The Honeymoon Trap

by Christina Hovland

  He had a lot of time to think last night.

  He didn’t want to be her boss. A partner made more sense. The way he’d been looking at the whole situation between them was wrong. With him as her boss, it couldn’t work. But he wanted to be with her, not just temporary. He wanted her to be his partner.

  In business and life.

  He’d get her a real ring this time. His mother’s engagement ring.

  Selfishly unwilling to think about what his mother would have said about how badly he’d screwed up with Lucy, he’d left her letter on the counter. Now, the last words his mother had written to him were ashes in Camelot, opening nearly a decade of regret so deep it could swallow him whole.

  But he had Lucy.

  She had worn a ring once for him. He’d ask her to wear one again. This time there would be candlelight and roses and promises he would keep forever. I love you. He swallowed the words, unsure if she was ready to hear them.

  “No one’s ever stood up to my parents like that.” She twisted the pillow behind her and flinched.

  “Do you need something for the pain?”

  “I’m good.” She bit her lip between her teeth.

  He didn’t buy it. This must’ve reflected in his face because her expression hardened.

  “Will, serious.” She untangled her fingers and patted the edge of the bed. “I’m fine.”

  He still wasn’t buying it.

  She couldn’t be fine.

  He stood and leaned a hip against the bed.

  The expression that passed across her face punched him in the gut.

  “Luce. I’m so sorry. About what happened with the picture, and the name, and the story. I am so, so sorry.”

  God, he could suffocate in her and not even care. The woman was in a hospital bed, had been through hell, and he wanted nothing more than to ravage her senseless.

  She fidgeted with the blanket covering her legs, unable or unwilling to meet his gaze.

  He gestured to her waist. “Does it hurt?”

  Stupid question. Of course it hurt.

  She shook her head and scrunched her nose. “Stings mostly.”

  His throat worked against the convulsions of a cough building in his chest. The coughing fit overwhelmed him.

  “Will?”

  “I’m okay.” His vocal cords felt like they’d been scoured with nails.

  Her gaze finally caught his. “I never told you thank you. Last night. For everything you did.”

  He would throw himself in front of a train for her, just to have her look at him like she did before he’d found the photo. Used the horrible nickname.

  He was so far gone for her. “I’d do it all again for you. But I’d do it better.” Hello, cheesy. A dash of carbon monoxide poisoning clearly fried his brain.

  “You shouldn’t be sweet to me,” she whispered.

  “Why’s that?”

  “We need to talk.” She glanced at her hands on the bed.

  He tensed. Four words that held a promise he absolutely wouldn’t like what came next. “About what?”

  “Before you got home, before the fire…” Her hands shook. Not a good sign. “I got a call from an affiliate in Ohio…” She moved her gaze to meet his. “They have a job opening, and they want me. I…I’m going to take it.”

  A weight pressed against his chest, and it had nothing to do with the smoke from the night before.

  “You know this thing between us isn’t permanent,” she whispered. All the fight seemed to drain out of her. “I think it’s best if we both move on.”

  He could not accept that.

  Arms crossed, he blew out a breath. “It started to feel pretty permanent when I fell in love with you.”

  When I fell in love with you… The words were an anchor holding them in place. Hanging in the oxygen. Ready to devastate.

  “People don’t love me, Will. I’m not that kind of person.” She glanced away because apparently the floor tiles were suddenly interesting.

  “What kind of person is that?” He ruffled a hand through his hair.

  She opened her mouth and closed it again. Cleared her throat and tried again. “The kind people love.”

  “Didn’t get that memo.” He searched her face but couldn’t find the sliver of a future he’d hoped to find there. “I do love you.”

  Her expression softened slightly. “You only think you love me. It’s just an illusion.”

  She said the words, but her eyes didn’t match them.

  He cleared the smoke from his throat. “I want to be with you.”

  She moved her hands away. “Will, it didn’t work. It won’t work.”

  He stared at her, unable to speak. She was leaving.

  Unbelievable.

  He tore his eyes from hers and rose from the bed, pacing to the window to put space between them. Distance, so he could think straight. He wasn’t enough.

  “Will,” she said, “please say something.”

  The door creaked open. “Blood pressure check,” the nurse called from behind the curtain. She yanked it open and wheeled in the little cart.

  “I should, ah, go. Check in on some things.” William did what he did best, put on the mask, shut down emotion, and left without a backward glance.

  “Will…” he thought he heard her say softly.

  He couldn’t be sure, and he didn’t care.

  …

  William’s world crumbled around him. He slipped past a doctor into the elevator. His head throbbed like someone had dropped-kicked it into a professional soccer match.

  He was losing Lucy.

  He’d said he loved her, but it wasn’t enough. What he experienced last night was a trip through purgatory. Now he was officially in hell. A cough racked his lungs as the elevator chimed at her floor.

  The doors slid open, and he moved to exit when Teresa stepped in. She glanced up and jerked to a stop.

  “William.” Her eyes glistened with unshed tears, and she wrapped her arms around him.

  He let her. If he was in hell, he might as well embrace it. Seemingly on their own, his arms wrapped around her as she squeezed tighter.

