by Hart, Hanna
If she was going to be his wife now, she had to make it seem believable to the public. This meant calling on old feelings to legitimize their love.
While the marriage didn’t feel real, she was going to make sure that the honeymoon was a genuine as can be.
Choosing a location was harder than she had anticipated. But only because, as usual, she and Ryder disagreed on just about everything.
“We’re going to have the best honeymoon possible,” Willow said, pacing around Ryder’s extravagant bedroom in his high-rise penthouse suite. “And where is the best honeymoon spot for newlyweds?”
Ryder shrugged, sitting on the very edge of the bed as he watched her walk the floor in an endless, oblong circle.
“Vegas?” he suggested.
“Ew!” she squealed. “Don’t be crass! We’re trying to fix your reputation, not ruin it some more.”
Ryder widened his eyes and then rolled them. “Paris?” he offered.
“Cliché,” she said dismissively.
He sighed. “Mexico?”
“Ugh. No, Ryder! If you wanted to go to a beautiful resort island, why wouldn’t you just stay here?”
Ryder hung his head and pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Clearly, I haven’t a clue. Why don’t you just tell me where we’re going then?”
“For a billionaire, you are marvelously uncultured. It’s depressing, really,” she teased. “France!”
“You said no Paris!” he laughed but looked defensive.
“But I did not say no to Chateau D'Hiver,” she said, tapping her finger into the air.
“Excuse me?” he said incredulously before his lips curved into a wry smirk. “Twelfth grade.”
“That trip turned us from friends to lovers,” she said, mimicking the voice of an old sage.
Ryder snorted, “We had been dating a year already!”
“Yeah, but you told me once that you realized you loved me at Chateau D'Hiver.”
Ryder swallowed. “That’s right, I did.”
“Yet, you didn’t say it until three months after we got home, at the lagoon.”
“And you said it all the time,” he mused.
“I am a flower, freely expressing my emotions,” she said in the light tease that she said most things—her voice going especially high-pitched. “I’m sorry that I can’t help being an open book, Ry. Unlike Stony McStone-heart over here.”
“Hey, I said I loved you, didn’t I?” he said.
“Yep.” She paused. “You sure did.”
Chateau D'Hiver was located in the Trois Valleés that offered more than three hundred and fifty miles of pistes. Or so their website said. When it came to a romantic getaway, Willow couldn't imagine anything more breathtaking than snowcapped mountains and bundling up in the common room of the ski lodge with a blanket.
She could already imagine herself parked in front of the immense brick roaring fireplace with a cup of coffee or a fantastic book and relaxing the night away.
Of course, being on a paparazzi-inspired vacation also meant she would have to schmooze it up with Ryder. This didn't seem to be a problem. As far as she was concerned, she and Ryder had sunk back into the deeply familiar banter they had back when they were seventeen.
Their relationship basically went as follows: Willow would bother or irritate Ryder with something, he would be snarky and grumpy, they would fight. But then she would say something so outlandish or charming that she would endear him to her and suddenly he would be entrancingly romantic. Fight over.
Faking their connection in front of the press wasn't something she had to worry about, because there was hardly anything to fake.
Except for the marriage, of course.
The thing that worried her was how easy it was to fall right back into the easy rhythm she and Ryder had created, even after all this time.
Willow worried what it would do to her heart. She had survived losing Ryder once, and she didn't know if she could do it again.
They still had yet to talk about their breakup, save for a few harmless jabs here and there, and Willow felt genuinely nervous at the thought of reopening old wounds.
“So, we’re going skiing?” Ryder asked, standing up from the bed and making his way into the expansive walk-in closet. He grabbed a square of blue and taupe luggage before carefully rolling his clothes up and tucking them into the open baggage.
“It’s perfect,” she said, staring skyward as if in a dream. “We can do a retelling of our high school days, how we fell in love at the ski resort, how it inspired you to tell me you were going to marry me after we got home, blah, blah, blah. The public will eat that up!”
“Uh, I hate to interrupt your retelling of our adolescence,” he laughed, “But, we stayed at the Les Menuires for fifty bucks a day. Not at a high-roller luxury chalet.”
“Twenty thousand a week, Euro,” she grinned.
Ryder’s eyes went wide with surprise at the price-tag, and he made a gasping noise. Then, comically, slapped his hand over his heart and fell backward onto the rug as though shot.
“That’s right, hubby,” she giggled, bounding over and perching herself on top of Ryder, play ‘resuscitating’ him. “Wake up!”
Ryder continued to play dead, though she could see an adorable smile crossing his lips that made her heart flutter.
Willow grabbed his sides and began squeezing the easiest and most intense spot for tickling Ryder Prescott, and he erupted with laughter, trying desperately to free her hands from his sides.
He did so only by pinning her beneath him and threatening to tickle her right back.
She raised her brows as if to say ‘Truce!’ as his hand hovered dangerously above her underarm, ready to pounce.
“No, no, no!” she laughed, rolling away from him and scampering quickly to the bed and pulling his blankets up close to her body.
