Page 50 of The Honeymoon Trap Confessions

He placed his mug on the table. “First rule of telling lies, keep them as close to the truth as possible. That way they’re easier to keep track of. But, for now, fine. I’m a landscaper. You’re my receptionist. How many pretend future kids do you want?”

She gave him some serious side eye. “Uh…none.”

“None? At all?” His foot dropped to the floor. The small thud matching the way his heart plunked to the bottom of his ribs.

“Nope.”

“That’s not going to work for me. We’ve got to have at least one.”

“Fine. I’ll have one pretend child with you.”

“You sure you don’t want two? Being an only pretend kid isn’t any fun.”

She thinned her lips and shook her head. “I’m putting my pretend foot down.”

“Alrighty then. We have professions. Family aspirations. Anything else?”

“How long have we known each other?” she asked.

“Five years.” Seemed like a reasonable amount of time.

Not that he had much of a track record to go from.

“That’s kind of a long time.” Her forehead pinched, and his fingertips itched to smooth those lines.

“Five months?” he countered.

She grimaced. “You think that’s long enough?”

“If we tell them five months then at least it’ll make sense when we don’t know anything about each other,” he pointed out, scooting his chair closer to hers so their knees nearly bumped.

“Five months ago, you hired me at your landscaping business.”

“And then you were all over me.”

She sat taller and crossed her legs, bumping his knee with her own and quickly pulling back. “I was not.”

“Okay. I was all over you. It was love at first sight.” Not far from the truth—not that he was in love with her. Serious lust, maybe.

She trailed her finger around the edge of her mug. “You can’t believe in that.”

“Lust at first sight then?” he asked.

“Seriously, Will? Fine. Love at pretend first sight.”

“Fair enough. We figured, why wait? Our whirlwind romance led to us getting married and ending up here at Twin Lakes.”

She pulled out a thin reporter’s notebook and began scribbling. Why did he find that charming? Maybe he did need to get his head examined. “Where are we from?”

“Confluence.”

Her pen stalled. “Confluence is too close. What if one of the other guests is also from Confluence? Then they’ll know we’re lying.”

“Fine. Nebraska.”

“Nebraska?”

“Yeah.”