Once Upon a Christmas (35 page)

They’d given out their names.

Their
real
names.

Whoops.

Chapter Seven

“I still don’t see what the problem is.” Dylan
swiped his hotel key card through the reader at the honeymoon suite door.

Stacey stared at him. He had to be kidding. They’d given
away their real identities, had pictures taken to prove it, and made possibly
the most public spectacle of themselves with winning. How could he not see the
problem?

“We told them our real names!” Miserably, she
followed him through the unlocked suite door. “That’s the problem.”

Ginger danced at her feet, shimmying with joy at their
return. Stacey gave her a pat, then dragged herself to the sitting area and
brushed off the remnants of what looked like chewed-up hotel stationery—Ginger’s
latest doggie entertainment, she guessed—so she could plop on the loveseat.

Their absences weren’t fair to Ginger. Maybe they ought to
spend the rest of the night in the honeymoon suite, to avert another doggie
meltdown.

Behind her Stacey heard Dylan crooning to Ginger, saying
something about chewing up his shoes instead of the curtains. A minute later he
landed on the loveseat beside her, forcing her to tug her purse out of his way
and onto her lap.

She hugged it. If only money really did buy happiness, then
maybe she could find some way out of this mess. Her half of their slot machine
winnings had to be good for something, didn’t it?

Dylan leaned over, looking exaggeratedly patient. It was the
same expression he’d worn since she’d whispered her revelation about their name
slipup to him at the hotel cashier’s office.

“I’m telling you. You’re worrying too much about this.”

Grrr. If there was anything Stacey hated, it was being told
her worries were insignificant. She tried buying time to respond with a little
patience by taking off her sunglasses, folding them, and stowing them along
with her Gilligan hat inside her purse. It didn’t work.

She still wanted to scream at him.

“Oh?” Adopting an expression of polite surprise,
she combed her fingers through her stringy hair. Fear of hat head had prevented
her from trying to deal with it until now. A shower was definitely in order.

“Is that right?” she asked. “Exactly what
makes you think I’m worrying too much?”

“All they asked for were our names. All they did was
take our picture and hand us some money. As far as they’re concerned, we’re not
even guests of this hotel. They didn’t ask us where we were staying, you know.”

He was right. They hadn’t. “Probably because they
already knew. We
are
supposed to be the honeymoon couple, you know.”

“In this town, honeymoon couples are a dime a dozen,”
Dylan pointed out. “On The Strip alone there must be fifty wedding
chapels. Maybe more. Do you think we’re the only ‘honeymoon’ couple around?”

“But—”

“Trust me. Nothing’s gone wrong. Aunt Geraldine will
never catch word of this. Not unless you tell her yourself.” He whipped
off his aviators and ball cap and handed them both to her, then raked his fingers
through his hair. It stood on end like short brown spikes. “Are you going
to tell her?”

“Of course not!”

“Because the way you’re going on about this, a person
could get the idea you’re trying to sabotage the honeymoon charade. If you are,
you might as well cut to the chase. Just call her up and spill the beans right
now. It would sure free up the rest of my weekend.”

“How dare you!” Stacey stuffed the sunglasses and
cap in her purse with enough force to make Dylan wince. Good. At least that
meant he was paying attention. “Of course I’m not trying to sabotage the
honeymoon charade. What a ridiculous thing to say.”

Throwing her purse on the loveseat—wishing she could throw
it at
him
for making such an outrageous suggestion—she stomped to the
bathroom. Scowling, she picked up a comb and looked in the vanity mirror.

Her face stared back at her, flushed pink beneath a thick
coating of baby blue zinc oxide war paint. Those were the only words for it.
War paint. Three stripes streaked across each of her cheeks. Thumbprint-sized
dots marched across her forehead and chin. Her nose was a blue blob.

“Ahhh!”

Thumping footfalls sounded outside the bathroom. Dylan poked
his head around the corner, his face filled with concern. His gaze whipped over
her, just as though it
wasn’t
completely obvious what was the matter.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Okay? Am I okay?” Stacey shook her head at her
mirror image. “No, I’m not okay! On top of everything else, somehow
you”
—she
poked her finger at his chest—“managed to make me look like a crazed
lifeguard! Am I supposed to be
okay
with that?”

