Getting Tricky Read online

The contracts that she’d signed were extensive. She had signed her life over to the station for the foreseeable future. What was supposed to be an adventure was fast turning into a nightmare, but she was too tired to care tonight.

  FIVE

  Lyla didn’t have time to care the next day either. The camera crew were at her door before she’d even brushed her teeth. She didn’t let them slow her down though, and managed to get out of the apartment and made to the airport on time.

  There was some sort of security alert, so it was taking longer to get through check in and security checkpoints. Since filming had started it seemed she was always waiting, waiting, waiting. Eventually, she did make it onto the flight and into her seat.

  Cliff and the others were on the same plane too, but they were dotted around all over the place, meaning there wouldn’t be any filming on the flight, which she was at peace with, even if it pissed Paul off.

  The flight was late, but at least she was here. She hadn’t seen Trick at all that morning, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t there. The seats all around her were taken, it seemed to be fully booked, so he could be anywhere on the plane.

  Until someone came and told her that he wasn’t here or she should get off the plane because there was no honeymoon, she was going to sit here, looking out of the window watching the airline employees scurrying around on the tarmac.

  “Hey.”

  Turning to the sound of Trick’s voice, Lyla wasn’t surprised to find that he wasn’t talking to her; he was never talking to her. He was talking to the guy in the seat paired with hers. “Hey, I know you!” the passenger said. “You’re… you’re that late night guy with the buddies!”

  “Yeah,” Trick said.

  When Trick’s grin widened, she turned back to look at the men in their high-vis vests. Wondering about the point of the neon jackets, she fazed out of the conversation going on between the two men beside her and speculated on how long it might take a plane to stop after a pilot noticed the guys on the ground.

  A minute later, the guy beside her got up and then someone else dropped in to the seat. Turning around, she saw Trick grinning at her. “Hey, baby.” When he reached over in an attempt to touch her jaw, she dipped back and pulled her purse higher in her lap. “You’re pissed?”

  “Pissed?” she asked, pushing her oversized prescription shades higher on her nose. “No—well, yeah, I guess. I could’ve been in bed a half-hour earlier if I’d known you were taking off.”

  He curled a hand around her knee making her pleased that she’d chosen to wear the long sundress paired with the tie-dyed cotton poncho cover-up. But even though there was no skin contact, she still picked up his hand and put it on his own lap.

  “Sorry, I’m tactile.”

  Apologetic was better than what he’d been last night, but was it the alcohol that made him handsy or the personality? “There is no filming on the flight,” she said. “You can give that gentleman his seat back.”

  Leaning out into the aisle, Trick seemed to be looking at something, the stewardess’s ass probably. “You liked that gentleman? Doesn’t seem like your type.”

  “What do you know about my type?” she asked, narrowing her eyes when he lifted his sunglasses to prop them on the front of his forehead so he could pinch and rub the bridge of his nose. His eyes were bloodshot with dark circles beneath them and she recognized that he was hungover. Opening her purse, Lyla popped a couple of ibuprofen from their sheet and tipped a vitamin from its bottle, then picked up the water bottle she’d got from the stewardess. Holding both toward him, he opened his palm to accept the pills. “Stay hydrated.”

  “Ah, you’re an angel,” he said, tossing the pills back and gulping down the water. When the air stewardess walked by, he seized her wrist. “Hey, sweetheart, can we have a couple of bottles of water and half a dozen vodka miniatures, leave them in plastic, you know?”

  The air stewardess smiled like putty and giggled. “Of course, Mr. Strickland.”

  “I told you, it’s Trick, and don’t you go forgetting it, sweetheart.”

  He winked at the woman and Lyla rolled her eyes as she walked off. “Do you think more alcohol is a good idea? What time did you get home?”

  “Haven’t done that yet,” he said, groaning and pushing back in his seat. “And I’m not gonna drink it, I’m just gonna let them think I am.”

