by Lisa Plumley
THE HONEYMOON HOAX
by
Lisa Plumley
Smashwords Edition
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previously published by Kensington Publishing
Suite Temptation
Stacey Ames is single again, and determined to stay that way. But her newlywed pals have other plans for her—starting with giving her the key to a luxury honeymoon suite for an all-expenses-paid vacation in Las Vegas. There's one catch: she'll have to pass herself off as a bride. Stacey accepts. And she's luxuriating in the complimentary bubble bath with a glass of complimentary champagne, when there's a knock on the door...
Oh, no! It's her bridegroom. Otherwise known as Dylan Davis, her former flame, six feet of charming, disarming, and downright sexy male. Dylan's determined to win her back in a high-stakes game of love. But Stacey doesn't want to play...or does she? Gentlemen, place your bets....
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Copyright © 2012 by Lisa Plumley
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, then please respect the hard work of this author by purchasing your own copy. Thank you!
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USA TODAY best-selling author Lisa Plumley has delighted readers worldwide with more than three dozen popular novels. Her work has been translated into multiple languages and editions, and includes contemporary romances, western historical romances, paranormal romances, and a variety of stories in romance anthologies. Her fresh, funny style has been likened to such reader favorites as Rachel Gibson, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, LaVyrle Spencer, and Jennifer Crusie, but her unique characterization is all her own.
To sign up for new-book reminder e-mails, read first-chapter excerpts, catch sneak previews of upcoming books, and more, visit www.lisaplumley.com today.
Lisa also writes cozy mysteries as Colette London. Her Chocolate Whisperer series (featuring chocolate expert—and amateur sleuth!—Hayden Mundy Moore) kicked off with Criminal Confections and now includes Dangerously Dark, The Semisweet Hereafter, and Dead and Ganache, all from Kensington Books.
Visit www.colettelondon.com today to find fantastic chocolate recipes, sign up for new-book reminder e-mails, and catch sneak previews of upcoming books in the Chocolate Whisperer series.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter One
Note from the Author
Email Reminders
What People Are Saying...
Series Books by Lisa Plumley
Complete Book List: Lisa Plumley
Cozy Mysteries by Lisa Plumley (writing as Colette London)
Complete Book List: Colette London
THE HONEYMOON HOAX
by
Lisa Plumley
Chapter One
It wasn't every day a girl checked into the honeymoon suite of a posh hotel.
Especially alone.
Sucking in a deep breath, Stacey Ames paused beneath the neon-studded entrance of the Atmosphere Hotel. Like everything else in Las Vegas, the massive concrete piazza bordering the hotel's drive popped with thousands of flashing lights. Never mind that it was only four o'clock on a sweltering Friday afternoon in August. The illusion of glamour, Stacey supposed, had to be maintained at all hours.
Maybe all that mood lighting would perk up her sun-starved complexion and wilted hairstyle. Something sure had to. After more than five hours spent driving from her cousin Janie's wedding to the hotel, she felt about as glamorous as a wrung-out washcloth. Except maybe a little less colorful.
Behind her, tires squealed against the pavement. Stacey glanced backward long enough to glimpse her red rented Honda Accord skid around the corner toward the hotel's hundred-acre back parking lot. The poor car all but spun on two wheels, thanks to the valet's energetic driving.
She'd have to check her rental car agreement's insurance provisions, just in case Mario Andretti, Jr. got too carried away. Making a mental note to do that when she got safely to the honeymoon suite, Stacey picked up her two hastily-packed suitcases, shrugged her purse higher on her shoulder, and girded her courage. Time to get on with the charade.
It'll be fun, she told herself as she pushed through the hotel's heavy glass doors. A three-day weekend of sun, fun, and fulfilling family obligations. Every girl's dream getaway.
Good thing they had free drinks at these places.
