by J. A. Coffey
She had to move. Her legs cramped. Sooner or later, someone would come in and wonder why she was crouched down behind the inner- and outer-thigh machine.
She had to deal with Tyler. At the thought of the escort, her muscles bunched, tightening into knots throughout her back. She tried to visualize the knots loosening. It didn't work. She would have to get the problem out of her life if she wanted the knots to go away, too. The most likely place to find Tyler was their room. Casey started down the passageway to her floor. The dining room was empty except for a few stragglers eating a very late dinner.
Casey skirted the area and, feeling like a jerk for avoiding everyone in the room, she hurried past. Despite the fact that the fans at the party only seemed interested in her happiness, Casey needed to avoid as many people as possible. Her judgment sucked; just look at the fiasco with Nate.
The hall was mostly empty. Now and again, someone left one of the rooms, but most continued past without giving her a second glance. She walked past the disco, the casino and the hall where she'd learned she was married. Pushing against the door, she looked inside. Empty.
The decorations were gone, the banner folded in a corner. Not even a stray piece of confetti remained. She should feel grateful, but sadness was the emotion closest to the surface.
You're lying to everyone. Wasn't it for the best? She would straighten everything out, but a little bit at a time. Not because she enjoyed the subterfuge, but because she wasn't sure even her most faithful readers would understand that the past day had been one gigantic misunderstanding.
She sighed, let the door swing closed and continued down the hall. So why this let-down feeling?
Tyler was a perfectly nice man, but he wasn't for her. He was for everyone and anyone with a few thousand extra dollars lying around. Still, he'd been decent to her. Hadn't made a move since she'd told him that his being hired was a mistake. A decent gigolo. Who would have guessed?
Mason's face appeared in her mind. He was the perfect man for her. Or at least, she was turning him into the perfect man in her head. She didn't really know anything about him. She knocked once on the stateroom door, then used her key to go inside. Tyler lay on the couch, his feet hanging over one end and a cold pack resting under his neck. Beside him, bits of tissue poked from the trash bin and an empty tissue box sat on the floor. Empathy flooded her heart.
She'd bolted before making sure the nosebleed was over. What kind of person was she turning into? Lying to everyone around her, leaving a sick man to fend for himself. Sleeping with a virtual stranger. "Hasn't let up, huh?"
"Dope."
Dropping her bag on a chair, Casey grabbed a fresh box of tissue from the closet and returned to Tyler's side. "Here," she said, shoving the box into his hands. Then, she picked up the phone and called for the doctor. This nosebleeding was out of hand. Tyler removed the tissue from his nose, blotted, pulled it away and looked. No blood. He sat up, a half smile on his face, and reached across the bed. "You look...bad."
That wasn't the half of it. Casey just shrugged a shoulder. She had arranged her clothes and checked herself in the weight room mirror, before returning to the room. Obviously her female superpowers were on the blink. She decided not to contradict his observation. He was right anyhow.
"I'm tired," she said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "This day feels like a week, and I've got six more in front of me." Twirling a strand of hair around her finger, she considered just lying back, pulling an afghan over her head and sleeping through the rest of the cruise.
Wouldn't work. Sooner or later she would have to come out for food or water. Tyler, Mason and the reporter would be right there when she did. Better to get one of them off her back now.
"We need to figure some kind of system as long as we're sharing this room. I stopped at the desk on my way back and asked for a rollaway bed. Are you an early morning person, or late?"
"Doesn't matter." Tyler shifted on the bed, leaning against the headboard. "We're adults. Why do we need a schedule?"
"Bathroom, getting dressed, relaxing. Just because we're stuck here together doesn't mean we have to be uncomfortable. I know you were hired for me, but that was a mistake," she said. She pulled a notebook from her bag, and walked across the room to the sofa. Making a schedule was something she was actually good at. She pulled her legs under her and started writing. "I have work I need to get done on this cruise. If you don't care, I'd like to have mornings in the cabin. You can have afternoons, and we'll come and go as we please at night. Sound good?"
