"As rare as virga." I laugh, hoping I sound like an airy, no-worries-in-the-world gal instead of the squirming pile of asps in a pit. Something about the way he studies me makes me want to zip my skin tighter and rescind into my shell like a turtle. This won't do. This woman who wants to just let sleeping beasts lie. I know it in my bones that Carter Thebes is hiding something and if that something is to do with my sister's whereabouts, I'll do anything to dig, coax, or carve it out of him like I'm god damn Michelangelo chiseling David.

Hmm, David. I cast a look at his white shirt, oddly craving a glimpse of those chiseled abs. What am I doing? I have got to stay pro. I'm angry! I'm mad, I'm—I'm here for revenge if that's what I need to do...

"Viagra?" His tidy brows shoot up in amusement. I should have foreseen this.

"No." I smile. I know exactly what he heard. He probably heard the same thing we all heard when the professor said, 'Virga, ladies and gentlemen, is what we often call a dry storm...' but all we heard back then was viagra and dry in the same sentence, not to mention the other colourful words like 'shaft' and 'precipitation'. I can still recall the eruption of laughter in the lecture theatre when the rare weather phenomenon where rain or snow never touched the ground was introduced to us.

Virga. I want to say. Vir-ga! But the waiter comes by with our coffee and cakes and I stop myself. "I didn't ask for cake."

"It's here anyway." He seems utterly convinced that I love cakes.

I don't. My sis was the sweet tooth in the family. Not me.

I hold the plate up to the waiter. "Thank you, but I" I hate cakes. I'm... not a sweet tooth? I'm fasting? I'm... "still full from lunch." I turn to him and put on my most polite smile. "It was a sweet gesture though. Thank you."

He gives the waitress a curt nod. 'Take it away,' I imagine him saying.

"So, viagra?" He smiles, scooping a teaspoonful of cake into his mouth as if trying to convince me it's good.

Paired that with his sleek-backed, still-wet hair, and that semi-dry shirt, the move is entirely too sensual. For a moment I imagine I've walked into a men's cologne ad by accident. What's more ridiculous is that he pulls out the spoon, clean, delibrately slow, all the while pouring all his attention on me as if we're in the middle of foreplay and he's waiting for me to talk dirty to him.

Shit. I can see why Nina would often come home talking about him as if he were some hot-shot celebrity who'd just signed her boob!

I laugh. At the ridiculously filmy scene in front of me. At the ridiculous image in my head of ripping that damn shirt off him, while I say the filthiest things that come to mind. But mostly, at how well all this awkwardness is providing me a chance to nail my character as a carefree socialite. I am a goddamn heiress to a multimillion-dollar fashion house for all he knows.

So I laugh like the air-head I'm projecting, fully tilting my head back, a demure hand to my mouth so he can't see the entire universe down my throat—nobody needs to see that.

"Vir like fir, and ga. Virga," I say when I regain my senses, watching him swap the cappuccino in front of me for the latte in front of him. I take it this is my drink. "So what does a CEO do after work hours? Or is that also in the preview of the PA to keep on top of things?"

"You'll know soon enough." He throws me a devastating smile that lights up his pale brown eyes that all this time I'd thought were dark brown. If I was a naive girl sitting opposite him; hell, if I was Nina sitting across him, this would be the moment that begins the spiraling into day dreams about our futures together, however impossible it may seem.

But I'm no naive gal. At least not in real.

"Does this mean you've decided you want me?" I smile across the table at him, hoping it comes across as eager, because I am eager. Not to get him naked in bed but to get into his psyche; slowly worm my way into his life such that he's lulled into believing I have his best interest at heart, and hopefully then, he'll let it slip, the truth behind their month long disappearance, him and Nina's, and why suddenly, he reappeared out of nowhere, rushing down those wide steps of the courthouse, flanked by bodyguards.

Where are his bodyguards now? Did people really by his sob story of, "I'm baffled as you. One minute we were both there, for the annual realty conference, and then next, she's gone radio silent. Perhaps she liked it there and decided to stay? Who knows."

But I'm not convinced. Nina was always the more sensible, the more reasonable, responsible one. She would never just disappear while abroad, seeking a new life. She'd never to that!

My money is on murder. Maybe accidental manslaughter. Just another poor girl trapped in a rich man's snare. Maybe Nina got pregnant. I know she was keeping a boyfriend secret—don't know why. Ma and Papa aren't strict folks. But if she got pregnant, she demand things, like family...?

Maybe.

I twirl my latte glass once on the table out of habit—I like to pretend the pattern on the milk is actually swirling for real—and bring the drink to my lips, wondering why he thought a boring old latte would be impressive.

My first sip is just the foam, but I taste something surprising underneath. Hmm... I cast a look his way—that peculiar way he's studying me when he thinks I'm distracted is there again.

"You asked for a surprise," he says, waywardly.

That I did.

#

Half an hour later, with the rain all but a drizzle, I make some excuse—"My cat's probably shredded all the furniture because of the storm. I gotta go." I rise from my chair, hoping that I can make a clean break and leave. I don't know how a seemingly innocent interview turned into a coffee, which turned into a pseudo-date. But I'm done. I'm stuffed into clothes that hug my skin, my feet are killing me in these heels, and frankly, doesn't he have better places to be than with a potential future PA? Is this how he gets to them? Smooches them way before they ever step foot in that office again? It's definitely something new.

"I'll walk you." To my horror, he gets up with me. 

"To my home?" I stutter, holding his coat out to him. "Why?" Do you know how long it'll take to walk to my house from here?

"You live close by." He scrunches his brows. "Don't you?" He goes on to say, "Your resume," because I must have looked very confused. 

Ah. The resume. The highly embellished resume! How did I forget?

