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“Cami and I are not together. We were faking our feelings this entire time.”

“Faking?” Bailey asks, her voice taut as she looks between us, too. Cami stands quietly, now having wrapped her arms around herself, a more protective version of the arms-over-the-chest the rest of them are doing. “So, the cuddling, the snowball fight?”

“Fake,” I affirm, even though saying it makes my stomach feel sticky with dread. It feels like a lie, though it’s true.

“That kiss?” Gloria challenges, looking first at Cami, then at me. “When we saw the northern lights?”

I try to look at Cami, but she won’t meet my gaze. This morning, I would have said that was real, but now, across the room from each other, facing down the reality of the situation I’ve set up, I can’t tell. Cami won’t look at me. Won’t give me any sign about what she wants me to say.

“Fake.”

The moment the word is out of my mouth, I want to take it back. It’s not true. Everything else might have been fake, but that kiss was real. It was for nobody but the two of us.

“I can’t believe this,” Chris says, shaking his head, slipping out from his wife’s embrace and turning to leave the room. We all stand in silence, listening to his footfalls as they get further away.

Logically, I should have considered the fact that the truth might have come out. Should have run through the potential scenario in which I wouldn’t get to buy the company after all. But I was too confident. I never stopped to think about what it might feel like if someone found out about this lie.

If all these people had to face the fact that we’ve been lying to them this entire time.

This might have been the worst plan I’ve ever come up with.

“I, uh,” Gloria starts, shaking her head and rubbing her hand over the inside of her elbow. She can barely bring herself to look at me, and I realize it’s the first time I’ve ever heard the woman struggle for words. Shooting a quick, sad look first at me, then at Cami, she says, “I think it would be best if the two of you took the early flight out tomorrow.”

And, with that, Gloria turns around and follows her husband out, leaving us with the rest of the disappointed, angry Moreno family.

CHAPTER 26

CAMI

The intense swoop from being the happiest I’ve ever been to feeling the worst I’ve ever felt is not a happy ride to take.

Fighting tears, I turn and walk out of the main lodge the moment Gloria is gone, unwilling and unable to make eye contact with any of the remaining family members. I know they all hate me, and rightfully so. I’ve never lied to anyone like this before, never a lie that was so involved. So thorough. It’s not just a single lie; it’s a lie reinforced over and over again. Being a completely different person than I am.

It got to be so natural that I told myself there was nothing wrong with it.

Of course there was something wrong with it.

This is supposed to be a lovely Christmas vacation, and we ruined it for them. For the entire Moreno family. The kids will probably remember this forever. Will it affect their understanding of the holidays? Will they always worry that people are lying to them?

We tarnished what are supposed to be happy family memories for them. A once-in-a-lifetime trip. Now, when they look back on the first time they ever saw the northern lights, they’re just going to remember that they were being lied to the entire time.

And not even for a good reason.

Just so a rich tech guy could get his hands on another company. I can’t believe I went along with this, even though I told myself my reasons were good. I needed the money to take a step back from work, but how is that any different from Patrick wanting the toy company to expand his own success? If there’s ever a good reason to lie like this, money and acquisitions aren’t it.

My parents would be so disappointed in me.

Even my sisters, who generally support each other’s rights and wrongs, would agree that this was a major misstep. That I haven’t been acting like myself. That I should have thought about how this would affect the Morenos before agreeing to do it.

They might even have pointed out that Patrick, with almost no family and little to no Christmas spirit, almost didn’t know better. But I know what this holiday is about. I know a lie like this could put a black haze over the moment, on the day, on the entire trip.

This entire time, I’ve been thinking about how much I wish they were all here. Now, for the first time, I’m glad that my family isn’t here. I’m glad they weren’t present to witness that whole scene.

How humiliating.

I feel so guilty. It climbs up my throat and makes it hard to breathe as I hurry down the path to our lodge.

The worst part of it all wasn’t even the truth coming out or the mortification of everyone looking at me like I was nothing. The worst part was having to stand there while Patrick told them that nothing between us was real.