Frigid air blasted her the instant she stepped into the hotel's lobby. So did a cacophony of jangling slot machines, murmured voices, and what sounded like a watered-down version of one of those Fifties' crooner's songs. Muzak. She hoped they weren't featuring a similarly-orchestrated One Hundred Greatest Romantic Hits For Lovers in the honeymoon suite. It just might be the thing to make her end this sham, promise or no.
Stacey glanced down at her clothes, suddenly feeling more self-conscious than she wanted to be about her cutoff jean shorts and plain white T-shirt. She'd dressed for a road trip, not a honeymoon masquerade. Why hadn't she thrown on something else before leaving Phoenix this morning?
Because she hadn't planned on being drafted as a bride for a weekend, that's why. Cheering herself with thoughts of soaking in a hot bubble bath until she turned pruney once she reached the sanctity of her room, Stacey crossed the lobby to the hotel desk and plunked her bags onto the slick marble floor.
The immaculately-coiffured woman behind the desk glanced up. "May I help you?"
"I have a reservation," Stacey said, trying to ignore the way the woman's curious gaze skimmed over her casual clothes. "It's, ahhh, registered under the name of Parker. Robert and Janie Parker."
The woman swiveled in her chair, frowning slightly as she typed in the names. Suddenly, she beamed up at Stacey. "Oh! The honeymoon suite. How exciting for you. Congratulations!"
"Thanks." Please just give me the key. Don't ask any questions, Stacey prayed. Please, please, please. How like Janie it was to ask her, possibly the world's worst liar, to take her place at the hotel.
It would be a miracle if she wasn't found out before sunset. Then the people at the hotel would tell Aunt Geraldine her niece had tried to pawn off her wedding gift on somebody else, and she would get mad at Janie. Janie, when she got back from the Bahamas with Richard, would get mad at Stacey for bungling the whole thing. Before long, none of the family would be speaking to each other. For the sake of the promise she'd made to her cousin, Stacey had to get through the weekend with her real identity undiscovered. She'd just have to find a way to pull it off.
"Married." The desk clerk sighed, and her eyes went dreamy, just like Janie's did when she spotted a shoe sale. "You must be thrilled," she chirped, going back to the terminal in front of her. "I got married just last June."
Pushing buttons, she described her bridesmaid's dresses, the flowers, and the wedding toast the best man had made.
Stacey nodded and smiled, doing her best to gush right along with her. It was just her luck, to be checked in by the hotel's talkiest, cheeriest employee. A woman like this was meant to work at Disneyland greeting little kids, not working at one of Las Vegas's newest hotels.
Still chattering, the woman rifled through a pile of room keycards, then selected one and started handing it to Stacey. With her hand midway there, she stopped.
"But where's the happy groom?" she asked, frowning toward the hotel's entrance, then at the conspicuously empty area surrounding the reservation desk.
"Oh, ahhh ... " Think, dummy. Nothing came to mind. Why hadn't she planned for this question? Stacey gestured vaguely toward the bank of glass doors leading outside. "He's, ahhh
—"
"Getting the rest of your luggage?" the woman finished. She waved her hand and smiled conspiratorially. "I always pack too much, too. Mark—that's my husband—well, he says you shouldn't bring more than you can carry yourself, but that's ridiculous, don't you think? How would I ever bring what I needed then?"
"Right," Stacey said, giving her what felt like a completely inane grin. She picked up her suitcases again and nodded toward the keycard. "I'd better just go on up without him, I guess."
"Oh!" The woman tittered. "Sorry. Here you go!"
She held out the magnetized card that allowed entry into the hotel's suites. Stacey reached up to take it, forgetting the suitcase in her hand. It swung forward and thunked into the front of the desk with an awful hollow clunk.
"Whoops!" Keeping her gaze fixed on that keycard, Stacey turned her suitcase sideways over the desktop, trying to pry her sweaty fingers loose. Between the awkward angle she held it at and the weight of her purse swinging from her shoulder, she couldn't manage it. An instant later her purse slipped, yanking her arm downward. Her fingers opened, her suitcase swung free ... and shot straight at the bellboy behind the desk.
