Christmas Is for Lovers: 6 Hot Holiday Romances

by Box Set

  The security guard laughed, but the sound was bitter. “Do you actually care about him? I saw another guy leaving your room doing up his pants yesterday when I watched the cameras. I thought you were different from the other hussies, but it turns out all women are whores, just like I thought.”

  “What? I don’t understand.”

  “It wasn’t his coat, and there is no new body. I saw how you both reacted when you saw the coat on the footage of Carl. It was so funny how worried he got.” He let out a hoot of laughter. “I knew if the room service tray didn’t get me in your room, telling the story about the coat would. Even if you’re a whore, I think deep down you care about Rider a little. Am I right?”

  “Of course I care about him!” For the first time since realizing who Barry was, Trish’s concern shifted from Rider to herself. “What do you mean by saying all women are whores? Why are you in my room?”

  “You still haven’t figured it out?” He grinned. “So much for you being a hotshot lawyer. You have all the evidence right in front of your face, and you still haven’t connected the dots.”

  Trish took a step away, trying to decide where she could run. “You’re the one who pushed Carl overboard and killed Sara.”

  Barry clapped his hands slowly. “Bravo. Took you long enough. I can’t tell you how fun it was watching the horror on your face when you reviewed the camera footage. I wanted to spend a night with you right then and see how good of a screamer you were, but I thought you’d be true to Rider, which meant you’d be off limits.”

  “I am true to Rider,” Trish protested, edging slowly toward the bathroom. If she could lock herself into it, she might have a chance at screaming loud enough for someone in the hall to hear her and get help. If only she hadn’t left her phone inside the nightstand. Then again, who would she call? The captain must be in on the murders, or at least turned a blind eye to what the head of security did in his spare time.

  “If you were true to Rider, why did that guy leave your room with his pants undone?” Barry asked.

  “Thomas? He left the way he did because he’s a pig.” Trish realized she might have a chance at saving herself if Barry realized she didn’t fit whatever his criteria was for killing people. “He and his wife were blackmailing me and Rider. I lured him here to get the proof I needed to protect Rider from having his life ruined by them. Thomas had a misconception that I invited him for something else, and I didn’t exactly give him time to get his clothes in order before I threw him out.”

  “Oh, so you’re a cock tease, just like that Sara woman?” Barry cracked his knuckles on each hand while advancing toward her. “I taught that bitch a lesson, and I’ll give you the same one.”

  Trish screamed and raced for the bathroom door, struggling with the handle. Just as she got it open, Barry’s fingers closed around her hair and he yanked her to the center of the room.

  “You can try to run, bitch, but you have nowhere to go. Your little boyfriend stopped watching your room after that other guy came here. Guess he doesn’t like whores either.”

  Damn. If Rider wasn’t keeping guard on her, she probably didn’t have much chance for rescue from outside. Barry was like most criminals she’d known who were truly guilty, though—especially the ones who thought what they did was justified. He wanted someone to know about his ‘good’ deeds.

  Although her heart hammered inside her chest, and she felt like a caged rabbit in front of a man craving stew, she forced herself into her courtroom persona. “Why kill Carl? He wasn’t the whore, Carrie was.”

  The back of Barry’s hand slammed across Trish’s face.

  Stars exploded in her vision, and she dropped to the bed, clutching her head. Refusing to let out so much as a whimper, she sat back up, fighting nausea as she pushed herself toward the top of the bed and blinked to clear blood that dripped into her eye from her brow. “I guess you don’t want to talk about this? I figured you’d want me to understand why you had to kill.”

  His eyes narrowed, but then he shrugged and plopped onto the bed next to her. “It’s not like we don’t have time. The boat won’t reach the port for another nine hours. As long as you slip into the ocean before then, it doesn’t really matter when we finish up here. It’d be nice to talk to someone.”

  Yeah, sure. He could totally trust her, because no matter what he admitted, he planned to kill her. Trish realized even if she convinced him she didn’t fit his model for who he should kill, she was as good as gone anyway.