  “So worried. I call, and you are not here. No one knows where you are. We hear you are in the fire and nothing else.” Her accent was heavier than normal. She leaned back and tapped his cheeks with her soft hands.

  The doors slid closed again, cocooning them in the small cab of the elevator.

  “I got out okay.” His attempt at a reassuring smile clearly failed. “I’m fine.”

  She studied him. “You are not fine,” she announced. “We will have tea. Talk.”

  “I—”

  “Enough.” She raised her palm to him. Teresa was apparently done with his avoidance. “We are family. Families have communication.”

  Yes, she was through with his dodging. She had used the tone she’d perfected when he was a child and she was his nanny. That tone she’d used when he’d gotten caught stealing extra peanut butter cookies in the middle of the night. They’d had talks then, too.

  But that was before his mother died. Before Teresa married his father, thrusting their betrayal into light.

  She pushed the button for the first floor and gripped his hand as though he were a five-year-old again, ready to bolt.

  “Your father, he is at the police station asking for information about you. He worries.” She dialed numbers on her cell phone and pressed it to her ear. “Hello? Yes, he is here. No…I don’t know… Yes, of course I will.” Her face softened. “Ti amo anch’io.”

  Of course she loved his father. They’d been married for years. Still, hearing her say the words grated against his loyalty to his mother. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. She clicked off the phone and shoved it in her purse as the elevator opened at the first floor.

  “Where are we going?” He really should get back upstairs. Then again, if he were going upstairs so Lucy could put the final detail on her breakup with him, he might as well take his time.
>
  “To talk.” She jerked her chin toward the hospital cafeteria. He followed. When they arrived, she ordered tea for herself. He ordered nothing, so she ordered coffee for him.

  They sat in a corner booth. He stared at the black sludge in his cup.

  “How could you do it to her?” he whispered to the sludge.

  Teresa lifted his chin with her fingers, so their eyes met. “Do what? To who?”

  “You and dad, together. How could you do that to my mom?”

  She shook her head, her thick black curls bouncing with the movement. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Do what to Patricia?”

  “The messing around.” He glanced down again.

  She leaned forward, her elbows on the table. “Mess around? I don’t understand this?”

  “Your affair with my father.”

  There, it was out.

  Teresa gasped. “Affare.” Her face gentled. “This is what you think? This is why you do not come home? William, look at me.” He did, and she continued. “We did not. Never. Your mother was my friend. The best one. I would never…”

  They were silent for a moment.

  “We were with her when she died. Your father, he struggled with this, and he worked all the time. It is a hard thing to let someone go. I know this. From my first husband when he passed. It took time, but your father, he came home, and we were both there in the big house. We found comfort in each other. Comfort turned to love.” Her dense accent thickened.

  “You were with Mom? While she was dying?” He had to know she wasn’t alone in those hours.

  Teresa’s eyes misted again, and she squeezed his hand across the table. “With her when she died.”

  She had been there.

  William swallowed the perpetual guilt at his absence when his mom had needed him most. “Tried to get back. I didn’t have enough time.”

  “She knew. Your mother was very smart. She understand. That’s why she wrote the letter for you, so you know she understand.”

  William cleared his throat from emotion and residual ozone. “Didn’t read it. I was finally ready, and then it burned. Last night in the fire.”

  Teresa removed her hand from his and rested it on her cheek. She spoke under her breath in rapid-fire Italian. He couldn’t keep up with it all, but she did use the term “idiota” along with his name multiple times, so he got the idea.

  Finally, she closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against them. When she blinked them open, she spoke English again. “She was too weak, your mother. So, I write the letter for her. She told me what to say.”

  William couldn’t breathe for a moment. “You know what it said?”

  Teresa leaned forward against the table. “She is sorry for the words the last time you talk, and she is proud of the man you become. She say, she leaves you time to prepare before you run her company. Your father, he never wants to be in broadcasting. This is her family company, her dream. She hopes when you are ready you could be successful with Crestone, and your father, he can do the things he wants to do. He loves the boats with the sails. What do you call them?”

  “Sailboats?” William asked.

  “No, the other, the cat-a-something?”

  “Catamaran?”

  She gave a quick nod. “Yes. He loves them. We move to the ocean so he can sail. Your mother, she made a plan so he can do this.”

  William scooted his cup away, unable to speak. The years of worry that had rotted inside were now exposed. “Why did he fight so hard against me?”

  “Your father, he is a hard man. You miss her funeral, our wedding. He loves you, but worries you aren’t ready. He sees now. You are. Your mother, she trusted you. She loved you. Your father sees this, too, and he lets go now.” Teresa wiped her tears on a handkerchief embroidered with poppies.

  “Thank you,” he rasped, and another round of coughing started.

  “Something else is wrong,” Teresa announced when he caught his breath.

  Lucy.

  Teresa didn’t miss much. He had forgotten that about her.

  “Lucy’s leaving.”

  “That girl I met? Where is she going?”

  “Yeah. She has another job offer. She’s taking it. I messed up. It’s done between us.” He gripped the handle on the mug.

  “You love her. I see this when you are together.”

  “She’s still leaving.”