Tyler walked slowly across the room, positioning his body on her right side and working his hands through the knots in her shoulders.
"Whatever you want. You're the boss."
Damn, but he was good at his job. She should be annoyed at his comment. She wasn't his boss. But she couldn't dredge up the energy. He kneaded the heels of his palms on either side of her spine between the shoulder blades and she moaned.
Whatever school he'd attended to learn how to do this, she had to get the number. She would be the students' practice dummy for the rest of her life.
"What has you wrapped up so tight, Casey?" The words floated by her ears. Calm. Easy. As if there was nothing more important than her at that moment. What did have her wrapped so tight? She couldn't put her finger on a single incident.
"Everything," she sighed, her head drooping forward. "To the right."
Tyler focused his movements on a knot below her right shoulder. When the muscle loosened, he moved to the other side.
"I can make those worries disappear. You just have to trust me," he said, pulling her hair to one side and dipping his head to kiss the back of her neck.
She stiffened.
"No. Relax." He drew the words out, emphasizing the syllables with the tiny movements of his hands. The effect was broken.
The knots were coming back, twice as hard this time.
"What are you doing?" She stood, leaving Tyler sitting on the sofa alone. His hands remained in mid-air for a second, then dropped to the comforter.
"I'm doing my job, and you're making it damned hard," he said, running a hand through his hair. "I'm being paid to make sure you have a fun, relaxing week. I can't do that if you pull away from me every time we get started."
"Get started?" Her voice rose and she worked to bring it back down. "We're not getting started on anything. We've been through this. I didn't hire you. The person who did made a mistake. Nothing is going to go on inside this room between us."
"Look, I know you're uptight. You're feeling depressed after the break-up, and that's normal. Sometimes people like you need a little help in the relaxation department," he said, rising from the bed and moving toward her. She backed up. What, he was a psychologist now?
"I am not uptight." She had never been called uptight in her life. Cold, but not uptight, and she shouldn't care about the labels anyway. "I am not depressed. I am just fine." Just who did Tyler Cash think he was?
If she was in need of relaxation, he was as big a reason as any other. Every time she turned around, he was bleeding from the nose, dragging her down hallways and into surprise parties with no warning. If he would only disappear, she could relax just fine with Mason. She wouldn't be screwing him on an open deck or in a sauna. They might actually make it to a bed. Hell, if there was no Tyler, she could maybe have an actual vacation romance. As it was, him being in the room kicked her best chance at relaxation to the curb.
"I'm a professional," he said,waving his hands in her direction. "I see this all the time. Sometimes high powered women lose a sense of themselves. I am here to help you find it again."
"I don't need to find myself. I was doing just fine before you and this cruise came along. We have to share this room for the next few days, so let's work up some ground rules."
Tyler stood to pace between the bed and sofa. "I have a job to do. I can't work with ground rules. Everything has to be open and easy," he said, putting his hands in the back pockets of his jeans.
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Open and easy? How could anything be open and easy when she was basically sharing her room with a male prostitute? Whatever. She wasn't going there. "You've been relieved of your duties. Now, I'll take mornings here, you can have afternoons. We can divide the evenings, say six to ten and ten 'til whenever. What part of the evening do you want?"
"You can't fire me." His mouth hung open in disbelief for a moment before he snapped it back. "I haven't done anything wrong."
"Ha! Haven't you heard? Employers don't have to have a reason to fire you. And before you get any big ideas about suing me, you'll still be paid for your time." She wanted to pull her hair out. What was with this guy? It wasn't like they were actually breaking up. They were in a business arrangement. "The cruise is free, and we'll call this a downsizing, not a firing. What part of the evening do you want?"
"You can't do this to me. My reputation will be shot. I'll become the escort who--"
"If you don't tell anyone you were here with me, I won't say anything either."