  Lyla didn’t know what that meant, but had learned already that there was plenty in his life that didn’t make sense to her. She wasn’t going to get herself lost in any labyrinth trying to figure it out. The air hostess came back with his things and she got another wink as Trick handed Lyla one of the full water bottles.

  The stewardess left with a giggle and Trick dipped into the space between their knees to work covertly. Watching Trick tip the vodka into the almost empty water bottle, Lyla was surprised to see him stick it in the pouch in front of him and then refill the empty vodka bottles with water from one of the new full bottles. He turned his tray down and spread the vodka bottles across the tray, except now there was no vodka in them, it was just water.

  Huh, he was a perplexing person. “Cliff says he’s going to give me a tour of the resort when we get there. You could sleep then.”

  “Who’s Cliff?” Trick asked, stretching himself out so far that his hands flattened on the ceiling above them. “The hotel manager?”

  “My assistant director,” she said.

  “Huh,” he said, his eyes still closed. “Guess I never thought about Paul not being in two places at once.”

  If she’d been introduced to everyone, he must have been too. Obviously, he didn’t pay attention in other areas too. “Paul was pretty angry that you ditched him last night,” she said, pulling her purse up to her torso again and hugging it close.

  “Yeah, I got reamed for that,” he said, smiling and turning onto his side in his chair to look at her. “He was more pissed than you are… You the perfect woman, or you just worried about coming off as a nag on the first day?”

  “You made it clear yesterday what this was,” she said, pulling the stack of papers out the pocket of the chairback in front of her.

  “I did?” he asked. “I gotta be honest, sweetheart, I was pretty much drunk all day, so if I’m a little hazy on the facts…”

  “We’re not attracted to each other and we already know we have nothing in common, that’s the whole idea of the show. You know, I was the only girl on the list because there wasn’t one other person on payroll more different to you than I am. So…”

  “So…?”

  Turning to see him assessing her, she felt scrutinized, but was he trying to figure her out or just where this was going? “I think it’s obvious we’ll be getting a divorce.”

  He smiled, something he did easily, and it warmed his whole face, but he was one of the most approachable guys she’d met. Always smiling, and everyone’s best friend, nothing seemed to bother him.

  “Why’d you come then?” he asked. “If it’s over before it began?”

  “It’s a publicity stunt,” she said. “Maybe I didn’t realize how deep that went, maybe I thought there would be…”

  “Be what?” he asked and his hand slid over onto her knee again, but she wasted no time in putting it back on his side of the chair arm and for some reason, that made his smile turn to a grin.

  “Not that,” she said. “You’re physical, that’s what you want… I’m not like that. Not even a little bit.”

  “You’re not physical?” he asked. “You don’t do anything physical?” His eyes dropped to her body, but they quickly became lost in the hood of a frown. “How come you always cover up every inch of yourself?”

  Her thin cotton cover-up did have a high neck and it was long enough to drape to wrist and mid-thigh, not that it mattered, as her dress went to her ankles. Right now though, her stuffed purse was on her lap and hugged in to her body so tight it rested beneath her chest.

  “What do you expect to see, Mr. Strickland?” she asked. “W
ould you like me to show more skin?”

  He grinned. “Yes, that would be great.”

  “And what if the view’s not as nice as you want it to be?” she asked. “Not Kira Levine nice.”

  His brows rose as his eyes drifted from her body to meet hers and his glasses fell over his eyes again. “Wow, straight into exes, ok. Kira was hot as hell, comparing you to her would be like comparing…”

  “Apples to oranges?”

  Nodding, he folded his arms, but stayed twisted toward her. “Yeah, but it doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t compare me to your exes, so it’s not… you know… a big deal.”

  Sure, not a big deal, except her ex list had exactly one name on it and he wasn’t an underwear model. “No, it’s not a big deal,” she said. “Because we know this is not going to be anything. And I came because who doesn’t like a free trip to the beach? Yeah, I’ll admit, I thought twice about it after dancing with you. But I figure, there are a bunch of clubs and a lot of beautiful women around, so I probably won’t see you much… I actually didn’t expect to see you on the flight at all.”

