“What if I want to know those things?”
“Why?”
He gave me a wolfish grin and said, “It probably has something to do with that whole wanting-to-kiss-you thing.”
While that made me even meltier, the need for the ruse was gone. “You can drop the act. You don’t have to pretend to be interested in me anymore. I’m not a spy. There’s nothing you have to get out of me.”
“That’s not—” He stopped himself, shaking his head.
I crossed my arms, hugging my chest. “I mean, it was a good plan. Make me like you and then trick me into confessing. That alone should prove that I’m not a spy. If I had been, wouldn’t I have been more responsive to your overtures?”
“You’ve been pretty responsive.”
“I have not.” He had no idea how much I’d been holding in. I was about ready to pass out from the sheer effort of it.
Camden made a face I didn’t recognize. “You’re saying there haven’t been vibes between us?”
“There are no vibes here. This is a vibe-free zone.” I was totally lying. And the look on his face let me know that he knew that I was making excuses.
“So”—his voice took on that low, soft tone that made me want to collapse—“if I touched you . . . if I ran my fingers down your arm, across your hand, you would feel . . .”
It was as if he were actually touching me, and I could feel the phantom pressure of what he was describing, which sent my pulse hammering and my skin practically vibrating in anticipation. “I would feel nothing.” I had to choke out the words.
“The goose bumps on your arm say something different.”
So in addition to having perfect recollection, the man also had eyes like a freaking hawk. Fantastic. “I’m just cold.”
“We’re in Hawaii.”
I gulped. “Air-conditioning.”
“You’re pretty committed to this lie,” he noticed.
“I don’t do things half-heartedly.”
“I know”—he nodded, that sexy smile of his making me forget my own name—“and I wouldn’t mind finding out for myself how true that is.”
If I were Catholic, I’d have to go to confession for the kind of thoughts I was having right now.
When I didn’t say anything, he decided to make everything worse. “Do you know why I thought there were vibes? Or why I thought that I could guess what you’re feeling?”
My stupid face was an open book? I shook my head.
“I imagine that your heart beats faster when you’re close to me. That your mouth might go dry while you feel like your knees are going to give way. That you can’t wait to see me again. I can guess how you’re feeling because those same things happen to me.”
My only saving grace was that he was saying these words from a few feet away. If he’d been saying them with our bodies close, pressed against each other, there was no way I could have resisted him.
A door slammed farther down the hall, and the sound of it broke whatever magic he was weaving between us.
His expression turned rueful. “I don’t know what it says about me. That I’m so ready to believe what you’re telling me and ignore all the warning signs. How your and Sadie’s stories never quite match. Why you don’t have any social media. The things you’ve said since you’ve been here.”
My voice finally returned to me. “I knew you suspected me and I said some of those things just to freak you out.” Because I was annoyed that he was only spending time with me in order to expose me. “You aren’t going to be mad at Sadie, are you?”
Camden turned his gaze toward the floor. “I need to . . . process all this. I’ll see you later.” He got out his keycard and went into his room, leaving me alone in the hallway. I waited a few heartbeats—for what, I couldn’t have said. For him to come back? To tell me he believed me and everything was fine?
I couldn’t wait for him to cause the very drama Dan had been trying to avoid. I went into my room and saw a card on the floor. It was a handwritten note in calligraphy, inviting me to come to the west lawn at seven o’clock for a night of fun. I wondered if this was one of the things Troy’d had to go work on.
I took out my phone and texted Sadie immediately. I told her what had just happened with Camden and his spy theory （leaving out all the almost-kissing stuff）。 She seemed unperturbed and texted back, Great! with a thumbs-up emoji.
I was concerned—it was like I’d just dropped a possible dramatic nuke onto her big day but she seemed fine with it. I texted back, warning that he might be angry, and she just sent me back a grinning emoji.