Tyler tapped his right foot against the floor, weighing his options. "So I'm not on the job, but I get paid. A cruise and I can see someone else."
"Uh-uh." Casey shook her head.
"Sorry, big boy. You dating anyone on board is off-limits. As long as we're in this room together and people think we're together, you can't see anyone else."
Lowering his voice, Tyler said, "I can't go six days without sex."
"Well, I'm not having sex with you. Get a magazine and use your time in the afternoon wisely."
He clicked his teeth against his tongue and looked at her through his eyelashes. Did he really think that was sexy?
"You have no idea what you're missing."
She rolled her eyes. "I can imagine." And it's nothing compared to Mason. "Do we have a deal?"
He shrugged. "I supposed I don't have a choice." He stuck out his hand and she took it. "This is the weirdest contract I've ever fulfilled."
"Maybe you'll write about it in your memoirs."
His jaw clenched and then visibly loosened. "Whatever," he said, disappearing inside the bathroom.
A knock startled her. She waited for another knock and asked, "Who is it?"
"Housekeeping. I, um, have another bed for you." The words came softly through the door.
She breathed a sigh of relief, opened the door, and let a bellboy wheel a rollaway into the room.
"Where do you want it?"
She looked around.
"There," she said, pointing to the tiny dining nook.
The bellboy set up the new bed.
"Will there be anything else?"
She shook her head. When he was gone, she knocked on the bathroom door. "Which bed do you want?"
"The rollaway." His voice was muffled, but she made out the words. Ever the gentleman.
*****
Mason slammed the last of the whiskey back, set the tumbler down hard on the bar and leaned forward. He wanted to see her again, and she had only been gone for a few minutes. Women never had this effect on him. Shit.
He should be in the disco, dancing with single, willing women, not slamming drinks in the bar and trying to come up with a way to see a woman who had now screwed him twice and run away both times. His ego couldn't take much more.
She thought a reporter was after her, had some strange man staying in her room and everyone on board thought she was recently married. He couldn't blame her for running scared, especially since he was the reporter and he knew the kind of story the paper wanted. He pulled the reception invitation from his pocket and frowned.
Even knowing she'd left out a few details, her story made sense. Though how the cruise ship could mistakenly put two strangers in a room together was beyond him. Why didn't they fix the mistake once they found out about it? Everyone made different reservations, so how did the whole mess get started?
It smelled like a setup. He powered on his Blackberry and opened a file with Casey's background in it. First book sold, new book contract. A little personal history. Her agent's name and contact information were at the bottom of the page. Jane Brunner. The woman who took publicity stunts to a whole new level.
She once had an actor skydive into a wedding to win back his ex-girlfriend. Instead of thinking it was wildly romantic, most people thought he was a first-class stalker. He hadn't been in a big-budget movie since.
Jane should know, though, that Casey wouldn't agree with her all press is good press theory. Hell, Jane shouldn't believe it. Not after the skydiving stunt. Casey's reputation was important to her. She wouldn't want to be talked about, mused about or joked about. He knew that after only a day. How could her agent not know it?
He would offer his silence or help, but either would go over like the proverbial lead balloon. Since he'd committed the lie of omission, he couldn't now tell Casey he was the reporter she was avoiding. She wouldn't take his help crossing the street, much less getting out of this mess. She told him she was a writer, but didn't let on that she was the writer of the moment.
That her books were in more than half the households in the country. If he told her he was the reporter, she would run screaming from the ship in a heartbeat. He needed another way to earn her trust. Why it was so important wasn't a question he was comfortable asking, so he focused instead on a plan.
Signaling to the bartender, he asked for another drink.
"One more, then I'll have to take your car keys," the guy said, laughing at his own joke. He thought it would be funnier if he offered a lifejacket instead of taking car keys.