  But she had to try. She’d never know if she and Rider could have a future together if she didn’t get herself out of this situation.

  “Right,” she agreed. “We have all the time you need to get this off your chest. Besides, I’m a defense attorney. There’s nothing you can’t tell me that I won’t understand.”

  His brow wrinkled. “Can whores understand this need I have to protect the world from them? I’m not sure you can.”

  “I’m not a whore,” she said softly. “I love Rider, and he’s the only man I ever want to be with again. If you’re going to kill me, can you at least let me leave him a message? Let him know that I do love him, even though he lied to me.”

  “He lied to you?” Barry seemed caught off guard. “But he seems like such a decent guy. Is he a whore too?”

  So, apparently, men could also be whores in Barry’s mind, even though he’d asked why women were. Perhaps that was why Carl had to die. Still, if Barry killed her, she couldn’t let him think he needed to move on to Rider next.

  “No, he’s not,” she hurried to explain. “He lied to protect me, but I didn’t want to believe that. See, I had a guy cheat on me to end my last relationship. When I found out Rider was lying, I didn’t care at first that he did it to keep me safe. I thought he was out for himself.”

  She’d thought about that a lot over the past few days. It was just now that she really realized the truth. Rider was the man she’d always thought he was. And now she’d put herself on Barry’s kill radar, and she’d never get a chance to tell Rider the truth.

  Barry eyed her, his gaze boring into her as though trying to skin her alive with a laser-like stare. “But you invited that other man here and let him take his pants off.”

  “To protect Rider.” She had to think fast. She’d sent the video to Lucy and asked her sister to keep it safe, but Rider needed it to protect himself. “Can I show you what happened in this room when Thomas was here? I took a hint from you and videoed the crime.”

  “With your phone?”

  She nodded. “It’s in my nightstand.”

  “I’ll get it,” he decided. “I don’t want you trying any funny stuff, like calling for help. No one can save you from the fate you brought down on yourself.”

  Rider sat at the bar with Carrie, slinging back another shot. For people who didn’t know better, they’d think Carrie and him were a couple. Patrick had disappeared to the casino again, and Rider knew Carrie was afraid to leave him on his own.

  “You can go be with Patrick,” he said, not for the first time. “I’m not going to do anything stupid.”

  “You’re doing something stupid now,” Carrie said. “Like sitting here drinking instead of telling Trish how you feel.”

  He shook his head. “Trish knows how I feel. I left things up to her. I mean, shit, I told her I loved her! What more can I do?”

  “Show her,” Carrie said. “Just like you tried to do in the beginning by taking things slow. You were the perfect gentleman. Go to her now.”

  “I can’t. I told you what I did.”

  In fact, he’d told Carrie everything, including his past. Carrie had been just as understanding as Trish had appeared to be. Rider finally realized he’d spent his life running from a past that no one blamed him for. And thanks to Trish and the video she’d made, he didn’t even have to worry about Stacy Baker letting the information leak. Trish managed to do everything that he’d wanted to accomplish, all with one little video.

  “She’ll forgive you
,” Carrie insisted. “I’ve seen the way you look at each other. It isn’t a cruise fling like I have with Patrick. There’s something real.”

  Rider nodded. She wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know. “I’ll talk to her,” he lied. “You go find Patrick and have fun. I’m taking off when we get to Florida, going back home. I can’t figure out who’s killing people here, and I can’t force Trish to forgive me. It’s time to go face Stacy Baker and quit my job. Maybe you should get off the boat too.”

  “I’ll think about it.” Carrie scooted to the edge of her barstool, leaning over to kiss his cheek. “Don’t lose my number, and when you and Trish get married, I’d better get an invite to the wedding.”

  “You’ll be the first person we tell,” he promised.

  As she disappeared out the door of the bar in the direction of the casino, Rider caught the bartender’s eye. “Give me another, please.”

