NFH Honeymoon from Hell II (6 page)

Seven fucking days on a boat, he thought
miserably. What the hell was he supposed to do for seven days? he
wondered. Well, he knew exactly what he wanted to do for seven
straight days, but he didn’t think that his wife would be on board
with his plans. He could have happily spent their honeymoon at
home, in their bed, fucking her blind and been able to honestly say
that it was the perfect honeymoon, but his wife would have been
disappointed.

Not with the sex, he mentally corrected with
a chuckle and a wistful sigh, but with the honeymoon. Zoe wanted to
travel, to take real vacations and even though he was content with
the trips that he took with his family every year, he’d happily
take her wherever she wanted to go no matter how bored out of his
fucking mind he was. Maybe there was a lounge or somewhere that he
could kill a couple of hours, he hoped as he passed several signs
for a kids’ center, the entrance for the water slide and spa. When
he saw the sign for the casino he sighed and kept walking.

There had to be a bar or a lounge somewhere
on this fucking ship, he thought as he walked past a large pool,
deciding that if he couldn’t find somewhere decent to grab a beer
and catch the game that he’d find a spot by the pool to lounge and
kill time with a few beers while he waited for Zoe to wake up.
Maybe he could…he….could…he…

“
No fucking way,” he
murmured softly to himself even as he closed his eyes and slowly
reopened them, praying like hell that he was just seeing things,
but when he opened them, the sign was still there.

Licking his lips, he walked forward as though
he was in a trance and reached for the doorknob with a trembling
hand, praying like hell that this wasn’t some kind of sick joke,
and walked inside, letting the door marked, “Buffet,” close slowly
behind him.

Chapter 6

“
Well, this is kind of boring,” Zoe had to admit
even as she reached down and straightened the pillow with a
discerning eye, pulling it slightly this way and that way until at
last it was perfect and she was officially out of things to do
while she waited for Trevor’s return.

She looked over at the small alarm clock by
the bed and sighed before glancing back down at the note that he’d
left her. He should have been back by now, she thought, worrying
her bottom lip as she considered pulling out her cell and texting
him, but two things stopped her. One, she didn’t want to start off
their marriage as a nagging wife, always demanding to know what he
was doing and who he was with. She’d never been that type of person
before and she didn’t plan on starting now.

The other reason she wasn’t trying to text
him of course was very simple, she had absolutely no idea if they
were in international waters yet and wasn’t exactly eager to find
out the text and calling rates. Call her crazy, but she wasn’t
willing to spend half her paycheck just to find out what her
husband was up to…

“
Oh, God,” she thought,
chewing her bottom lip as she struggled not to smile and quickly
lost that battle.

She was married to Trevor and carrying his
babies, which had the terrifying ability to frighten her just a bit
so she decided to focus on something other than the fact that she
could now eat more than her husband and most of the men in his
family. She picked up their empty luggage and squeezed them inside
the small closet in the corner, double checked her outfit, which
unfortunately did nothing to hide the fact that she could lose a
few pounds.

Shoving that rather depressing thought aside
and the reminder that carrying Bradford twins was only going to
make her bigger, she decided to focus on the fact that she was on
her first real vacation and she was going to damn well enjoy it.
Determined to pretend that she wasn’t the chubbiest woman on the
ship, she grabbed her keycard, pulled the edge of her tank top down
in a futile attempt to hide her full figure, checked her hair and
left the room, deciding to have a look around while she went
looking for her husband.

She walked down a short hallway before she
came to a door that led to a large pool deck where children were
running and smiling, women were lounging by the water, enjoying the
sun and the appreciative looks the men around them were sending
their way. Zoe paused briefly by a railing to send a wistful glance
at a set of empty lounge chairs and contemplated lying down for a
few more minutes, a little terrified that after a five-hour nap
that she was still tired.

Then again, she could also go for something
to eat. Actually, if she was going to be honest then she’d admit
that she was starving and the sooner that she found Trevor so that
they could grab dinner, the better. God, she couldn’t remember ever
being this hungry before, but then again she seemed to be thinking
that about twenty times a day.

That actually brought up another interesting
question, exactly how long would it be before all this food that
she was forced to eat would start showing up in her ass and thighs?
She was going to be huge, she thought miserably even as she
accepted the inevitable, because really, there wasn’t anything that
she could do about it now, not when she was carrying Bradford
twins. She started to head down the stairs when she realized with
dread and a pathetic whimper that she was actually really hungry,
again.

At least her stomach wasn’t threatening to
send her running to the bathroom, she realized, relieved that the
pill that Trevor’s Uncle Ethan prescribed was still working. She
walked by the entrance for the spa, making a mental note to check
it out later and kept walking, glancing around, hoping to run into
Trevor, but with every passing second it became obvious that she
was either going to have to go back to the room and wait for him or
hunt down a cruise ship employee and admit that the incredibly hot
man that had somehow lost his mind and married her had probably
come to his senses, jumped off the ship and was currently begging a
judge to grant him an annulment.

That rather depressing thought had her
stopping in her tracks, turning around and heading back towards
their room where she could do her best to stop the tears that were
threatening to come, but then common sense kicked in and she
couldn’t help but smile. Trevor Bradford, easily the hottest man
that she had ever laid eyes on had dragged her across town,
demanded that she marry him before he dragged her back home,
determined to have his wicked way with her just to make sure that
she was his.

He loved her, she thought to herself with a
ridiculously pleased smile as she turned right back around and
decided to get something to eat while luck was still on her side
and her stomach wasn’t making her wish for death. She could really
go for a burger, maybe two, she decided, nearly sighing with relief
when her stomach growled in approval, demanding that she move her
ass a little faster and find something to eat. She’d look for
Trevor, but only after she got something to eat, because she really
didn’t think that passing out on the deck among hundreds of
strangers would really be one of those magical moments that she
would want to savor for the rest of her life.