"No. It's okay. I'll be fine." I chuckle nervously. Partly because if I rock up to Neil's place with my highly-likely future boss, he's gonna kill me. And so much for my assumption that his ability to pay attention to lesser beings. How will I subtly probe him for the truth if he hires me?

"Don't worry. I'm not going to stalk you." He laughs easily, tucking the chair under the table like a damn fine gentleman. "There are rumours that building is up for sale soon. Some on the board think it'll be a good investment. This is purely selfish." He takes the coat off my hand and slings it over his shoulder in a fluid motion. "I'd love your insight on the neighbourhood while we walk. Unless this is too awkward for you, of course." 

"What's in it for me?" I smile back, trying to sound flirty and not at all nauseous. "

He watches me as if I'm some sculpture at an art gallery he's considering for his collection. "Take a wild guess," he says a moment later, that killer smile threatening to show again. 

"The job, of course?" I ask, a hundred percent confident that that is what he's talking about, so why do I feel like it was all innuendo and nothing else? Of course, he's talking about the job—right? Right?

"Lead the way." He steps aside, allowing me to pass him by. 

This must be his ammo. This, I'll disarm the poor women when they least expect it, and they'll blink up at me like deer in the headlights, and lose all common sense?

It has to be. 

#

"So? How did the interview go?" Neil steps out ahead of me into the backyard, carrying with him a chopping board, and the barbeque utensils while I carry the package of sausages, a can of sliced pineapple, one onion, and the bottles of mustard and tomato sauce.  

"I think the job's mine." I drop my haul on the outdoor table, already sweating in the heat. Blue sky as far as the sky can see. Not a damn hint of the clouds that rained on me yesterday. Speaking of which, every time I think back to last night, all I can see is Carter, as clearly as if he is standing before me every time I close my eyes. That wet shirt clinging to his contoured body; every ripple of his toned abs on display like a marble statue in a museum. I almost want to reach out and touch them, trace them. Carter Thebes. The name sounds so natural, so familiar in my mind. On my lips. Yet, it is a name I shouldn't take lightly.

He is the last person to see Nina alive. 

And I want to slap myself in the face and yell, 'Get a grip!'

"That's good. Just as we planned." Neil tries to start the barbeque but nothing happens. "When do you know for sure?"

"I'm sure this week. They wanted an immediate start." I grimace. Yes, I wanted the damn job, then I could squeeze the truth out of him once I can get within choking hold distance of him without the fear of bodyguards tackling me to the ground. But now that is almost a reality, I see a huge plot hole in my plan. It's all I've been thinking about since I waited him out in the lobby of Neil's building—because I don't live there—before heading home.

The damn plot hole. A hole I'm hoping Neil can help with. Again. 

"Dad said we'll have to change the cylinder on the barbeque. It's out of gas. There's a fresh one in the corner, over there." I start to peel the onion.  

"Too easy." Neil hitches up his shorts a little higher and crouches down to see about changing the cylinders. "So? Why do you look like you're about to tell me you want to skydive solo, without a dang parachute?" 

 "Because," I say slowly, cutting the onion in half and thinly slicing it so we can saute it for our 'gourmet' lunch. "We have a problem."

"What?" Neil stops what he's doing and looks at me. "He didn't recognise you, did he?"

"How?" I shake my head. "Nina and I aren't exactly lookalikes. Even people that know us hardly recognise us as sisters."

"You forgot." Neil laughs, finishes fitting the gas pipe to the cylinder, and rises to his feet. "He's seen you before. At their office Christmas party the year before last, before we joined the academy. Nina took you along with her."

"Oh, I forgot about that." I blink the burn of the onion fumes from my eyes. "But yeah, nah. He didn't seem to recognise me." Or I him. I must have been so drunk that night. 

"So what's the problem?" Neil reaches for the sausages from the table and I drop what I'm doing and grab his hand. 

"It's best I show you." 

I pull him into my bedroom and throw open the doors to my tiny, overstuffed closet as dramatically as I can so he understands the gravity of the pickle I'm in.

"This is who you made me for a day, my fairy godmother." I point at the outfit I've hung carefully on a hanger and by the hook on the inside of the door, and not relegated to the crush of my mediocre wardrobe. It's by far the best thing I own. Then I point at the rest. "But midnight came and went, and I'm me again. See the problem?"

"Ah." Neil rubbed his chin for a moment, staring at the wardrobe before nodding. "You need a longer timer." 

I scoff. "Either I need to win lotto, or you better tell me you're a real-life fairy godmother, because, I don't know how I can be this"--I point at the 'Avery Honey' outfit again--"every day until I get a confession." 

"You really think he has something to confess?" Neil side-eyes me. 

I nod. "You know Nina. She'd never take off like that. She loves us too much. She wouldn't do that."

"But what if she did?" Neil says, staring at my wardrobe. 

'But what if she did?' I blink at the wardrobe too, at what I wore last night to be Avery Honey, to ensure I got as close to Carter Thebes as possible. What if it was for naught?

Nah. Nina wouldn't do that. Maybe I would. But not her.

"And there's another problem?" I mutter darkly. "I may need to borrow your home one day." 

"Why?" I can feel him studying me from the corner of my eye. 

"Because he thinks that's where I live?" 

"And why would he think that?"

"Because he 'walked' me home last night." I turn to him sheepishly.

"He did?"

"He insisted." I slowly start backing out of the room, before he can squeeze out a confession of my own. "You said 'Have a Plan B ready,' so I had a Plan B ready."

"Anna!" He tilts his head. "What did you do?" He scrambles after me, back into the yard. "What do you mean you may have to borrow my home? Anna!" 

A/N: Checking in! How are you finding the story? What do you make of Avery and Colton so far? 😀

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