  Sorting through the information she’d taken from the chair-back pouch, she put back the security information just as the plane began to move. They taxied out and took off. Trick hadn’t said anything else, so she figured he’d fallen asleep and she was happy to leaf through the in-flight magazine reading about products available for purchase, and the latest in tray-table innovations.

  The novel in her purse was beginning to look more attractive by the second, but she didn’t want to race to pick it up because she only had a limited number of books to get her through the full four days and she read fast.

  “So, what are you?”

  His words were so unexpected that they startled her. But she turned to see him fixated right on her, his glasses on his head. “Sorry?”

  “If I’m physical and you’re not, then what are you?”

  “Cerebral,” she said, turning the page of her magazine. “You need a woman with an immaculate figure to interest you and I need…”

  “Brains,” he said, pushing his shoulder in to the back of the chair to push up higher. “You think I’m an idiot.”

  Lyla didn’t mean to smile, but she did, though she didn’t take her attention away from the magazine article that she was no longer reading. “I think the things that I like to talk about and the things that you like to talk about couldn’t be more different. I don’t know anything about sports, or liquor, or breast implants.”

  “That’s ok, I can teach you.” She didn’t laugh. “What do you like to talk about?”

  “You don’t care,” she muttered, still smiling.

  “I care,” he said, taking the magazine away from her to stuff it into the chair-back before seizing her hand. “Humor me, babe, what do you like to talk about?”

  Twisting around, she curled her body around her purse when she drew her knees up onto the seat and shifted her whole body in his direction. “Politics, history, philosophy,” she said and his eyes kind of flared in a way that made her laugh. “See.”

  When she moved to return to her previous position, he reached over to grab her knees and pull her back. “No, wait, don’t… just give me a minute, ok… history. I like history, you mean like the wild west and stuff? Cowboys and all that crap?”

  Grinning, she shook her head. “Actually, I like European history, the Roman emperors, the British monarchs… there are some amazing and fascinating stories. Their senates and courts were filled with intrigue, romance, drama, conflict… It’s the greatest of adventures and the best part is, they’re all true.”

  “Romans, huh,” he said and she nodded. “You like powerful guys, emperors and kings. That what turns you on?” Typical that he should jump to some kind of sexual association. “Like Caesar and that stuff?”

  “Caligula’s actually one of my favorites, he’s said to have been completely insane. He turned his palace into a brothel and was in love with his sister.”

  “Why shouldn’t he love his sister?” he asked.

  She laughed. “No, he was in love with her… had sex with her.”

  His whole face screwed up and she laughed again. “Really? He screwed his sister?” Clutching her hand, he gave it a squeeze. “I’m not sure my stomach is strong enough to listen to this right now.”

  If he was playing, he was doing a good job of it. “There are all kinds of stories like that, they’re all dubious of course, spread by the victor after the victim was killed, most of the emperors and kings were assassinated… usually by those closest to them or their own family members who wanted to steal power.”

  “No kidding,” he said. “Harsh.”

  “Yep,” she said. “It’s actually really interesting… if it’s told right.”

  Giving him his hand back, Lyla reached for her magazine again, but he caught her hand and pulled it back to his, this time taking it onto his knee instead of hers. “So tell it,” he said.

  “What?” she asked. That wasn’t funny.

  “Tell me the stories.”

  Shaking her head, she tried to pull her hand away, but he kept hold of it. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not a good story-teller,” she said. “I don’t… I don’t talk well.”

  She understood Trick’s confusion—he relished talking to groups, commanding an audience, so he probably couldn’t see how daunting a prospect performing was for her.

  “You’re talking great, babe. Tell me, I want to know.”

  The whole point of this marriage thing was for them to be different, but she hadn’t read anywhere that they were supposed to suppress those differences. “What do you want to know?”

