Authors: Marni Bates

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BOOK: Decked with Holly

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Chapter 11

Holly

“Y
ou need me to be your
what?
”

I stared at him, waiting for the words to make sense. So far that day, Nick had seemed interested in one thing only: getting rid of me. Which meant that his sudden announcement couldn't have anything to do with actual feelings. I rubbed my stomach as it rolled queasily. The motion of the ship wasn't the only reason I felt like puking.

He wanted me to be his girlfriend.

Seriously?

I was the worst possible candidate for that particular role, and we both knew it. He needed someone model thin with lustrous chestnut hair, a dazzling smile, and clear aqua eyes. Not someone who could naturally double as a zombie in an Apocalypse film when seasick. I might be a California girl but I have never been glamorous.

So why was he asking me?

Judging by the horrified expression on his face, I was a last resort. Not that I blamed him. Dominic Wyatt's life was probably pretty close to perfect: He could do whatever he wanted! Party with models, drink all night in exclusive clubs, hang out with all the A-list stars of Hollywood.

He could probably say, “I'll have my people call your people” in complete seriousness since he had agents and publicists and assistants and . . . a whole entourage.

Probably.

“So to handle this uh,
incident,
we need to control the narrative. Here's how it works: We talk to the press, say that we're dating and madly in love. Then when we're back in LA, we can pretend to drift apart. I'll have my publicist announce an amicable parting of ways and we'll put this whole mess behind us.”

I nodded as if what he was saying made even the slightest bit of sense. “And why can't we just tell the truth?”

Nick started pacing the suite. “The press thinks I've been physically abusing you because the photos from this morning weren't exactly flattering. For either of us.”

Now I bet that wasn't true. He probably looked all sexy in an
I just rolled out of bed, don't disturb me,
rumpled kind of way.

But at least he was no longer saying that I looked like crap. That was a minor improvement.

“So? I'll just tell them that isn't the case.”

“The problem is that the truth doesn't make a good story. Even if they did believe us, they'd probably insinuate that I bought your silence.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “So we can convince them that we're dating but not that I puked in your toilet and then crashed on your couch? That's crazy!”

“Look, I don't make the rules. I pay the consequences when they aren't followed. So what do you say, Holly? Are you willing to be my fake girlfriend?”

Well, that was the million-dollar question.

Literally.

I eyed him cautiously. “I have some conditions.”

“Of course you do. You couldn't just say, âI really owe you for last night, Nick. Sure, no problem.' Oh, no, you have
conditions.
”

He said the last word as if it were toxic.

I folded my arms in silence.

“Fine, let's hear it.”

My mind started whirring like an old computer getting rebooted. Even with provisions, what he was offering was insane. Turn me, Holly Dayton, into the temporary fake girlfriend of a rock star?

That was ridiculous!

And yet . . . Claire and Allison would never be able to make fun of my love life again if they thought I had even briefly dated Dominic Wyatt.

“You have to be crazy about me,” I blurted out. “Head over heels, romantic comedy, love at first sight, crazy about me. And when we supposedly fizzle out it's not going to be because you lost interest. We'll say that while you miss me
terribly,
I felt it was getting too serious and broke things off. You'll probably need to observe a mourning period.”

He stared at me. “You can't be serious.”

“You want a girlfriend? Fine. I'll be the best fake girlfriend you've ever seen, but you have to treat me like a princess.”

“A princess.”

“Yeah, Nick. A princess. I know that it's stupid and petty and
small
of me to use you to make my cousins jealous but . . . I'm okay with that. If it gets my family members off my back even for the rest of this stupid cruise, then it'll be worth it.”

“Is that it?” he demanded tersely. “I treat you like a princess
in public
and you'll be my fake girlfriend?”

“Not so fast. I'll also be moving into your suite.” I held up my hand to cut off any protests. “I'm more than happy with the couch arrangement that we used last night. And it'll only help our cover.”

“I'm trying to pass you off as my girlfriend, not sneak into a Russian military compound or infiltrate al-Qaeda.”

“That's good; you wouldn't last a week in the CIA. I don't think their operatives are trained exclusively with pepper spray. And they can't get so bent out of shape over ugly shirts.”

I swear, he growled at me. “Why can't you sleep in your own damn cabin?”

“Because my cousins also sleep there. Allison and Claire. You should probably remember their names since we're supposedly dating. And then there are the boys, Andrew and Jacob, but they're harmless.”

“The two blondes didn't look that scary to me.”

I did my best not to roll my eyes. “
Allison
and
Claire.
Just because you can't see the forked tongue doesn't mean they aren't snakes.”

His smile was full of smug male arrogance. “I bet I could keep their tongues preoccupied.”

“First of all: gross. Second, they're like Medusa, okay? You try to cut off one viper head and it'll just grow back. They're vicious. Which is why I want to avoid them and my aunt Jessica as much as possible.”

“Hence staying in my suite.”

I beamed at him. “You're catching on. Now we should probably discuss my birthday.”

“Of course we should.”

