by Lisa Plumley
“—serious?” she finished instead. “I suppose you want to be Richard?”
“Yeah. I talked to Richard and Janie before they left. I volunteered to help.”
I’ll bet. Breaking her heart once hadn’t been enough for him, apparently. What kind of weird ego trip was that?
He wasn’t getting a second crack at her. First she was getting him out of this room, then she was getting on with the honeymoon charade. By herself. Period.
Stuffing her hands in her pockets to keep from reaching out to steady Dylan, Stacey skirted past him. “I don’t need help. I was handling things just fine until you got here.”
She reached the suite’s sitting area, chose one of the austere white-upholstered chairs, and flopped on it. Ginger followed her. Naturally, so did Dylan.
He settled on opposite her and rested his forearms loosely on his thighs. The motion made her gaze wander over those hard-muscled legs, those lightly tanned arms…. Whoa. Forcing her gaze upward, Stacey met his eyes.
He grinned. The rat. He must have caught her gawking at him.
“Tell me that kiss didn’t affect you,” he said.
“It didn’t affect me,” she lied. Truth was, it was the greatest kiss she’d had all week. All month.
It was the greatest kiss, the only kiss, she’d had since their breakup, but Stacey was hardly going to admit that to him. The last thing she needed was to encourage a guy like Dylan, a guy who was even bossier than Charlie had been—and who was twice as hard to resist.
She was only just beginning to crawl out from under the dark, stifling blanket of her ex-marriage. Being married had sent her identity so far underground, just getting her own credit card had been an ordeal. She still didn’t own a car. After four years of gradually sliding deeper and deeper into Charlie’s life, her own interests seemed alien to her. So did making her own choices.
She didn’t need Dylan around mucking things up.
“It didn’t affect me.” This time, she dared to meet his eyes. They sparkled back at her, green and intelligent and filled with a good humor she longed to possess. “So you might as well leave. Satisfied?”
“Not yet.”
He leaned forward, making his meaning plain. Not satisfied…but he meant to be. And the thing was, she’d bet he’d satisfy her, too. It had been a struggle not to sleep with him before, when they were dating. She’d wanted to. But just when Stacey had decided to make her big move, Dylan had called it quits.
Now, alone together in a hotel room with no divorcée date protocol to put the brakes on things, who knew what could happen?
Why couldn’t she just be immune to him? It would make everything so much easier. But her stupid thumping pulse rate made a lie of her wish.
“I promised Richard and Janie I’d stay the whole weekend,” he said. “So you might as well accept my help. I’m not leaving.”
That’s what you think. Stacey opened her mouth to tell him so, but a strange scraping at the door made her pause. What if someone was listening? She could hardly be caught arguing with her “husband” on her honeymoon.
She peered around the gaily decorated cookies on the table. A long white envelope slid beneath the honeymoon suite door and dropped on the carpet.
Probably a room service menu or something, she decided. It gave her an idea.
“Why don’t we go out to dinner and talk things over?” That way, I can get you out of my room and out of my life. “That way, we can, ahh—”
“Don’t you want to see what that is?” Dylan interrupted, nodding toward the envelope at the door.
She waved it away. “Later. So, what do you say? We could, ummm, discuss strategy.”
He stared at the envelope. “It looks like a note. Are you sure?”
Geez, he was like a dog with a bone. Why did he always assume she didn’t know what she wanted?
“Positive.” Stacey fought an urge to glare at him. “Because if we’re really going to do this, what we need is a strategy. A honeymoon pretense strategy.”
Dylan raised his eyebrows. Stacey raised hers, too, trying to seem as though she actually meant to leave the hotel room with him.
“It might be important,” he said.
“Aaarrgh!” He hadn’t come to help. He’d come to drive her crazy. She stood, slapping her hands onto her thighs. Ginger bounded over, tail wagging.
“If you’re so curious, you go look,” Stacey said, glancing curiously at the dog.
At her feet, Ginger flopped both paws playfully onto the carpet and buried her muzzle between them. She peeked up at Stacey, her tail sweeping with impressive speed from her upraised waggling rump.