“Ryder Prescott, if I have to spend an entire week confined in your company, you're at least going to take me honeymooning in style!”
“Fine,” he laughed, shaking his head. “Fine, fine, fine. Whatever my wife wants, she gets. Hey, it’s like a real marriage!”
“And of course, our honeymoon photos will be perfectly romantic for the tabloids and my paper. In fact, we should probably do a little charity work while we're there. Really sell the good-girl angle we're painting with me.”
“Little do they know, you’re a devil in disguise,” he mocked. “An annoying little devil perpetually dressed in neon.”
“Hey,” she said, mocking offense with her hand stretched out in front of her face. “I gave up my neon phase for the greater good, I’ll have you know.”
“How generous of you,” he smiled. “Just curious,” Ryder cleared his throat. “Doesn't this whole, pose for the camera stuff go against your whole code of ethics as a journalist?”
“Um?” she said in her usual high-pitch, “I agreed to marry you to help your career. Are you really going to slam me for my ethics?”
“No, I wasn't slamming you for it,” he shrugged. “It just doesn't seem like something you would ever agree to, that's all. Doesn't seem like something you would agree with.”
“Wow! I can't believe I'm getting lectured right now,” she snorted, “This is the last time I ever do somebody a favor.”
“Get a grip,” Ryder rolled his eyes and shook his head, waving her off. “Don't overreact like you always do.”
“Well, I'd hate to go out of character and disappoint you!”
“All I meant was...” he trailed off. “I guess I just wonder why you agreed to this.”
“Well,” she said and began to count on her fingers, “My boss told me to, and it also means a gigantic raise and a move to the richest island on the planet. And for a measly two years of marriage to you, I'd say that almost makes it a good deal!”
Ryder ran a hand through his thick hair, and she felt a flutter in her stomach.
“I think you wanted to see me,” he said with a flirtatious narrowing of th
e eye.
“Wha-” she stammered. “I think you wanted to see me!” Willow insisted.
She walked back over to Ryder's closet and began packing his luggage with winter essentials. Ryder peered over to see what she was doing and reluctantly came to help her fold.
“I think you planned this whole thing,” she played. “There's no way your parents just happened to find me out of all the floozies you probably dated. You sent them looking for me.”
“Oh yeah?” he said wryly, crossing his arms in amusement. “And why would I do that?”
She looked down at the red t-shirt she had folded into a square and picked it up. She threw the garment at Ryder, and he caught it deftly in his hand before another one tossed up and hit him in the face.
“Because you were never able to get over me,” she said simply. “You just can't live without me. I'm the one that got away.”
Ryder's smirk dropped. “You got that right,” he said, more serious now.
The pall hung in the air—the sting from a love gone by. Ryder looked suddenly hurt, and Willow felt like she was about to become defensive. Did he think she was the one who got away and not the other way around? It was only then that Willow realized they might not have the same opinion of why they broke up or who was to blame.
As much as she wanted to hear his thoughts on the matter, she knew no good would come of it. They were finally starting to get along. Why ruin it?
So, she changed the subject, and before long, the two were reminiscing about old times spent with their groups of friends. They talked about sneaking into private pools in Ryder’s neighborhood and building a life-sized sand castle on the beach one summer.
The more they talked, the more Willow blushed and giggled the way she did when she really, really liked someone.
She just hoped returning to yet another fond memory wouldn’t ignite the budding spark of romance she felt for Ryder. She was going to have to try her hardest to keep this arrangement strictly business.
Chapter Nine
Ryder
Ryder was on his honeymoon.
The pair had decided to head to the French Alps to enjoy the snow-covered hills and to show the public that they were the couple to root for.
He knew he should be focusing on Willow and their media frenzy, but he couldn’t help thinking about his honeymoon with Miranda.
Ryder enjoyed his first honeymoon—for a while.
He and Miranda had gone to Prague to see the sites and explore. They visited the Charles Bridge, toured castles, and saw the old town. They were both fans of architecture and history, which made the Czech Republic the perfect escape from island life.
But, by the end of the third day, Ryder realized he didn't feel the way he should about Miranda. There was something missing that he didn’t want to admit to himself.
Ryder met Miranda when he turned twenty-one, still within a year of his breakup with Willow. They dated on and off until he finally married her at age twenty-four.
He loved her. He was attracted to her, and he certainly liked having her around, but there was something missing in their connection. He'd lived with a pit in his stomach for the next three years, knowing he'd made a mistake, until the pair finally separated.
He didn't have to look back to see what was missing between them. He wanted Willow. Or maybe no one at the time.
Ryder had pulled away from Willow because their relationship and the restrictions put on it by his parents were becoming smothering. Willow's constant need became a heavy weight on him that he couldn't satisfy. The familiar look of disappointment on her face made him sick to his stomach. It made him want to see her less and less.
But then the reality of being without her, not by his choice even, was the worst pain he had ever experienced. Worse than his divorce.
“You up?” came Willow's voice as she entered the living room of their massive suite.