Nick looked tempted to stalk to the balcony and jump overboard when we heard an official-sounding knock on the door and a male voice boom, “Room service!” over the female pleas for attention.

He made no move to answer the door. “Do we have a deal or not?”

My heartbeat spiked to the steady
thwap, thwap, thwap
of helicopter rotor blades.

“We've got a deal.”

“Just a second!” Nick yelled to the poor, besieged room service guy as he handed me a striped shirt from his dresser. It looked masculine and professional and perfectly appropriate for a rock star at a business meeting. “Open the door wearing this and smile for the cameras. Can you handle that?”

I nodded, then raced to the bathroom to swap shirts, impulsively deciding to leave two buttons open at the collar. Sexily disheveled. Excellent.

Showtime.

I opened the door, simultaneously calling out, “Nick, you've got fans at the door. Do you want to tell them about us, or should I?” Without waiting for a response, I gave the horror-stricken young crowd my warmest, most sympathetic smile. “I'm sorry, ladies, he's taken.”

Then, grinning at the room service guy, I took the coffee and said, “Thanks, I think we're going to enjoy this in bed,” before I slipped back into the suite.

I handed Nick a cup and braced for his critique. “So how'd I do?”

He gave me the once-over, taking in every detail of my admittedly bedraggled appearance.

“You'll pass.”

Chapter 12

Dominic

T
he good news: She had agreed to go along with it.

The bad news: She had agreed to go along with it.

Which meant that I was officially stuck with Holly Dayton until we docked in Los Angeles again. A situation she found considerably more appealing than I did, if the triumphant grin lighting up her face was any indication.

“That was so much fun! The first time when I didn't know they were there . . . that was terrifying, actually.” Holly was buzzing high on adrenaline and she hadn't even taken a sip of her coffee. “But that was seriously fun!”

She was practically rubbing her hands together in glee. “What should we do for our next outing? Something couple-y, right? Maybe you should get me an ice cream cone or something.” I half expected her to start twirling around my room. “This is so much bigger than making my cousins jealous! I can't believe I didn't figure that out earlier. I'm practically going to be a celebrity when I go back to school.”

I crossed my arms and waited for her to calm down. “A celebrity. Sure. We should start prepping our story for the interviews.”

“I mean it!” she insisted. “You have no idea what this could mean for me! I could actually get invited to parties now. Jen and I might even become popular!” She ran over to my iPad. “We have to call her together. She won't believe me otherwise.”

“Hold up,” I ordered.

She didn't seem to hear me.

“Holly!”

Her head jerked up a fraction. “Uh, yeah?” she asked distractedly. “What's up?”

I walked over and reclaimed my iPad. “You can't tell her anything, Holly. Not yet. Not until we have our cover story and then we share exactly what we're telling the press.”

This time she was entirely focused. “You expect me to lie to my best friend?”

“If you don't want everyone to find out that this romance isn't real. I'm not going to trust some strange girl to keep her mouth shut.”

“Jen would never do anything to hurt me. Never.”

“And while I'm sure the two of you have traded friendship bracelets, that isn't good enough for me.”

“So Timothy Goff and Christopher . . . something-or-other get to know exactly what's going on, but
my
friends don't?”

“Forester, but we call him Chris. And, yeah, my friends get to know because their careers are on the line if you screw this up.”

She stiffened. “Considering that I'm actually enjoying myself while you're being uptight in the extreme, I'd say you're more likely to make a mistake.”

I bit back my retort that if it hadn't been for her intrusion I wouldn't have been faking a relationship.

“I'm an excellent actor.” And to prove my point I looked right into her eyes and said seriously, “Holly, I've been crazy about you ever since I saw you at dinner, looking all windblown and tousled. You stole my breath away.”

“Oh,” she said. “But I thought youâ”

“And . . . scene.” I drank more of my coffee. “The press might be a little harder to fool, but I've got it under control. Now let's prep. How long have we been dating?”

She blinked and then focused on my question. “I'd guess a week or two, tops. Otherwise Jen and the media would probably already know about it.”

“Let's go with a week. I can say that we met . . . in a bookstore.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “A bookstore? Seriously?”

“What's wrong with it?”

“How often do
you
hang out in bookstores?”

“I almost forgot. I'm illiterate. I only go there to flip through the kids' books because of all the pretty pictures.” I glared at her. “I like to read when the band is on tour, which is a lot of the time. What about you? Ever enter a bookstore?”

“Yes.”

“Glad we got that cleared up. So we met in the bookstore and started talking about . . . books.”

Holly nodded. “We can say that I couldn't reach my grandpa's Christmas present so I asked for your help.”

Not a bad cover story, and it sounded realistically bland. We were just two people who had happened to meet in a bookstore. People meet that way all the time.

Probably.

At least more often that way than through breaking and entering.

“Okay,” I said, picking up the thread of the narrative. “Right. So I asked you out.”

“And I gave you my number and you called me the next day.” She sighed and hugged her knees to her chest. “We could say you brought me flowers. Tulips.”