Stacey gripped the pink marble vanity and looked again at
her mirror image. She’d actually appeared in public like this? Actually had her
picture taken like this?

“What have you done to me?” she wailed. Her
fingers tingled on their way to going completely numb, but that was the least
of her concerns. Her greatest concern was…strangling Dylan.

Or at least giving him a coat of war paint to match.

He took one look at her and backed up, turning his head left
and right like a fugitive searching for a hiding place.

“At least now you’re not so worried about the honeymoon
charade,” he said. “Ha, ha.”

Wisely, he retreated. She circled him through the sitting
area, around the loveseat, and past the plate of Christmas cookies. Ginger
yapped at her heels, wanting in on the game.

“Not now, girl,” Stacey told her. “This time
he’s all mine.”

Her gaze searched the room, landed on her purse, and an idea
struck her. A devious idea. But Dylan deserved it. She picked up her purse.

“You told me to hurry up.” Doubtless wondering
what she was up to, he glanced at her purse. “I was just going for even
coverage.”

“Even coverage, huh?” Opening her purse, Stacey
pulled out a tube of pomegranate-colored lipstick and a midnight blue-colored eyeliner pencil. She held up the lipstick to the sunlight streaming through the
honeymoon suite window and squinted at it. Yes, it would do nicely.

He thought war paint was funny? She’d show him war paint.

“Even coverage, huh?” She felt a devilish smile
lift her lips. “Funny you should mention that.”

Dylan backed up, skirted the edge of the bed, and stopped on
the other side. “If this is about the honeymoon charade,” he said
rapidly, “it’s really no problem. The hotel’s not going to call Aunt
Geraldine.”

“Oh, no?”

“No.” His gaze zipped to the lipstick, then to the
eyeliner pencil. He smiled too, but his grin looked a little wobblier than hers
felt.

It was kind of a thrill to have the upper hand for once.
Stacey did, after all, still owe him for his dirty trick at the end of their
pillow fight.

“The ones we really have to worry about,” Dylan
said, “are the honeymoon surprise people. The ones who know Aunt Geraldine
personally. If anyone’s going to rat on us, it’s them.”

She stopped. He had a point.

But so did she. A cosmetics point. Two of them, in fact.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She wielded her
trusty lipstick and eyeliner. “You know, I’m starting to wonder if maybe
you’re just here to mess up my honeymoon charade. Is that it?”

The more she thought about it, the saner that crazy idea
seemed. Why else would Dylan have tried to war paint her into public
ridiculousness? Tried to take over the whole honeymoon façade? Tried to goad
her into calling Aunt Geraldine and confessing everything?

But why?

“No.” He backed up some more. His eyes followed
the path of the cosmetics she wielded, but he kept on grinning. “Stacey,
put the makeup down. Let’s just talk about this like two reasonable adults.”

“You’re patronizing me now?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“See! There you go again!”

“Aaack!” Dylan shoved his hands in his hair.
Clearly, things weren’t going the way he’d planned. He backed up into the
window and stood there, silhouetted by the light.

“It wasn’t enough that you broke up with me all those
months ago.” She advanced almost close enough to touch him—or paint him,
which was what she really had in mind. “You had to come back and try to
break my heart all over again, didn’t you? Let me tell you something, Dylan,
that’s really twisted. I can’t bel—”

“I broke your heart?”

She snapped her mouth closed, assaulted by the silence that
fell between them. Dear God, had she really just blurted out what she thought
she had?

“I broke your heart?” This time his voice was a
broken whisper, slipping past her defenses right into the heart in question.
What had she done?

She tried backpedaling first. “I mean, back when were
first dating, I—”

A goofy grin spread across his face, dissolving every bit of
aggravation she’d felt before. Damn him. How did he keep doing that?

Dylan reached for her. His big hands closed around her hips,
then traveled a sensuous trail up to her waist. The possessiveness inherent in
his touch left no doubt he knew she was lying about how she felt. Stacey’s
breath caught, held, keeping time with the bump-skip rhythm of her heartbeat.

