Hard to say, she thought, as she twisted her lips.

There was only one way to find out how things would go with him from here on out. She’d have to go inside and come face to face with him. She steeled herself and entered the building, but didn’t see Marcus. She waved at the temp at the front desk and rounded the corner, running into Joanie on her way to her office.

“There you are!” She grinned, her hazel eyes shining, her dark, curly hair bobbing as she tilted her head. “Clive told me all about it. You know he wasn’t supposed to be there that night, right? He wasn’t supposed to slip out, and accompany Marcus on a stupid, childish mission to spook you out of your fair share of the bet.” Her grin changed to concern, her eyebrows bending subtly. “You know I didn’t know anything about it, right? Why didn’t you call me this weekend? I just found out this morning, and it was filtered down from Marcus to Clive to me.”

Lily shook her head at Joanie’s machine gun chatter and gave her friend a nervous laugh. It was way too early, or Lily hadn’t had enough coffee, or something… She had no idea how to answer any of Joanie’s questions. She hadn’t thought of Joanie at all until she was standing directly in front of her.

“Sounds like you’re in the know,” Lily said with a wan smile. Surely Marcus didn’t tell Clive the one thing he promised not to. The sex thing. She’d kill him.

“Well, I guess the humiliation of getting scared out of the house by raccoons is salved by the fact that Marcus split the trip with you.”

Split…the trip?

“I mean, I’m not going to lie.” Joanie lowered her voice and took Lily’s elbow. A minute later they were standing in Lily’s darkened office. “The two of you together on this trip might be kind of awkward. Maybe you can just drink a lot of piña coladas and forget he’s there.”

“Good plan,” Lily said, pretending she knew what was going on.

“Hawaii will be worth any discomfort. It’s the least he owes you after sort of cheating to get it and sort of cheating to keep it.” She laughed through the next words. “Clive told me about the mask, too. You should have kicked his ass!”

The mask. Raccoons. Clearly, Marcus had come in first thing this morning and worked some damage control. Lily did her best to play along.

“I should have,” she agreed, a smile stuck to her face.

“Joanie!” Clive called, coming around the corner. “Oh, hey, Lil. Nicely done on snagging half the trip.”

“Hi, Clive,” she said flatly.

“Baxter on line three,” he said to Joanie. “I have a conference call with Ed in two minutes. Can you take it?”

“Got it, babe,” Joanie said, as Clive broke into a run down the hall. “Maxine Baxter is opening a new consignment shop. Wish me luck?”

Lily, head still spinning with uncertainty, flashed her friend a smile. “Luck.”

Once Joanie walked away, Lily stood at the threshold of her office, blinking at her wall calendar. What just happened? She was five minutes late and this place was practically vibrating with energy. One thing was for sure—she needed to find out what Marcus had said to Clive…and what he hadn’t.

Marcus’s office was across the hall and down from hers. He was out of his chair, hovering over the drafting table, which meant he had hooked onto a really good idea. She’d seen him like that before. When he was working through something, he couldn’t stay in his seat.

Maybe she shouldn’t interrupt. Then again, how long could she play dumb? Since their offices were on one side of the building and Clive and Joanie’s on the other, she didn’t bother closing the door when she came in.

She tapped on the wall with her knuckles. “Hey.”

Marcus lifted his head and turned to face her, his eyes hazy like he was still lost in thought.

“I can come back,” she shot a thumb over her shoulder to point behind her. “Just wanted to return your mug.” She placed the travel mug on his desk, her excuse for coming in there. Whispering, she added, “Didn’t think I should bring your T-shirt into the office. It’s in my car.”

“Okay.” He nodded, his expression unreadable. Gosh. This is…weird.

“Come here.” Unlike the last time he’d said that to her—low and sexy, right before she punched a hole in the floor with her foot—his voice was gentle and inviting. She stepped deeper into his office, which was huge, with a desk on one side, a drafting table on the other, and a set of large file cabinets holding his drawings and current projects.

When she reached his side, he swiped bits of eraser off the wide sheet of paper on which he’d been drawing. “What do you think?”

“Main Street Salon,” she read. A complete redesign. And it was gorgeous. Rather than being an open floor plan, now each sink and chair had its own partition—like a private room. “I like it.”

“There will be a closet here for the customer to hang their coat and purse.”

“It’s great,” she said, meaning it. “I’d get my hair done there.”

“We all will. The owner offered us a deep discount.” She glanced up at him and he winked. “She’ll keep us pretty for years to come.”

That smile again. She bit down on her lip, trying not to feel anything she shouldn’t for him. But she couldn’t help remembering the stubble against her nipples, the way his tongue felt gliding along her ear, the way he was demanding and sexy in the most perfect way…in the most unlikely place.

Say my name.

She cleared her throat and stole a peek behind her. Surely, Joanie and Clive were still on their calls. She kept her voice down anyway. “I ran into Joanie. She said she knew all about Friday.”

He turned his back to the drafting desk, leaned against it, and crossed his thick arms. “Not all,” he said.

“Care to tell me what parts?”

“I didn’t tell him we…” His eyes flicked to the doorway then back to Lily. “You know.”

Hearing him avoiding saying what they did would have been funny if she hadn’t been so relieved. “Good.”

His eyebrows drew together slightly.

“I assume you didn’t tell them about the voices.” She pursed her lips, then added, “The one you recorded or the ones we can’t explain.”

“Neither.”

He turned back to his project. “It’s not like anyone would believe us if we told them the truth.”

The truth. About the voices, the footsteps… The other thing. The them thing.

“Raccoons seemed to be the easiest explanation,” he said, palms on his desk as he studied the drawing in front of him. “Clive spilled the beans to Joanie about accompanying me to the house.”

“And Joanie knew about the mask,” Lily added.

“Traitor,” he said. Then he flicked his eyes over at her and added a sheepish, “Sorry about that.”

“Well. It’s over now.”

Something in his eyes darkened. She’d meant the night at Willow Mansion was over, but somehow it came out sounding like she meant the thing between them. And because that’s where her head was, she wasn’t sure what Marcus meant when he said in a wholly serious tone, “We’ll see.”

They shared a moment of silence. All she could hear was the soft hum of the copier running in the adjacent room. He stood away from his desk and rolled a pencil between his hands. “As far as the Hawaii thing, I meant it. If you don’t mind sharing a trip with me, we’ll split it. You can go as my plus one.”

A long flight. A long vacation. A shared room. All with Marcus. She tried to make it sound bad in her head, but it didn’t. It sounded fantastic.

“If you’re not comfortable with that compromise,” he said, “let me know and I’ll find someone else to go with.”

Jealousy spiked, sharp and angry. “Who?” she asked, the word coming out as barbed as the emotion pricking her.

He grinned, letting her know he’d set her up a little. “My brother would like to see the island.”

Dammit. She needed to chill out. And make up her mind. Either they were doing the them thing or they weren’t. Hawaii definitely sounded like a them thing.