"Oh!"
"Ooof." He caught it with both hands, looking surprised.
The woman behind the desk stared.
"Sorry," Stacey murmured.
Not again. Despite her mother's frequent assurances she'd outgrow her tendency toward ... awkwardness, somehow that hadn't ever happened. Even at twenty-eight, she was still bumping and dropping things as often as ever. The tendency seemed to get worse any time she was with an appealing man, and had already led to several rather hazardous dates.
Luckily, the bellboy wouldn't be putting the Calvin Klein guys out of business any time soon. He was safe.
She snatched the keycard, retrieved her suitcase with thanks to the bellboy, and made her getaway before it was too late. So much for starting off on the right foot.
"Quit worrying," Dylan Davis said, speaking into his cell phone with one hand and steering his jeep through the bumper-to-bumper Las Vegas traffic with the other. "I said I'll handle it."
On the other end of the line, his friend Richard sighed. "When I asked you to do this," he said, "I didn't know things had gone sour between you and Stacey. Janie told me all about it. You—"
"Everything will be fine," Dylan interrupted. Ducking his head, he frowned through the windshield at the highway exit sign flashing overhead. "The Atmosphere, you said?"
"Yeah. Janie's aunt booked us into the honeymoon suite for the weekend as a wedding surprise."
"Some surprise." Or it would have been, if the newlyweds hadn't already paid for a trip to the Bahamas themselves.
But their loss was his gain. Thanks to the generosity of Janie's Aunt Geraldine—and her yen for surprises—Dylan was about to have a second chance with Stacey. He'd blown it the last time. He didn't mean to make the same mistake twice.
He grinned and steered the jeep toward the next exit. At the rate cars crawled off the highway toward the Las Vegas Strip, he'd be lucky to get there in time to spring his own surprise much before sunset.
"Get on that plane with Janie and get going, you worrywart," he told Richard. "I'll handle everything here."
"That's what I'm afraid of," Richard said. A muffled thump sounded on his end of the phone line, then bumping. A second later, Dylan heard something scrape across the receiver, then Richard's voice saying, "Okay, okay."
If he knew Janie, she was giving her new husband an earful. Patiently, Dylan nestled the phone between his ear and shoulder and eased his jeep down the off-ramp. Heat shimmered from the asphalt, and cars whizzed past in the right-hand lane, streaming toward the turn that led to the surface streets.
Nothing like Vegas in the summertime to make a person appreciate air conditioning, Dylan thought, reaching over the stick shift to adjust the vents. The only thing hotter than the desert city in August was sex in the desert city in August. Ideally first thing in the morning. Ideally fresh from the pool. Ideally beneath a big, sweeping ceiling fan.
Who was he kidding? Ideally with Stacey—any way she wanted it. He'd hang naked from a trapeze at Circus Circus if that's what it took to get her to give him a second chance.
The phone crackled. "Listen," Richard said, loudly, as though he'd returned his full attention to their phone conversation. "I gotta go. But watch yourself out there," he went on. "If you screw up and break Stacey's heart again, you'll never sing bass in this town again."
Dylan grinned. "Janie's parting shot, I presume?"
"Mine, too. You know how—"
"Quit worrying," Dylan said, frowning at the brake lights shining at him all the way to the stoplight. "Stacey's a big girl. She can take care of herself."
"Like hell she can," Richard returned. "Especially when it comes to you."
"What am I, the Terminator of romance?"
"According to Stacey, yeah."
"She'll change her mind," Dylan said. God, he hoped she'd change her mind. He said his good-byes to Richard and Janie, then plopped his cell phone onto the jeep's passenger seat. Its occupant, Ginger, sprawled across the upholstery with about as much canine grace as usual. He gave her a pat.
"You know, for a girl dog, you don't have much feminine mystique," he said, scratching between her furry, perked-up ears. She sneezed, quivering with the joy of being the center of attention as she rolled over so he could rub her belly. Dylan rubbed absent-mindedly, his thoughts turning to Stacey.