“That is,” she choked out, desperate to retain
what little rational thought she had left, “part of me thought maybe we—”

“Shhh.” The tender smile on his face tantalized
her almost as much as the slow squeeze and release of his hands on her waist.
He drew her closer. “I really broke your heart?”

“You don’t have to sound so happy about it.”

“I’m not happy.”

His gaze met hers. His body heat touched her, penetrated her
clothes to wrap around her heart. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be…her
confessing her stupid inability to get over him, him savoring every word. But
somehow, Stacey couldn’t pull away.

“You
look
happy,” she groused. “You’re
grinning like a kid at Christmas.”

“I’m grinning because I
feel
like a kid at Christmas.”
Dylan tipped her chin up with his hand and looked into her eyes. “Which is
only appropriate, right? It’s almost Christmastime. And I have to say…I’ve
never received a better gift.”

“A better gift than my humiliation? Ha.” Stacey
jerked her head away. “I don’t know—”

“Let me start over.” He smiled, and something in
his expression made her heart skip a beat. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry to
have hurt you.” He caressed her chin, her neck, her shoulder…but he
might as well have reached in and touched her heart. “I thought I was the
only brokenhearted one. I was a fool to let you go, Stacey.”

Him? Broken-hearted?

Because of
her
?

It was too much to take in all at once. “But what—”

“Richard and Janie told me all you wanted was a casual
relationship,” he explained. “When I started falling for you, I…I
panicked, I guess. From where I stood, the whole thing looked doomed.”

“Doomed?” It hadn’t been doomed. She’d been
falling for him, too.

But she’d never told him so. Just like she’d tried to hide
her feelings from him during the whole honeymoon charade. Amazed at her own
blindness, Stacey felt like slapping her forehead. How would she ever start
getting what she wanted if she never admitted what it was?

“So I bailed out.” Dylan’s face twisted at the
memory. “In my own defense, it seemed pretty smart at the time.” He
smiled again, laughing at himself. “I thought I’d actually get over you.
But it was the dumbest thing I ever did.”

She looked up at him, wanting to ease into his arms, to
enjoy the feel of him holding her…but afraid to do it. “Why are you
telling me this? Why me, why now?”

“Sheesh. Do I have to spell it out for you?”

Grinning, Dylan slipped the eyeliner pencil from her hand
and peered at the tip. Apparently satisfied it would write, he turned up her
wrist and started scrawling something on the underside of her forearm.

“Hey! That tickles! Haven’t you already done enough
damage to me with makeup today?”

He paused and looked up at her, still holding the pencil
poised above her skin. “Do you really want me to stop?”

Was he kidding? She was dying of curiosity. Stacey bit her
lip. “No,” she admitted.

“Good.” The soft pencil moved across her skin,
forming letters, then words. Between Dylan’s sloppy handwriting and the fact
that he was holding her arm sideways, she couldn’t tell what it said. He wrote
more, his smile widening, then released her wrist. She looked down.

I love you
.

Holy cow.

“I lou…I Lou?” she read, too rattled by the
words to believe what they said. A joke seemed worlds safer. “You’re Lou?”

He cupped her face in his hands. For once, Dylan looked
absolutely serious. Something indescribably tender filled his gaze, and in that
moment Stacey believed—no matter how incredible they were—the words he spoke
next.

“No, silly,” he said gruffly. “
I love you
.”

The lipstick drooped in her hand. Stacey tightened her grasp
so she wouldn’t drop it, then uncapped the slender tube. With trembling
fingers, she swiveled up a half-inch of red.

Without her being aware of having reached for him, Dylan’s
wrist was in her hand. She turned it, exposing the underside of his forearm
and, holding her breath, drew a curvy red question mark. She looked up at him.

His eyes darkened, but a smile curved his lips. “Always
the skeptic, aren’t you? I’ll have to cure you of that. There’s no reason in
the world you can’t believe me.”

He raised her other arm and wielded his eyeliner pencil
again. Its soft point scrawled over her arm.

Yes
.

Then, in capital letters going all the way from her elbow to
her wrist:
I LOVE YOU STACEY
.