As they were in a honeymoon suite at the lodge, they couldn't exactly ask for a room with two beds. Being the gentleman that Ryder was, he gave Willow the king-sized bed and opted to sleep on the pull-out couch.
Ryder sat up on the couch and tossed his blankets down to his feet. “I am now,” he said sleepily.
“Okay,” she said. “Go get pretty.”
If this were the old Willow, she would have bounded onto the bed like some sort of adorable monster and insisted that it was time to get up and go skiing. She would have tickled and poked him until he bounded out of bed.
Then she would have chased him into the bathroom as he got ready and insisted that he put his best face forward for their ski trip today, which had been set up to be flooded with reporters and paparazzi so the couple could gain some positive media attention.
But this wasn't the old Willow.
She had been quiet since they got to Chateau D'Hiver, save for a few comments about the stunning mountainside and something about buying proper shoes just for the occasion. She hadn't even spoken to him on the plane. Instead, she wrote articles and upheld her deadlines to her boss.
“I think we need to clear the air,” he said slowly.
Willow turned her profile to him and kept careful eye contact as she walked over to the chair across from him and sat down.
“About what?” she asked.
“About us,” he said.
“What ever would there be to say about us?” she asked in a half-mocking tone.
“You seem a little cold,” he said with a shrug.
“That's because we're in the frosty mountains,” she said with a silly grin as she gestured to the snowcapped mountains just outside their window.
“I'm being serious,” he said, standing from the pull-out bed and maneuvering the plush mattress back into the oversized couch. “You were perfectly happy to talk your face off with my mother, but the minute we're alone, you're quiet as a mouse.”
“Quiet as a mouse?” she snorted. “My editor would kill you for that one. He hates clichés.”
“I hate stony silence,” he sighed, So, let's just get this out of the way.”
“Okay,” she said evenly. “I guess I just haven't gotten the idea that you're into this whole marriage plan.”
“What gave you that impression?” he said sarcastically. “Was it my constant protesting or the kicking and screaming down the aisle?”
Willow didn't look impressed.
“I mean, what do you want, Willow? It's weird, isn't it? My parents call you out of the blue and pay you to be my wife? It's odd. It's just, very strange.”
“It's very them; I'll give you that,” she said dismissively. “Look, I don't want to be the only one trying here. That's all. I want your participation in this, otherwise, the public will never believe we're happy, and this whole sham is basically for nothing.”
Ryder sighed. “Okay,” he said. “I can try to do that.”
Willow nodded and began to walk back into the bedroom, but Ryder called out, “Anything else?”
“Like what?” she asked.
“Anything else you think we should talk about? Bury the hatchet... find a way to, I don't know, become friends, or something?”
Willow tilted her head to the side and watched Ryder as he pulled on a gray sweater. “Friends?” she asked.
“Yes, friends,” he smirked. “Grab a cup of coffee, talk about life, tell funny stories. Friends. I'm sure you've heard of the concept before.”
“Oh, I've heard of it,” she said in her usual, taunting high-pitch. “I've just never heard of it with you.”
“You don't want to be my friend?”
Willow shrugged, but a large smile broke out on her face. “We can be friends,” she said. “But that means you actually have to speak to me; you know this?”
“I do know this.”
“And once you become my friend, that means that I’ll talk to you all the time and probably won't ever shut up,” she added.
Ryder nodded. “I know that, too.”
“Okay,” she said with a flirtatious s
mile. “Then we’re friends. But when I’m telling you a fantastically hilarious story, and you’re begging me to stop, remember that it was you who asked for this.”
That had been day two.
Chapter Ten
Willow
Chateau D'Hiver was breathtaking. The day-long plane ride wasn't the most charming thing Willow had ever experienced before, but she was thrilled to pull up to the gorgeous chateau set on the edge of an immense cliff in the French Alps.
The hills were snowy and awe-inspiringly stunning. Willow kept trying to snap photos of them with her phone camera, but the pictures that she took could hardly account for the depth and beauty of them in person. The skies were an impossible blue, and it was sunny every day, despite the cold.
When the two weren't they were enjoying time spent at the many Michelin-starred restaurants and swanky clubs offered by the chateau.
Willow was surprised when Ryder agreed to go to a nightclub with her, as he usually hated such things. Or at least, he did when they were younger. Half the fun of getting Ryder to do anything was the fact that he was such a homebody that it felt like a victory to get him to go out and socialize.
“You're saying yes, just like that?” she had protested when he first agreed to go.
“Is that a problem?” he said.
“No,” she shrugged. “It's just so much more fun when I have to twist your arm to get you to do something.”
“How sweet,” he teased.
The first few days at the chalet were just as she had planned. The two of them spent time skiing on the massive slopes and posing for photos and exchanging pecks on the lips for the cameras. She had to admit; it was strange kissing him after all that time. But, the reporters loved it, just as Willow said they would.
The NY Morning Star Daily had even sent one of its journalists out to cover the story.
The chateau itself was as luxurious as she had been promised. Their private cabin was bigger than her first apartment in New York. It was in a rustic-chic style, with steepled ceilings and gray wood planking the walls.