  He wasn’t drunk enough to stop hurting yet. Hopefully, he could get there before the bartender cut him off.

  Chapter 27

  Barry set the phone on the bed between them. “So you really weren’t servicing that old dude. Sometimes it’s hard to tell on the security cameras what’s going on. I thought you were cheating on Rider.”

  “I was protecting him,” she said. “And my sister. Here’s the deal—if you’re going to kill me, you have to make sure Rider gets that phone so he can keep Thomas’s bitchy wife off his back and protect my sister. Just because I’m dead, that doesn’t mean Thomas didn’t still harass me. I know Andrew Lutz will fire his ass with proof of the man’s wrongdoing. I mean, that’s outright sexual harassment. The only reason Mr. Lutz hasn’t done anything to this point is because there haven’t been complaints against Thomas. His wife makes sure of that, from what Rider said, by blackmailing the woman Thomas tries to get with.”

  Barry stretched. “You’re certainly taking this whole thing in stride. Aren’t you going to scream and beg for your life like Sara did?”

  “Would it change your mind?”

  “Well, no, but it makes things more fun.”

  Trish allowed her lip to twist upward, showing her contempt. “Why kill Sara? She never did anything to you. Neither did Carl, for that matter.”

  “I see everything that happens on this ship,” he said. “Carl ditched his best friend to hook up with a woman Bill was obviously smitten with from the moment he spotted her. I was doing Bill a favor by getting Carl out of the way. It would have worked if you and your PI pal hadn’t gotten involved and insisted Carrie was in some sort of danger.”

  “But why isn’t she in danger?” That had Trish confused. How did Barry decide who his so-called whores were? Carrie had slept with at least three people on this ship that Trish knew of, and who knew what she’d done in the last few days since Trish hid away in her cabin.

  He snorted. “I don’t go after blondes. Waste of time. They can’t help themselves from being whores.”

  “Okay...” If only she hadn’t dyed her hair before the trip. She wouldn’t have been worth his precious time. “How long have you been doing this?”

  “Making people disappear who need to go?” He shrugged. “A few years.”

  “And you’ve never been caught?” She shook her head finding that hard to believe. “None of the clues you leave have ever come back to bite you in the ass?”

  “What clues?” he asked sharply.

  Trish realized he didn’t know they’d found the life vest closet where he killed Carl and possibly others. The camera still hadn’t been functional when they explored that hall. She had to play stupid. Maybe Rider could still stop this maniac with the help of the FBI. But not if she accidentally let it slip that they knew about the room.

  “Leaving yourself visible on the cameras,” she hurried to explain. “Obviously you like leaving a record of what you’ve done. You even left a mess in Sara’s room and some blood on her bed. You were so meticulous about cleaning the bathroom from what Rider said. I can’t imagine the blood on the bed was an oversight. You left it there on purpose.”

  He shrugged. “Even if people are whores, I think their families deserve to know that something probably happened to them. I’m helping out society by weeding out the bad ones. I’m not a monster.”

  “So, you called the FBI for real?”

  “Sure did,” he said. “Of course, with Rider hot on my trail and trying to figure things out, I deleted the tapes of Carl’s final moments and went back to clean Sara’s room. I can’t continue my services if I’m locked up.”

  “You really think you’re helping people, don’t you?”

  Barry looked at her, cocking his head to the side in apparent puzzlement. “Of course I’m helping people. Why else would I do this?”

  “Because you’re a sociopath who likes to kill,” she said bluntly. “The only time you really feel alive is when you’re taking life from someone else, right?”

  “You know, it’s too bad I have to kill you,” he said. “You really get me. No one has ever understood before when I tried to tell them why I have to do this. In fact, Sara just screamed louder. Got me over excited and I killed her quicker than I wanted to. The only thing that made it good was knowing you were on the other side of the wall thinking she was having sex.” He chuckled, obviously feeling a portion of the happiness he’d experienced while taking Sara out.

