The Honeymoon Trap

by Christina Hovland

  He needed to find something to do.

  The closet next to the bathroom held extra linens and pillows, a handful of paperback novels, and a stack of board games. He sifted through the novels—mainly mysteries he had already read and a few Stephen King books. The board games were pretty standard. Monopoly was his game. He could wipe the floor with anyone when he played, so it wasn’t fair to Lucy. Dirty Jenga. Now, that one held promise. The last game was called Confessions: The Ultimate Game of Getting to Know You.

  He’d found a winner.

  Lucy squirmed on the bed. He guessed she’d be awake soon, so he cleared the trays from the table, popped the top on a beer, and set up Confessions.

  The instructions were easy enough. It worked similar to poker. William was counting chips when Lucy sat up in bed, stretched her arms over her head, and yawned.

  “Hey.” She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and headed to the table. “What’s this?”

  “We’re playing Confessions.” He gestured to the chair across from him and resumed his counting.

  “What’s Confessions?”

  “A board game. Dammit, we’re short.” He glanced around the room.

  “What’re you looking for?” Lucy’s eyes were still hazy with sleep.

  “Something to use as chips. We’re short ten.”

  “What kind of chips?” She stretched again, clearly trying to test the limits of his sanity.

  “Like this.” He held up a couple of the poker chips.

  Lucy glanced at the table before heading back to the bed. She opened the nightstand and rummaged around for a minute before emerging with a purple box. Her hips swayed as she moved toward him to toss the box on the table. “These’ll work.”

  “These are condoms.” He shook the box so it rattled.

  She squinted at the box of condoms on the table. “They’re the right size, aren’t they?”

  He glanced down at his at-attention crotch. Uh. Yes, she was definitely testing the limits of his mental health.

  She absolutely could not be propositioning him. He wouldn’t say no, of course, but this felt like a trap. If it looked like a trap, smelled like a trap, and had a big ol’ latex lock on it, it was probably a trap. He lifted his eyes to meet hers.

  A blush crept up her neck. “Oh my God. I meant the size of the chips! Not…” Her face was full crimson now as she glanced at his inseam.

  “Why do you have condoms?” he asked slowly.

  She’d brought condoms with her. A whole, unopened box.

  “I don’t have condoms.” She was wide-awake now. Her eyes were huge, and her shocked expression was as if she’d licked a bacon-flavored sucker when she expected grape.

  “You gave me a box of condoms.” He held up the box.

  “They came with the room. I saw them when I put the menu away.”

  Okay, so she hadn’t packed condoms for their hidden camera honeymoon. He wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved.

  Disappointed. No question, really. “And they’re on the kitchen table because…?”

  Lucy pressed her hands against her temples. “Someone tell me I’m still asleep.”

  “Still waitin’ for that answer, Princess.”

  “They’re the same size as the chip thingies you need.” Just when he thought her face couldn’t get redder, there it went. “And I cannot be responsible for the things I do when I first wake up.”

  “So, we’re playing Confessions with condoms?”

  “I’m not playing a game called Confessions with you.” She sat in the chair he’d offered a few minutes ago and dropped her head to her hands.

  “You just threw condoms at me. Pretty sure we’re playing this out.”

  “This isn’t happening. I’m dreaming. None of this is happening.” She glanced up briefly before dropping her forehead to her palms.

  “Adorable.”

  “Am not.” She shook her head, still in her hands.

  “It’s cool. I’m down with condom Confessions.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Unless, you want to use them for a different game.”

  Lucy looked up just as he ripped open the box.

  Chapter Nine

  Lucy stared at the question on the card she held, a pile of condoms stacked in front of her. Her face burned with a combination of embarrassment and something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

  She’d been groggy when she had agreed to play a get-to-know-you game with the one guy she didn’t want to get to know. Once again, proving to herself she should not make grown-up decisions right after waking up.

  Why couldn’t they play Monopoly—a simple game with no personal sharing or latex?

  Lucy was awful at playing Confessions. She didn’t want to share anything, so she passed on all the questions. She learned William’s favorite color was brown, he grew up in Confluence, and his first kiss happened when he was ten, outside the Go-fer Food store.

  First of all, who chose brown as a favorite color? Second, how had she missed that he’d been raised in Confluence and his father ran Crestone before she’d made the plans to come here? Furthermore, who got their first kiss at age ten? No wonder he’d been such an esteemed tonsil-hockey player when she met him in Florida. With all those years of practice, he had already gone pro by the time he turned twenty.

  “I’m losing you.” William sliced through the silence.

  She squinted to focus on the question on the card. “What is the most important part of friendship?”

  He tossed a chip into the center of the table. “I’d like to hear your answer here.”

  Lucy tossed a chip as well. “You first. I’m calling.”

  “Honesty and loyalty.” He took a slug of beer.

  “You didn’t start with ‘I confess.’” She picked at the label on her barely-touched beer.

  “I confess honesty and loyalty are the most important part of any relationship.”

  “You sure?” Her heart skipped a beat as she waited for his reply.