She looked from Ginger to Dylan. “What’s with her?”
“She thinks you want to play.” Silently, he mimicked her thigh slap. “I think she likes you more than me,” he added forlornly.
“Oh, I don’t know about that. You—” No. She wasn’t going to be nice to him. She had to stay on course. “Umm, what about dinner?”
As an answer, he went to the door and scooped up the envelope. It didn’t do much to tell her his plans, but it did give her an excellent opportunity to watch him unobserved. So she crouched down to pet Ginger and did.
He caught her at it just as she reached hip level. “See anything you like?”
What wasn’t to like? Rather than let him see the truth in her eyes—she did have some pride left—Stacey shrugged and flopped back into her chair. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.”
“Ouch!” Dylan shuddered, grinning as he handed the envelope in her direction. “You really know how to hurt a guy.”
“Comes from dating guys who stand you up and leave you with four pounds of steak from the romantic dinner that wasn’t.” She turned the envelope. Mr. and Mrs. Richard Parker, it read in flowery script on the front. “My next-door-neighbor’s dog was overjoyed, though.”
Frowning, Stacey slit the envelope. Out fell a glossy brochure, two pairs of tickets, something that looked like a detailed itinerary—and a note written on a piece of embossed stationery.
“Oh, no.” She turned over the brochure. The words Romantic Escapades leaped from the page in inch-high letters, above a picture of a carefree couple strolling hand in hand along the beach. Dropping it like the time bomb it was, Stacey picked up the letter instead.
Surprise! it began. Dear Janie and Richard…
“Oh, no. It’s another honeymoon surprise.”
Dylan leaned over her shoulder. His arm came partway around her to rest on her chair’s arm for balance. Even worse, his lips brushed past her ear. At the feel of their soft heat, a shiver raced through her.
Oh, boy.
“Aunt Geraldine’s got some bag of tricks.” He read along with her. “Show tickets, golf passes, his-and-hers massages…and what’s this?” He picked up a foil-inlaid invitation card. “Free psychic readings for couples. Wow.”
“Aunt Geraldine’s into that stuff,” Stacey muttered.
What was she going to do now? The “couples weekend” her aunt had arranged for Janie and Richard could only work with—let’s face it—a couple.
“I wonder what she’ll say about us,” Dylan mused.
“Who?”
“The psychic.” He bent his head lower, ostensibly to examine the card. His jaw smoothed warmly past her cheek. “I’ll bet she says we belong together.”
“We’re already together. We’re the honeymoon couple.” Whoops. Had she already accepted his plan? Having him so near only scrambled her thoughts. “I mean—”
“I know what you mean.” He leaned to the side and grinned at her. “After this, you’ve got no choice but to draft somebody to be the happy groom.”
Stacey tapped the brochure against her lips and gave him a suspicious look. “Did you arrange this?”
“Me?”
“I wouldn’t put it past you. You probably rented Ginger, too, just to make a good impression.”
“Rented?”
“Well, why not?” She gestu
red toward the dog, improvising madly. “Why bring her, when you know they don’t allow dogs in the hotel?”
Hey, that wasn’t bad. She was holding her own with Dylan. Maybe she could handle a whole weekend alone with him. Stacey crossed her arms and legs, wishing she had on something more substantial than bathrobe and bare skin.
“Hmmm?” she prompted.
He slipped to the front of the chair and bent to gently cup her shoulders in his hands. Shaking his head as though she couldn’t be farther off-base if she tried, Dylan said, “Let’s be realistic, okay? I don’t think—”
“Hmmm?” She cocked her head, considering tapping her foot for good measure. Patronize me, will ya? Charlie had tried that tactic, too. Every time she was right about something.
Dylan made a face. “How about that dinner?”
“Delaying won’t work,” Stacey warned. His gaze dipped to the neckline of her robe, and she added, “Neither will that.”
He grinned. “Can’t fault a guy for trying.”
What was he hiding? “Well?”