  “When you love someone, you come back to them. She is young, you are young…you don’t know this about life yet.”

  “That’s not how the world works, Teresa.” His head started to throb in earnest, and not from the fire.

  “He turns thirty, thinks he knows everything,” she said to no one in particular. Then she said directly to him, “You trust me before. When you were a child. Trust me on this. You apologize, and you prove your love. If she loves you back, she’ll return.” Teresa raised an eyebrow at him. “Come to dinner with your father and me. No more excuses.”

  She stood and raised her arms with a little wave for him to hug her. He did. And he didn’t let go.

  “Thank you,” he whispered into her hair.

  “You need red wine for that cough.” She gripped his shoulders and looked up at him. “And soak some sage leaves in the hot water, add some honey. It helps, too.”

  “Wine and sage. Got it.”

  “And dinner. You come to dinner.”

  “Wine, sage, and dinner. Okay.” He squeezed her hand.

  When she smiled, it hit him straight at his heart. He’d missed her. Missed that smile.

  “Now, walk me out. You’re a gentleman.”

  “I’m a gentleman,” he parroted.

  “This one”—she jerked her thumb at him—“always so smart.”

  He hugged her against him, and then he walked her to her car.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Lucy had no place to go. Her house was probably still smoldering. She let out a long breath and raised the head of her hospital bed a bit more.

  “Do you have any eights?” Reuben asked from the chair he’d pulled up beside her bed. An impromptu visit would’ve normally cheered her up, but right now everything was wrong.

  “Go fish. Any twos?” Lucy replied absently.

  He handed her the two of clubs. She added the card to make a stack of twos and tossed them on the table. “You’re a guy, right?”

  “That depends,” he replied. “Any aces?”

  “Go fish.” Lucy scowled. “What does it depend on?”

  “Your question.”

  “I figured you might have some insight into the male mind.” She organized the cards in her hand, rearranging them by number. “Any queens?”

  His poker face remained in place. “Go fish.”

  “What do you think it means when a guy tells you he loves you?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “He want in your pants?”

  “No, for the purposes of our conversation, he’s already in… Okay, you know what? Never mind.” Lucy held up a hand.

  Reuben grinned. “William?”

  Yes, of course it was Will. “Maybe.”

  “Inappropriate for me to comment then.”

  “Okay, it’s not him. It’s a…I don’t know…a guy named Ernie.”

  Reuben folded his cards in his hand and leaned back in his chair, tapping the edge of the cards on the table. “Hypothetically, a guy doesn’t toss around the L-word without meaning it. Unless he wants in your pants. He’s already in? Nothing to gain. Any kings?”

  “Go fish,” she mumbled.

  “Still irritated at him?” he asked.

  “All my feelings are squished together. I don’t know what I feel right now.” She yawned and tossed the rest of her cards down. “Thanks for keeping me company.”

  His expression turned serious. “Lucy.”

  She raised her head to look at him.

  He smiled at her, a real, honest to goodness with teeth and everything smile. “Ernie
’s lucky.”

  Katie breezed into the room. “I’ve got it all sorted out. Come to the hotel with Jeff and me. I got you a room.”

  The new, way too perky nurse followed behind Katie, slipping papers into a folder with the hospital’s logo emblazoned on the front. “Discharge papers on the left, and these are your prescriptions.”

  Lucy vaguely followed along. Her gaze kept falling to the door standing ajar.

  No Will.

  Expecting him to come back was ridiculous. She’d ended it.

  “Let’s get you changed out of that gown.” The nurse clicked the bedrail down.

  “On that note, I will see you at work.” Reuben did a little two finger wave and slipped out the door.

  He was wrong. She wouldn’t see him at work. A call to her friend in Ohio that morning had confirmed she wouldn’t be returning to Crestone.

  The nurse helped Lucy stand, holding her good arm steady as the little rubber grippers on her socks hit the floor.

  “That a girl.” The nurse beamed at Lucy.

  Lucy forced a fake smile. The knot of fear tightened in her chest. Where the heck did Will go? With everything they’d been through, she never wanted to leave things like this. The bandage strained, and she winced, stopping to take deep breaths in an attempt to control the jagged ache.

  “You got this, Lulu.” Katie held the bathroom door open.

  Lucy slogged there slowly to change into sweatpants and an It’s a Confluence Thing T-shirt Katie had shown up with.

  “Do you want some help?” the nurse asked.

  “No, thanks.” Lucy tried to smile, failed, and closed the door.

  One glance in the mirror showed how right her mother had been. Her hair was atrocious. She didn’t normally have a ton of color in her skin, but right now she was straight up washed-out. Some of the medication they’d given her even made her cheeks swollen. The girl looking back at her looked like her old Lulu self.

  Do not process, Lucy.

  The nurse gave a light tap on the door. “I’ll run and get a wheelchair. Are you okay in there?”

  Lucy shook away the thoughts of bullies from her past. “I’m fine.”

  “Pull the red cord if you need help,” the nurse said, and the privacy curtain scraped across the track in the hospital room.

  Lucy quickly brushed her hair. She rummaged through the cabinet with one hand, but nothing worked as a tie.