  Honesty and loyalty hadn’t exactly been part of any of the relationships she’d witnessed him having in Florida.

  He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “Absolutely. You should match the confession.” He sucked down a gulp of beer.

  Unfortunately, her streak of not sharing couldn’t go on much longer.

  Lucy twisted the hair. “I confess I know a lot of people.” She glanced down at the table. “But I only have one real friend. She’s there when I need her, and I return the favor. So, to me, the most important part of friendship is being there when you’re needed.”

  From the moment Lucy had moved into the freshman dorm at college, Katie had stepped up to be her friend. When Lucy struggled, Katie was there for her. She’d helped Lucy lose the weight and introduced her to the painful reality of an eyebrow wax.

  William stared at her for a few beats. “Only one real friend?”

  “Honesty and loyalty are really your thing?” Lucy raised her eyebrow at him.

  Back when she’d known him before, she lived in a world of make-believe and hoped she was important to him. She had daydreamed of the day he would realize she was more than the chubby production assistant, and he’d give her some of that attention he’d reserved exclusively for the other women on set. Yep, she had crushed hard on him. Her heart broke that summer when he left, and she swore the next time she met a guy like William, he wouldn’t forget about her.

  He sat forward on his chair, leaning his arms on the table. “Did I do something to upset you?”

  Fine. So she was being a total grouch and scratching at old wounds to ensure they wouldn’t close. Eight years had passed. The statute of limitations on judgment for his past indiscretions was over. She wasn’t that insecure, shy girl anymore. Her past no longer defined her. He didn’t remember her, and it was better this way. Time to let it go and start fresh. “Sorry, no. Next question.”

  William read the next card. “If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would i
t be and why?”

  She sucked in a breath. Her parents weren’t the kind you talked about openly. No, they were the kind who left you with enough issues to fund the vacations of future therapists.

  “You go first this time.” William nudged her shin with his toe.

  “You didn’t add any chips,” she pointed out.

  “Let’s just answer the questions. We’ll get to know each other better. It’ll make the time here easier.” His dimples swept away her resolve.

  “I confess I would’ve liked parents who kept me around.” Where did that come from? Sheesh, yeah, it was true. But it wasn’t something she shared with anyone.

  “Your parents didn’t want you around?” Abruptly aware of his proximity, she glanced down to where his hand rested only an inch away from hers.

  “Mom and Dad are different.” She heard herself speak, but remained unclear which synapses were giving direction at the moment. “When they’re together, they want me around, when they’re in the midst of one of a thousand breakups, they pretend I don’t exist. They toss money at me. I stay away. A few months ago, they broke up again.” She’d refused to take anything from them this time around. This time around she decided to do things herself. Which is what landed her in Camelot. “We’ve only emailed a few times since. Last I heard, it’s looking promising they might reconcile soon.”

  Not that it mattered to her. Not really. She was done with that part of her life.

  “Siblings?” The slightest of movements brought his fingers even closer to hers, and the desire to trace the line of his gold wedding band nearly overpowered her.

  “No.” Thankfully, some part of her brain wasn’t focused on his proximity and continued to play the game. “You?”

  “No siblings.” He frowned. “Always wanted a big family, but that didn’t happen. Mom got sick when I was a kid. Cancer. She beat it. Couldn’t have more kids, so she threw herself into her work at Crestone. Cancer came back. She died. Dad married the housekeeper.”

  Whoa. “That’s awful.”

  “You have no idea.” His face went totally blank.

  “I met her at the coffee shop. Teresa, right?” Lucy asked.

  “Yeah.” He rolled his beer bottle between his palms.

  Right. Moving on. Lucy grabbed another card. “What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you?”

  William took another slug of beer.

  “You first,” Lucy said quickly.

  His face turned thoughtful. “I confess I was on a reality show once.”

  Lucy’s heart stammered. Of course she knew that. “Yeah?” The word came out breathy.

  “A Real World, Big Brother type show. They made me look like an idiot. I was a kid and I was naive, so I didn’t think. But I needed the cash, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. In hindsight, it was a bad decision that led to years of embarrassment.” Sadness oozed through his words, and he had the look of a man banished to Confession-induced purgatory.

  “I thought you were loaded. Why’d you need money?”

  The question apparently caught him off guard. “My parents shut off my trust fund. My mom was pissed at how I blew through cash. She was right. I get that now. I was stuck in Florida with Parker, and he had to get home for work. I got the casting call, took an advance, and sent him home with my payout. My mom got sick when we were filming. She died, and I missed her funeral because I didn’t get home in time.”

  William cleared his throat.

  “Then your dad married the housekeeper…Teresa,” she whispered. The beautifully sad Italian woman from the coffee shop Lucy’s first day at KDVX. She could relate to that type of thing… That’s the type of thing that tore her own parents apart again and again.

  “A slime-ball producer spliced together video of me that implied I screwed half of the female population of Florida, aired it on national television, caused a rift between my dad and I, and then my dad married Teresa.” He tipped his beer toward her. “Now, the production company is trying to convince me to do a reunion episode.”