Food was definitely in order first. Then she
was going to hunt down her husband so that they could start
enjoying their honey-

“
Would Zoe Bradford please
return to your room immediately
,” came the
intercom announcement, letting her know that she was going to have
to put her plans off for a bit, which apparently didn’t set well
with the twins that she was carrying…

Not. At. All.

*-*-*-*

“
Mr. Bradford, your wife
will be here soon. Please, just try to calm down and-”

“
Kill. Me,” Trevor demanded
as he grabbed the ship’s doctor by the collar and yanked him
closer. “I don’t want her to see me like this!”

The doctor released a long-suffering sigh as
he reached up and easily removed Trevor’s weak grip from his barely
wrinkled starched white shirt. “Mr. Bradford,” he began in that
tone that Trevor did not much care for, not at all, “you’re not
dying.”

“
You don’t know that!” he
snapped back weakly, closing his eyes as he gave up his attempts to
shake some sense into the doctor and grabbed one of the thick
fluffy pillows off the bed and hugged it with everything that he
had, praying for a quick death before Zoe could see him like
this.

“
Mr. Bradford,” the doctor
began, but Trevor wasn’t about to let the judgmental bastard waste
what precious seconds he had left with more of his
bullshit.

“
Listen to me,” he bit out,
squeezing his pillow tightly, pausing only long enough to slowly
inhale, praying that it would be enough to settle the violent
attack currently destroying him from the inside out, “I haven’t had
a chance to change my will yet and my wife is pregnant,” he began
only to let out a pathetic groan when the violent storm playing out
in his stomach threatened to send him diving for the
wastebasket.

He just wanted to close his eyes and give in
and die, but he needed to do this one thing first. He needed to do
this for his wife and children. “I want my wife to inherit all my
properties, my bank accounts, my life insurance, absolutely
everything,” he said, pausing to swallow back the bile that once
again threatened to take him to his knees, giving him further proof
that the end was near as a thought occurred to him.

“
Except my Yankees
memorabilia. Give that to my cousin Jason,” he managed to get out,
pleased that he’d managed to do the right thing and protect his
poor defenseless Yankees shirts and balls from the evil woman that
fucking adored the Red Sox.

The Red Sox?

What kind of sick bastard would support a
team like that? God, he must really love her, he realized with a
pathetic groan as he curled up into a tighter ball, praying that
one of his uncles or cousins stepped in and made sure that his
children were raised right with Yankees posters on their walls and
Yankees shirts on their backs. They’d step in and do the right
thing if they saw Zoe trying to brainwash his children with all
that Red Sox propaganda bullshit.

They’d do the right thing, he reassured
himself as he rolled over onto his other side with a pained groan,
wondering when his stomach would stop twisting and turning and
finally put him out of his fucking misery.

“
I think we should give this
another chance,” the doctor said calmly as he held up a bottle of
pills, making Trevor’s stomach twist in agony at the memory of what
the last pills that the doctor forced down his throat had
done.

“
No,” he managed to croak
out as he buried his face in his pillow, willing for the ship to
stop shaking, moving, rocking, whatever the hell they wanted to
call it, but it needed to stop immediately.

“
I’m sorry about the last
pills, but these should help you,” the lying son of a bitch
promised.

Clenching his jaw shut tightly so that the
sneaky bastard couldn’t shove any more poison in his mouth, he
squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head as much as he dared,
which wasn’t a hell of a lot. God, he wasn’t sure what was worse,
the fact that every single movement and breath that he took made
him wish for death or the fact that he’d just spent the last five
hours sitting in a buffet unable able to eat a single bite of food,
because just the thought of eating any of that food had made him
queasy.

“
I need you to try these
pills,” the sick bastard that had somehow managed to get a medical
license said more firmly while he laid there, waiting for his
loving wife to return so that he could say goodbye to
her.

Grimacing, he shook his head, slightly.

“
Mr. Bradford, I promise you
that these will help,” the doctor said with a sigh of exasperation
that was going to get his ass kicked.

“
That’s what you said the
last time
,” Trevor managed to bite out,
struggling not to lose what was left of his breakfast at the
reminder of what happened as soon as the last pills had hit his
system.

“
Some people react badly to
those pills once sea sickness kicks in, but these pills should do
the-”

“
What’s going on?” his
loving wife asked, interrupting the bastard trying to kill him and
making him sag with relief because he knew that everything would be
okay now.

“
Are you his wife?” the
doctor asked with a slight hesitation that Trevor found insulting,
but since he could barely move without praying for death, he
decided to add it to the growing list of offenses that was going to
get the smug bastard thrown overboard just as soon as the world
stopped spinning.

“
Yes, what’s going on?” Zoe
asked, for some reason sounding a bit impatient and not at all like
a loving, devoted wife should sound like when she found her
husband, the man she loved and adored, on the verge of
death.

At least, in his opinion she didn’t…

“
He has a touch of sea
sickness and won’t take these pills that will-”

Before the doctor could finish spouting more
of his bullshit, he suddenly found himself shoved onto his back,
his wife straddling his chest, and not in the good way, pinning his
arms by his sides, his nose pinched and two large pills shoved in
his mouth all while the woman that he loved glared down at him,
daring him to refuse swallowing the pills that were guaranteed to
make him sicker.

When he turned his head to spit the pills
out, she slapped one of her dainty little hands over his mouth and
tightened her pinch on his nose as she calmly said with a serene
smile that actually frightened him a bit, “Swallow.”