Yeah, I wasn't a fan of that genius idea.

“Or we could not.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Princess, remember.”

“Trust me, I haven't forgotten your demands. But I'm not saying I brought you flowers for our first date. That's way too much.”

“Yeah, we wouldn't want anyone thinking you could be nice,” she said sarcastically. “Where's the fun in that?”

“I let you crash on my couch, remember?”

“Reluctantly. You let me crash there
reluctantly
.”

It was true, but I thought I had done a decent job of hiding my irritation.

Apparently not.

“Let's focus on our story. We met up the next day and have been seeing each other ever since. So when you mentioned that your grandfather was taking you on a cruise, I was determined to come along.”

“Okay, we don't want you to sound stalkery, though. Why don't we say that I thought this would be a good way for us to celebrate my birthday together and for you to meet the family?”

“Sure. When's your birthday?”

“Day after Christmas.”

I did my best not to swear. “That's six days from now.”

“Yep.”

“That's not exactly giving me a lot of notice.”

Holly tilted her head in mocking disbelief. “It's not exactly something I can move for your convenience.”

True, but I didn't want to hear it.

“I'll figure something out. Who else do I have to meet? Mom? Dad? Give me the rundown.”

Holly shrugged. “Neither.”

“They don't like cruises?”

“The larger obstacle is that they're dead.”

I winced. Great, I had pepper sprayed an
orphan
. Yeah, I really needed to find those puppies. Maybe attack a nun while I was at it.

“Uh, Holly, that, erm, sucks,” I said awkwardly.

She smiled and though it wasn't a full-wattage grin it didn't look pained. “Look, they died in a car accident when I was a baby. It's not like I haven't had time to process it. Not a big deal. I've got my grandpa, so all things considered I'm pretty lucky.”

I didn't have the faintest idea what I was supposed to say to that so I just nodded and kept my mouth shut.

“What about you?' Holly asked, as if the conversation had never steered into her parentless past. “Got parents?”

“Uh, yeah, two of them. Music teacher and florist. They're great.”

She nodded. “So why aren't you spending the holidays with them?”

“Well, we try not to make too big a production out of Christmas. As long as I give them a call they understand if I can't necessarily visit. Our tour schedules aren't exactly flexible. This is my first vacation in I don't even know how long.”

“And now you're stuck with me.” Holly grimaced. “That's got to have really screwed up your plans.”

“You mean turning this into a working holiday? Yeah, I'd been hoping to actually relax. Soak up some sun, maybe enjoy some diving in Cabo.” I couldn't resist seeing if my next words would rattle her. I said I could act: best to get into the character of the fearless rock star before the cameras started rolling. “Chat up girls in low-cut dresses. Now
that's
a vacation.”

Holly rolled her eyes as if she had expected no less from me. Damn judgmental of her really.

“Well, that makes complete sense to me.”

I stared at Holly suspiciouslyâno way was she going to tell me she was on the cruise for the same thing. She didn't seem the type to enjoy a one-night stand. Holly would ask to use the shower the next morning and then try to make the bed. Oh, right. She'd already done that with me.

“Sunshine. Snorkeling. Sex. What's not to like?” I smirked.

“Oh, I agree. About all three of those activities, actually.”

She couldn't be hitting on me. Holly Disaster could not be offering me vacation sex. I was reading into things that weren't really there, probably because I was operating on little to no sleep. Sure, Holly was enjoying our act more than I had ever expected, but she wouldn't try to make this
real.
No way.

She leaned back on the bed and stretched. “Sounds like a great way to spend a week on the Mexican Riviera.”

Holy shit.

Then her grin widened. “Unfortunately, only two of the three are available to you.”

“Sunshine and sex? Deal. Snorkeling is overrated.”

Holly laughed and the sound was surprisingly musical, considering the racket she made in the shower.

“Sunshine and snorkeling are the
only
options on the table.” She tucked her long strands of hair behind one ear uncomfortably. “As long as we're fauxmantically involved, neither of us can be caught hitting on other people.”

She didn't have to warn me about the risks: I was the one who would get plastered all over magazines with the headline: R
OCKSTAR
B
REAKS
M
ORE
H
EARTSâ
T
HE
T
RUTH
B
EHIND
H
IS
L
IES
!

“Fauxmantically involved? That's how you're putting it?”

“Sure, it's a fake romance: a fauxmance.”

“Please tell me you're not one of those girls who connects celebrity names every time they so much as have lunch together.”

She shook her head. “I have no idea what you're talking about. You mean how ReadySet fans created Chrisonic for you andâ”

“You got me. I'm gay and Chris is my secret lover. How did you know?”

Her jaw dropped. “Seriously?”

“NO!”

Apparently, Holly was way too gullible for her own good, which only made the idea of teasing her all the more appealing.

So I merely nodded. “No other girls until you fake break things off,” I promised and waited for her to take the expected breath of relief.

“Well, great! I'm glad we finally agree on something, Nick.”

But I wasn't finished yet.

“As for sex, well, that's up to you.”