  Lucy had apparently missed that invitation. But, then, why would they invite a lowly production assistant anyway? “Maybe you should do it?”

  “No way in hell am I opening myself up to that kind of embarrassment again.”

  “Will, hey, this is supposed to be fun.” She reached for his hand to give what she hoped was an innocent squeeze. She tried to tug her fingers away, but he held tight.

  “I confess Teresa wasn’t just the housekeeper.” His hollow words echoed through the cabin.

  “I think—”

  “When I was a kid, she was my nanny. She helped raise me… She was never just the housekeeper.” The pain of his father’s betrayal to his family flickered in William’s eyes.

  Silence stretched between them, but he still didn’t let her hand go. Lucy used to make him laugh and had prided herself on being exceptionally good at it. Right then, she wanted nothing more than to help him find his way back from whatever dark place had sucked him in.

  “I confess that this one time, on assignment, I threw a box of condoms at my colleague. That was pretty mortifying.” She rolled her eyes, hoping to diffuse the tension and lighten the heavy atmosphere.

  He slid his hand away and opened another beer for himself, tossing the cap into the trash bin. “That was pretty awesome.”

  “Wrong word. Humiliating is more accurate,” she corrected.

  “Luce, it was spectacular. And they’re multi-purpose if you change your mind and decide you want to play other games later.” His eyes moved over her in a way that was anything but innocent.

  Her resolve disintegrated on the spot, but she kept on.

  “I confess this other time I reported on location and totally rocked it. When I say rocked it, I mean I. Was. On. Fire. It’s such a rush being on live television.” She peeled off the rest of the label from her beer bottle. “And then a fly flew right into my mouth. I gagged and couldn’t finish. Somewhere, I’m on a Best of Bloopers reel, gagging and coughing up an insect on live television. I didn’t have a rooster collapse on me, but it was still holy-crap embarrassing.”

  After that, the station where she had worked stopped allowing her in front of the camera. They decided she wasn’t cut out for on-camera work and made it clear her employment was behind the lens. Which was why she’d ended up in Confluence.

  “You heard about the rooster, Luce?” he asked.

  “Everyone’s heard about the rooster.”

  That got her the dimples.

  “Next question.” She grabbed a card. He would not be getting her all mushy with the Luce business again. “Wild card. Ask any question.”

  “Sounds fun. I like to be wild.”

  Wasn’t that the truth?

  She snorted. “What were you really doing when you left earlier?”

  “I confess I had business to deal with.”

  “Two-part question.” She tossed the card on the table.

  “You’ve got to say that first.”

  “That’s not in the rules.” Not that she’d actually read the rules. But she was pretty sure it wasn’t there.

  More dimples.

  “What business exactly? Is it a news story?” she asked.

  He leaned forward so their hands nearly touched. “If I confess something to you, can you keep it to yourself?”

  She cocked her head to the side. “Did you do something illegal?”

  “No.”

  “That’s too bad. Your confession would be more interesting.” She tossed another piece of label into the pile littering the table.

  “Would you keep a secret if I did something illegal?” he asked.

  “That depends.” The small pile of shredded label grew alongside the stack of condoms in front of her.

  “On what?” When he tipped back his beer, the shirt he wore stretched taut across his upper body, giving her a view of the definition underneath.

  She parted her lips. He tossed her a questio
ning look.

  “What exactly you did. Hypothetically, of course,” she finally replied.

  His grin widened. “What illegal activities would you keep a secret?”

  “Let’s say you beat up a guy because he threatened a kid or a puppy. That’s you being a decent human being. So, I’d keep that secret. Now, if you killed someone, I’d be forced to call the police.”

  Dear Lord, just when she thought his grin was at its sexiest, it got bigger, teeth and dimples and all.

  “This is confidential. I trust you’ll respect the bonds of Confessions?”

  She nodded, mesmerized by all that was him.

  He leaned closer, and the heat from his golden eyes hypnotized her. Or maybe it was the heat from thoughts of how they could use the substitute game pieces. Either way.

  “I turn thirty in a few weeks. I confess that when that happens, I’ll inherit Crestone Broadcasting. The transfer of ownership involves a lot of phone calls and paperwork. I dealt with that today—the phone calls part.”

  Well, that wasn’t so big. Not murder big, anyway.

  Still, though, not small.

  Okay, crapola. This was huge.

  William would be her boss—a boss with access to her personnel file. A boss with the ability to call the shots with her career. She absolutely wouldn’t get involved with him. No way.

  “That makes you my boss.”

  “Not yet. Right now, I’m still a reporter on assignment with an adorable producer, which makes you kind of my boss.”

  “If I’m the boss, then why are you always so bossy? Huh?”

  He tangled his fingers with hers and stroked the sensitive spot between her thumb and pointer finger.

  He’s going to be your boss. He’s going to be your boss. He’s going to be your boss.

  Her breath hitched. “Three-part question,” she whispered.

  “Got a feeling no matter what I say, you’re asking anyway. Shoot.” He untangled his grasp.

  “Why do you call me Princess? Before you were messing around with the other names, but this one’s stuck. Why?”