Now there was a female with feminine mystique to spare. He hardly ever knew what the hell she was thinking. He had to be insane to jump back into the three-ring-circus that was dating Stacey Ames.
On the other hand, he'd be even crazier not to.
Grinning, Dylan turned onto the next street, his gaze darting toward the bright red spire of the Atmosphere Hotel rising above the Las Vegas skyline. Stacey didn't know what she was in for. But he was going to love showing her.
In the honeymoon suite's pink marble bathroom, Stacey slipped deeper into the hot, lemon-scented bathwater she'd drawn, feeling her muscles relax for the first time since she'd stepped into the church for Janie's wedding this morning.
What an adventure that had turned out to be. First Janie had burst into tears at her bachelorette party the night before, thanks to Stacey's brilliant idea to have a male stripper dressed as a police officer come to the door and pretend to arrest the bride. Then at the wedding, Janie had had the train of her wedding gown ripped off, thanks to Stacey's spotting a cute usher and accidentally stepping on it.
By the time Aunt Geraldine had presented the bride and groom with their surprise wedding gift—a whole month after they'd scrimped and saved for a nonrefundable trip to the Bahamas—Janie had had all she could take. She'd run from the room wailing, leaving Stacey to explain away her trauma as a case of newlywed nerves.
And to step in and solve the problem.
Now here she was, chest-deep in a bubble bath foamy enough to get lost in, in a hotel suite bigger than the whole closet-sized apartment she lived in back in Phoenix. You know, she thought, sculpting herself a new pair of forty-four double-d's with the suds, this might actually be fun. A little relaxation, a little honeymooner champagne, a little time spent poolside ... yessir, she could get to like spending a weekend in Vegas.
It wasn't likely she'd be able to pay for a vacation like this on her modest pharmacist's salary. Not for a long time, maybe not ever. As long as she was there, she figured she might as well enjoy it.
Stacey raised her foot from the water and examined it. Yep, just about wrinkly enough. A few more minutes soaking, then maybe she'd get dressed and head down to the casino and try her hand at a slot machine or two.
The phone jangled. Luckily, hotel patrons in Las Vegas apparently felt it imperative to remain connected at all times. Beside the neatly lined-up toiletry bottles on the pink marble vanity stood a cordless receiver. Dripping, Stacey rose from the tub and leaned halfway out to answer i
t.
"Oh, Mrs. Parker!" yelped the woman from the front desk. "I hope everything's all right with your room. Is everything satisfactory? Do you need anything?"
"Everything's fine," Stacey replied. As soon as I hang up, I'm throwing the phone out the window. "Thank you for calling. If that's all, I'll just—"
A giggle came from the receiver. "I just wanted to give you a little advance warning, in case you wanted to, you know, change clothes or something. I mean, no offense or anything."
Stacey recalled her shorts-and-T-shirt getup earlier, and gritted her teeth. It wasn't as though people ran around in evening gowns here, for Pete's sake. She hadn't looked that bad. Listening with half an ear, she murmured, "Uh-huh."
Water puddled onto the plush pink rug beneath her left foot. Frowning at it, Stacey balanced on the foot that was still in the bathwater so she could shake herself dry on the left side, at least.
"He's on his way up," the woman from the hotel desk said on the other end of the phone. She lowered her voice to a girlish whisper. "I just gave him his keycard a few seconds ago." She paused. "Whoops! There he goes into the elevator."
"What?" Stacey lowered her leg back to the rug, still poised between the tub and vanity but too confused to move. Goosebumps spread along her arms and speeded toward her toes. "You gave who a keycard?"
"Why, your husband, of course."
"My husband."
Silence. Then, tentatively, "Yes, your husband. Is there ... a problem?"
Her husband? But Richard and Janie were already at the airport, waiting for their honeymoon flight. Who in the world ... ?