“Ginger goes just about everyplace with me,” he finally said, lowering his hands from her shoulders and looking embarrassed. “If I leave her home, she goes into some kind of doggie tantrum.”
“Hmmm. Must be spoiled.”
She might have said “worthless” or “stupid,” given the aggrieved look he gave her. Stacey bit her lower lip and glanced at Ginger. “Sorry.”
Dylan gazed at the dog fondly. “She’s not spoiled, but I think she had a rough upbringing.” As though sensing his attention, Ginger got up and trotted to him. She nudged his hand with her nose, and he patted her between the ears. “She’s a stray. Turned up in the office parking lot a month or so ago, skinny as a stick, matted with dirt. No collar.”
He puckered his lips at the dog, blowing her a kiss as he petted her. It was an unconscious motion, Stacey felt sure. Something inside her softened because of it.
Dylan straightened, blinking like somebody walking into the summer sunlight. “Nobody claimed her, so I kept her.”
“You rescued her, you big softie.” Stacey couldn’t keep a silly grin from her face. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“I’ll rescue you, too, if you’ll let me. You need help with this honeymoon thing, especially now with Aunt Geraldine’s latest surprise.”
Stacey bit her lip. If she didn’t pull off the honeymoon charade well enough to convince Aunt Geraldine that Janie and Richard had used and enjoyed her wedding gift surprise, it would cause no end of family feuds. She did need help.
But why, of all the men in the universe, did it have to come in the form of Dylan Davis?
“I don’t know. Maybe I can just hide out here in the honeymoon suite until the weekend’s over. I’ll mail Aunt Geraldine a few hotel postcards from Janie and Richard, and that’ll be that.”
Dylan’s gaze dropped to the pile of tickets, brochure, and itinerary in her lap. “Your aunt knows most of these people, remember? She’ll know it if nobody collects on the rest of her ‘surprise’.”
He was right. They’re mostly old friends and they’ll treat you right, Aunt Geraldine had said in her note. Just because they gave me a discount, doesn’t mean you two newlyweds will have less fun. Even the psychic was a personal friend.
Stacey sighed. “You’re right.”
“I know.” He braced his hands on the chair’s arms and gave her a serious look. “So, do we have a deal?”
Chapter Three
He was in.
Well, mostly in, Dylan amended to himself as he strolled beside Stacey an hour later into the neighboring hotel where their dinner-show reservations had been made. Mostly in, because she’d only agreed to let him stay for one night. On the honeymoon suite sofa. Wearing pajamas, if possible. And only on the condition he didn’t make any moves on her when they got back to their room.
He’d agreed. At this point, those were all the concessions Stacey was likely to make. He’d work on the rest later.
After all, she hadn’t said anything about not making any moves before then.
Grinning, Dylan put his hand to the small of her back and guided her through the hotel’s enormous casino. Like every other resort hotel in Las Vegas—heck, like every supermarket and fast food joint—the Renaissance had its share of slot machines. Then some. Beneath gothic-style arches and rows of flashing lights, gamblers stood cheek and jowl, scooping up the coins jangling into the slot machines’ bins.
“That’s how Aunt Geraldine won her fortune.” Stacey pointed to one of them. “She used to take the tour buses up here with my Uncle Bert almost every month…before he passed away last year, I mean,” she added, looking wistful. “They had so much fun together.”
Dylan slid his arm to her waist and hugged her closer. Amazingly enough, she let him.
“They got married here, did you know?” she asked. “In one of those wedding chapels down on The Strip.”
“Maybe that’s why she wanted Janie and Richard to have a honeymoon in Vegas.”
She smiled up at him, leaving him with the distinct impression that, finally, he’d said something right. Dylan wanted to rack his brain to repeat the accomplishment. The trouble was, he was as clueless about what made that the right thing to say as he was about what made his usual comments the wrong thing to say. He settled for the guy-tested method of keeping quiet and nodding thoughtfully.
“I think you’re right,” she said. “Sweet, isn’t it?”
They neared the mammoth slot machine she spoke of, one big enough to merit its own pedestal and spot lighting at the end of the row. Her fingertips grazed its metallic face.