  “Sex,” he said, spreading his grin again. “Tell me more about that.”

  “The Romans were very sexual,” she said. “And in contrast to widespread opinion they were much more liberal than we are in a lot of ways. They shared partners, wives; they slept with slaves and prostitutes openly, and often engaged in same-sex relations without shame. They decorated their walls with what we would classify as pornography.”

  “No way!”

  That wasn’t Trick’s voice. In fact, her groom looked up at the same time she did to see the two guys from the seats in front were kneeling up looking over the back. “S’up, guys?” Trick asked, sniggering at them.

  “Yeah, man, big fans,” the guy said and reached down to shake Trick’s hand in a weird slapping, twisty combination before his buddy did the same thing. “Tommy, look who this is!”

  The other passenger called to his friends who were seated behind them and before she knew it there was a group of half a dozen college kids around, penning her in as they all tried to get Trick to notice them. They were starting to draw attention to themselves, and she felt herself shrink.

  Extracting her fingers from Trick’s, Lyla tried to push his knee aside, out of her way. “Excuse me,” she murmured and clutched her purse tight as she stood up and wondered what the hell she was going to do to get by his tray table.

  “Whoa, wait a second,” Trick said, putting an arm out to urge her back down into her seat. “Where are you going, babe?”

  “Restroom,” she muttered, keeping her eyes down.

  As his fingers stretched under her chin, he tried to lift her face, but she resisted. “Looking for a little mile high fun?”

  The shock of this made her gaze leap to his and her mouth open. Could he really just have said that in front of all these guys? These… strangers. This… group. “Trick,” she hissed.

  “Hey, you guys together?” one of the passengers asked, “she doesn’t seem like your type.”

  “Yeah, I figured she was an assistant or something.”

  “Nah, guys,” Trick announced and drove an arm around her. “This here’s the little woman. She’s my wife.”

  As the guys all expressed shock, Lyla gasped. Throwing her purse to the floor, she grabbed the hem of her poncho and Trick’s collar. Yanking him
toward her, she threw the end of her poncho up over both of their heads to hide them from the group.

  “Trick,” she whispered, frantic as she searched his eyes that were only a couple of inches from hers. “We’re not supposed to tell.”

  “Relax, babe,” he said, smiling as he let a curled finger touch her cheekbone. Although the contact startled Lyla and she tried to pull away, she couldn’t go anywhere because there just wasn’t room to withdraw while they were under this cloak. “The first ads will be on the network tonight and these guys will have a story to tell, it’s all good publicity.”

  Good publicity, she was getting tired of hearing that. “Right. Whatever. Will you please let me pass so I can go to the restroom?”

  “Do you really need to go or are you just trying to sneak away from me?”

  Why would he think that? “No, I…” All she achieved by lowering her eyes was causing his finger to slide from her cheek to her chin to lever them up to his again. “I don’t do well in groups,” she whispered.

  “Another thing we don’t have in common,” he said and smiled. Was he enjoying this? She admitted that she had a vulnerability and the first thing he did was smile like an idiot. “Just keep your eyes on me, babe, ok? Forget about everyone else, just look right at me.”

  A hand slithered onto her knee and began to ascend her leg. “Trick, take your hand off my thigh.”

  “What? I’m curious about what you’re hiding.” He grinned that impish grin. “We’re married.”

  Thrusting the poncho down, she pulled his hand out from under it and deliberately locked her fingers between his. Yes, she could do hand-holding and while his hand was in hers, it wasn’t misbehaving.

  “No way you’re married,” the passenger said. Lyla hated how fascinated they’d all become with her. Before that announcement, she’d been ignored. “Were you making out under there?”

  “Yep,” Trick said to the grinning guys who had to all be in their early twenties. “We’re going on our honeymoon. She’s real hot for me, aren’t you, babe?”

  Without expression, Lyla stayed deadpan showing that she wasn’t impressed by his grin. “Aflame.”