  It was time to stop being so understanding. Trish had him relaxed now, and he thought she was going to let him kill her without a fight. While it was true that he blocked her path to the room door, if she could distract him long enough to slip past and get into the hallway, someone would be able to help her. Barry couldn’t take on everyone.

  She tugged at the collar of her shirt, drawing his eye to her chest as she’d hoped. “Well, since you can talk with me, let’s keep this going. What is it that you’ve always wanted? What is the purpose of all this? The real reason, not telling me you’re doing a service for society.”

  Barry stayed silent for several moments, simply looking at her chest. Finally, he blinked and shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t have what I want. I knew from the time I was a kid that I wouldn’t get the life others have.”

  “Come on,” she begged, praying he’d only hear what he wanted to hear in her voice and not realize how scared she truly was. “Tell me. You can trust me, Barry. I’ve helped a lot of people like you beat murder convictions. I understand men like you.”

  “I want to feel alive,” he said. “You’re going to help me with that the only way anyone can. We’re done talking.”

  He reached for her, but Trish was ready.

  She sprang to her feet, catching him off guard. Screaming her head off for help, she rushed to the door, praying someone could hear her. It was early enough in the evening that people should be in the hallway. “Help me! Help me!”

  She reached the doorway, still screaming as she lunged for the knob.

  “You bitch!” Barry’s large hand, closed over hers, yanking it from the doorknob.

  He crushed her fingers beneath his, causing Trish to scream out as her bones crunched together.

  Trying to block out the pain, Trish twisted away from him, wishing she had been the type of girl to get into more fights in her lifetime.

  She rushed for the doorway again, knowing her only hope was to escape.

  The next thing she knew, he yanked her hair so hard that she flew backward, feeling some of the strands rip out as he spun her around and pushed her to the floor.

  “Stop!” She screamed. “Someone help me!”

  Barry’s booted foot came at her, slamming into her throat.

  Trish gasped for breath, gagging and choking. The fear she’d been holding at bay since Barry entered her room rose up to overwhelm her. She was going to die.

  Chapter 28

  Rider stumbled down the hallway, still pissed that the bartender called security and threw him out. It wasn’t his fault he’d taken a swing at the jerk sitting at the end of
the bar. The man was from the singles’ cruise and said what a hot ass Trish had. How could Rider ignore that?

  All the booze flowing through his bloodstream probably didn’t help matters, but Rider didn’t care. He’d kick anyone’s ass if they looked at his woman. Carrie was right. He and Trish belonged together. Other guys didn’t get to treat Trish as though she were a slab of meat being served up for them to drool over.

  He stopped in front of Trish’s door, wondering if it was wise to follow Carrie’s advice now that he had half a bottle of whiskey in him. He should have come to Trish earlier, got down on his hands and knees, and begged for forgiveness. Would she even listen to his drunken slurring?

  Maybe he’d just pass out here in the hallway, that way she wouldn’t be able to avoid him in the morning when they stopped over in Florida. If she planned on flying back to Sayle, he was going to be with her, whether she wanted him there or not.

  He loved her. That had to count for something.

  Banging on the door, he called, “Trish, open up. I can’t handle this anymore.” It made him proud that his words hardly sounded slurred at all. He could pull this off.

  A muffled-sounding thud came from inside the room as his only answer. She was definitely in there.

  “Come on. I need you, Trish. I’m going crazy without you. I know I screwed up, but forgive me and let me show you how much I love you.”

  Another thud came from inside, and Rider thought he heard a soft scream. It was so quick, he couldn’t be sure.

  “Trish?”

  Trish twisted and turned, trying to get away as Barry once again closed his fat fingers around her throat. Had Rider even heard her scream?

  Barry grinned from his position over the top of her body on the ground. “Shhhh... No noise now, sweetheart,” he whispered. “We wouldn’t want that man of yours finding us, or I’ll have to kill him too. Is that what you want?”