He needed to get the stranger out of her room first. With her room cleared of all living bodies except her own, the non-existent reporter wouldn't have a story to tell. So move the guy out. First he needed to know the guy's name. Toasting his image in the mirror behind the bar, he took a long drink and then got up from the bar.
He would start with the name. Then he would call in a favor or two and find out if Casey's agent and ex were setting her up for a fall.
Chapter Nine
Casey woke up with a splitting headache and the unsettling feeling she wasn't alone. Gingerly, she picked her head up off the pillow and looked around the room.
Empty.
The rollaway bed looked as if it hadn't been slept in. The door to the bathroom was ajar, the light on. She always closed the door. A brown leather duffel hid behind a corner of the sofa, the leg of a pair of jeans sticking out of the top. So she hadn't dreamed the escort fiasco. That meant Mason was real, too. She was alone, but for how long?
This whole cruise was surreal. Sagging back onto the pillow, she crossed her arms over her eyes and groaned. How was she going to fix this situation? It was like an episode of Three's Company got mixed up with Erotic Confessions. A comedy of errors and sex.
Her stomach growled, reminding her she hadn't eaten since lunch the day before. She could call room service, but that wouldn't solve the problem. She had to get used to the stares sometime. The clock on her bedside table read ten o'clock. Hopefully, most of the passengers would be on deck for games and sunbathing, not in the restaurants. Casey rushed through her shower, and then dressed in white shorts, an orangeand- white striped tank and wedge sandals.
The hallway was empty. She made it up the stairwell and almost to the cafeteria before bumping into Eddie. Did the man have some kind of writer radar? It seemed everywhere she went, there he was. Just like Mason. And Tyler. Who knew going on a cruise would have men coming out of the woodwork for Cassandra Cash?
Jane had. Of course, she'd weighted the dice in Casey's favor.
"Ms. Cash, so good to see you again. Tyler's in there," he said. Eddie pointed over his shoulder toward a large meeting room. Casey made a mental note to stay away from the area. "We're getting a poker game going in there.
Have to have something to do, what with the rain and all," Eddie chattered away, not noticing Casey's frown.
Rain? Rain meant everyone would be inside. She tried to see around Eddie, up to the ma
in deck, but all she could see was a slightly gray sky. Maybe the rain wasn't so bad.
"...and that's when we decided on poker. A few of the women were talking about joining us, but most of them are just chatting away about books and such." Eddie leaned closer, cupping his hand around one side of his mouth. "I overheard talk about starting up charades and some other games in the other meeting room. There was talk of Pictionary and Name That Tune. I'd avoid the area if I were you."
"Like everyone there has the plague. I'm not a gaming girl." Unless those games involved sex, apparently. "I, um, I just wanted breakfast, and then back to the room. I have some work to do." She half-turned, preparing to escape the breakfast room. Room service. She needed room service. He caught her arm.
"Working on the new book?"
She nodded.
"Are you going to work on the male orgasm this time? You know, thousands of pages are devoted to the female orgasm, but everyone seems to think we men work on autopilot." He lowered his voice. "There's more to us than meets the eye, you know."
Her brain hurt trying to absorb everything he'd said in the last two minutes. Male orgasms. Elderly male orgasms.
Shaking her head, she said, "I can't divulge any details."
"Can you give me a hint?" He sidled closer.
"Sorry. Contractual obligations."
Liar, liar, pants on fire. There were no obligations, only a yawning void in her head where the book should be taking on form. Instead, she could only think of her dilemma. Once more the thought of turning Mason into a fictional hero, and herself into a heroine, struck her. She pressed her index finger to her temple and brushed the thought aside.
Patting her on the shoulder, he nodded and smiled. "They don't want some other writer taking your idea, huh?"
"Something like that."
Then, as if realizing he was blocking her way to the deck, he jumped to the side.
"You're on your way to breakfast. I'm sorry. You better hurry. The fruit was picked over when I checked on Mags and the silver dollar pancakes were turning into door stops." He brushed past her and disappeared around the corner.