“This isn’t the machine she won on, of course.” Stacey paused beside the slot machine to gaze upward at the Renaissance’s brightly colored medieval banners and beyond them to the suits of armor posed nearby. “This hotel wasn’t built then.”
She stopped, frowning slightly. “You know, that’s odd. I would have expected Aunt Geraldine to arrange the honeymoon surprises at some of the older hotels, the ones she was familiar with. Not one that’s as nearly new as this one.”
Ding—ding—ding. The warning bells in his head were totally appropriate, Dylan knew. But that didn’t mean he had to like the little buggers. If Stacey guessed the truth already…
Tightening his hold on her waist, he swept her against him fast enough to make her dressy black dress flare up behind her. He had to make her quit questioning the honeymoon surprises, and he had to do it now.
“Let’s try it.” He whirled her in his arms so they stood side by side, facing the slot machine. He scrounged in his pockets for change, turning out his wallet, his hotel key card, and two gold-wrapped condoms.
Stacey raised her eyebrows at the condoms. “Try what?”
“Well, I’ve never gotten lucky atop a giant slot machine,” he deadpanned, pretending to consider the idea, “but I’m game if you are.”
“Sorry. I’m afraid of heights.”
“Afraid of heights?” Dylan pocketed everything again. At least she’d quit wondering about the rationale behind Aunt Geraldine’s honeymoon surprises. “We need a smaller model, then. How about we climb up on that row over there?”
He nodded toward the row he spoke of, where a gray-haired lady wearing a purple silk jogging outfit busily fed quarters into two machines at once.
“Let’s not.” Stacey scanned the glittering row of machines and the woman in front of them. “She looks like my grandmother.”
“Always a mood breaker.” Scooping his arm around her waist again, Dylan approached the monster slot machine. “Come on. It’ll be fun. Maybe we’ll win.”
“I really think we ought to keep a low profile. And what about our dinner reservations? We’ll be late for the show.”
“Quit worrying. Here. You go first.” He handed her a twenty and nodded toward the bill-feeder on the face of the slot machine. “You just slide it in, like the change machines at the Laundromat.”
“L
aundromat? You mean you’re actually that domesticated? I thought you still took your laundry home to mom.”
“Ha, ha.”
“First a dog rescue and now this. Wow.” Stacey made a deliberately sappy face at him, but made no move to take the money. “I swear, you might turn out okay yet.”
“Enough with the dog. I’m already okay. If you’d quit looking out for Generic Faithless Male Scum, you might see that.”
She cast her gaze downward. “I—”
“Never mind. Let’s gamble.” He slid the money in the tray himself and rubbed his palms together as the machine racked up their twenty-dollar credit. “This one looks lucky to me.”
“It looks like a good way for us to get into trouble to me.” Nervously, Stacey glanced around them. “Let’s just get on with the honeymoon surprises, okay? Dinner show first.”
“Come on, try it. Pull the handle.”
She stepped backward. “Nobody ever wins on these big machines.” She glanced toward the stairs that led to the dinner show theater. “They’re just for show.”
“Tell it to that guy.” Dylan pointed at the poster-sized photo of the previous twenty-five-thousand dollar winner displayed beside the slot machine. “He looks pretty happy with this loser slot machine of yours.”
Nibbling her lower lip, Stacey looked at the picture.
“Aunt Geraldine would be proud.” Dylan gave her a little push forward. “Come on, you pull the handle first.”
“We should try to be inconspicuous.”
“Then you shouldn’t have worn that sexy dress.”
She rolled her eyes. “If I try it, will you try to keep a low profile for the rest of the night?”
“Do you really think that’s the best way to carry off this honeymoon imposter thing?”
She nodded. She also stroked the slot machine handle. Something about the way she wrapped her hand around it made his brains go south.
“Okay.” He held up two fingers. “Low profile. Scout’s honor.”
“Good.” Stacey wrapped her other hand around the handle, raised on her sandaled tiptoes, and squeezed her eyes shut. Poised there, she started moving her lips.