and Jack had asked a passerby to take of the two of them on the Riverwalk in San Antonio. She’d had the photo enlarged, framed it and placed it on her credenza. And because she’d created just the right profession for Jack that explained why he was rarely in town, nobody got suspicious as to why they’d never met him.
The ring, the photo, and a flower delivery every once in a while—that was all it had taken for everyone here to believe that she was actually married.
Okay, so it was a little deceptive. But the moment she’d heard of the job opening at Davidson Design six months ago, she’d wanted it desperately. A small firm with a hot reputation—what better place to make her mark? Then she’d gotten word through the grapevine that Walter Davidson had a strong preference for married job candidates, a qualification that was a little difficult to acquire on short notice.
So she’d faked it.
In the end, she’d gotten a job she loved, and Walter Davidson had gotten a talented, dedicated architect, who was going to help him put his small but growing firm on the map. Nobody was hurt. Her plan had worked perfectly.
She sighed. Okay. There was one tiny little glitch. She’d underestimated the way she would feel every time she looked at that photograph.
She