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“Great,” Bethan made herself say, no matter what it cost to keep her voice even. “Backstory is locked in.”

And then Jonas was pulling up in front of the house in the wide, circular drive with a fountain in its center, and there was no putting it off any longer. Bethan needed to treat this the way she would any other op.And you definitely need to ask yourself why that’s a problem, she snapped at herself.

As soon as Jonas put the gorgeous little car in park, she threw open her door and got out, the dress swaying after her like a new kind of shadow. For a moment, the sense that she was a terrible fraud washed over her like a sudden spate of illness, but she fought it back, forcing her lips into a smile she didn’t feel.

Because there were eyes everywhere in her father’s house. There always had been.

“Welcome home, Bethan,” said a smiling woman Bethan had never laid eyes on before in her life as she bustled down the wide front steps to greet them. “I’m Charlotte, the housekeeper here. If you leave your bags and keys in the car, I’ll sort it all out. Let me take you and your guest to your room.”

“Your childhood bedroom, I hope,” Jonas said, with a low sort of laugh, very male and suggestive and not him.

But Bethan hardly had time to process before he slung an arm over her shoulders, hauling her up against his side as they walked.

“Oh my God,” she said, which was her actual reaction to both the display of Fake Jonas, who was some kind of a frat boy, apparently, followed quickly by her body’s insane reaction to thefeelof him.

First of all, he smelled good, which felt a lot like apersonal assault. His arm was very heavy, though deceptively lean, and the way he was keeping her against his side meant she could feel entirely too much of that brooding power of his that informed every muscle and sinew, no matter how languid he was pretending to be.

It was like being surrounded by him,drownedin him, when she had done her level best to stay as far away from him as possible since she’d moved to Alaska.

But she remembered his scent. It was like getting walloped all over again, with memories she refused to entertain. Not here. Not now. Not ever. Still, the hint of something evergreen and spicy tugged at her, and beyond it, him.

If safety had a scent, it was Jonas.

Damn him.

Her heart was turning somersaults in her chest, and Bethan almost disgraced herself entirely. She almost pushed away from him, jolted as if he were attacking her, or otherwise did something that would indicate they were faking intimacy—but she remembered herself in the nick of time.

Because the housekeeper watched, still smiling so politely. And maybe she really was just a housekeeper. Then again, maybe she was something else.

“I sincerely hope that I no longer have a childhood bedroom here,” Bethan managed to say with a light laugh. “How embarrassing.”

Jonas laughed again, and Bethan ordered herself to concentrate on her job, notscents.

Charlotte beamed. “Your parents have asked me to place you and your guest in one of the suites. It will be so much more comfortable for a party of two. If you’ll follow me.”

“Where are your parents?” Jonas asked in an undertone he didn’t do a whole lot to keep just between the two of them.

“The general will be flying in from Washington tonight,” Charlotte said briskly as she led them in through the front doors, then into the foyer. “Mrs. Wilcox will be ready to greet you in the greenhouse once you’ve settled in.”

Bethan was far too busy trying to focus on the job at hand with that arm still slung over her shoulders to do much more than make what she hoped was an assenting sound. Then, as they walked, she tried to imagine what this house looked like to Jonas. Whether in a tactical sense or otherwise.

It had always been fancy, and she didn’t try to convince herself otherwise, but it seemed to have grown exponentially more fancy in the time she’d been away. She’d seen her parents and her sister at various holidays over the years, but those gatherings usually took place at the family home in Virginia. This house was the one they liked to call their beach house, when instead, it looked like something that belonged in a coastal magazine. As a hotel.

There was the sound of things happening in different parts of the house, but though Bethan and Jonas exchanged a look, they didn’t investigate. They followed Charlotte down one hall, then outside along a porticoed walkway that provided shade but basked in the sea air. This was one of the newer parts of the house, built after she and her sister had graduated high school, but it matched so seamlessly with the rest that Bethan had to keep reminding herself that it hadn’t been here when she’d lived here. The Spanish-style architecture flowed inside and out as they walked past a garden here or a gathering space around a fire pit there. And each and every part of the house was specifically designed to take in as much of the sweeping views as possible.

“Here we go,” Charlotte said when they were inside again. She stopped at a door and opened it with more brisk economy than flourish. “Everything is ready for you. Please don’t hesitate to call if you need anything, from either me or any other member of the staff. Just dial zero.” She smiled again and stepped back. “I’ll have your bags brought right along.”

Once she left, Bethan wandered farther into the suite as if she really were in a hotel. Except the art here wassignificantly more impressive than anything you might find in a Hilton. There was an expansive sitting room that spilled out onto its own patio, with rolling hills and Santa Barbara below and the Pacific a dark blue presence far in the distance. To one side, through an arch that opened up into a short hall that seemed to exist purely for the purpose of letting in the sun through a skylight, was the bedroom. It contained a California king, a grand fireplace—as if it ever really got cold here—and two separate potential seating areas. The attached bathroom was suitably grand, including both a freestanding tub inside and a private hot tub outside. On the other side of the living area was a cozy little den, outfitted with all the entertainment devices a person could require and a small kitchenette besides.

When she turned back to the living room, Jonas was watching her. “You didn’t tell me you were raised in a resort.”

“That might just be the whole wedding thing.” He only stared back at her. “Okay, I think the intensity of the hotel experience today is thanks to the wedding, but yes, Jonas. If you’re asking, my father always had staff.”

“Maybe someday you and I can visit one of the places I lived as a kid,” Jonas said, and he was smiling, but she knew it was a fake smile. A fake smile he’d still made sure was edgy. “One time, when there was no money for food because they drank it away, my parents made us sleep in the car until payday. It was winter in Wyoming. Good times. Just like this.”

She wanted to jump all over that, but she didn’t. Because it was the first time he’d given her even a sliver of personal information since their doomed mission. And she saw the exact moment he was aware of it. His eyes got darker, which shouldn’t have been possible. He stopped pretending to smile.

Bethan didn’t pretend she knew how to process any of that.