Page 64 of The Honeymoon Trap Confessions

Columbine flowers sprouted along the thin, steep trail where they hiked in silence.

William marched ahead of her, and she did her best to match the pace he set. As the trail rounded across the edge of a cliff, her entire focus switched to not taking a header onto the jagged rocks. The grip of her flip-flops slipped, and she stumbled to her knees with an oof.

William helped her up. She wiped the dirt from her kneecaps.

“Will?” she asked softly.

He paused. His expression had gentled when she fell. It remained kind.

She squeezed his biceps to keep him from turning away. “I confess I like almost all the colors.” She had to do this. Give him more. “You asked the night we played Confessions. I didn’t answer because, well, I didn’t want to get too close. But you should know, I don’t have a go-to favorite. It depends on the day.”

He didn’t respond but didn’t move either.

“I also confess I didn’t get my first kiss until I was almost twenty years old. You asked that, too.” In the distance, a low murmur of thunder answered her confession, but nothing from William. “What else do you want to know about me?”

“Everything, Luce,” his voice rough.

A handful of fat raindrops splattered on the rocks around them.

She drew a breath of damp mountain air as more thunder rumbled closer this time. She could do this. Trust him.

“M-my given name is Lucille. My parents are Berta and Graham. Before I moved to Confluence, everyone called me Lulu, but I’ve always preferred Lucy.”

Now I prefer when you call me Luce.

Those golden eagle eyes scoured her face as she spoke. She searched his right back to catch the spark of any memory. She was Lulu. He had to remember. She was finally ready for him to remember.

C’mon William.

His eyes remained blank. Nothing.

She blinked against the realization that she had changed so much he truly didn’t remember her. Or, perhaps, more likely she hadn’t been important enough for him to remember anything about her in the first place. She had been one of many on the production crew. His attention had been…elsewhere that entire time.

Her heart sank. The biting hope she’d held deep inside that who she had been might not matter to him corroded away to nothing. It would matter, he would only see her as who she had been—the person she’d worked so hard to blot out.

William stepped toward her. “Why are you in Confluence? Why here?”

“People aren’t nice to me, Will. I used to be such a mess. But I fixed that, and I realized the only thing I have is my career. I want to be a reporter more than anything I’ve ever wanted in the world.” She sucked in a lungful of mountain air. “I came to Confluence because some creep who watched me on the news thought I was his.”

More raindrops started to fall. Neither of them moved.

She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against them.

“Lucy…” William dropped the backpack and reached for her.

“No. You want to know. And I want to tell you.” She took a deep breath. “The lights went out in the stairwell of my apartment building that night when he came for me. I thought it was a rolling blackout. Not a big deal. I was almost to my floor when he shoved me against the wall. Pressed a knife against my throat.”

A pulse at William’s temple pounded hard with each beat of his heart. At the moment, it worked overtime. He stepped forward and tilted her face to his, running his finger against her jaw.

“I thought I was being mugged. But it was him.”

The air of the stairway had filled with the scent of her fear, the stale alcohol and tobacco on his breath, and his saccharine sweet cologne.

“He hated that I was on the news. Made plans so he could take me with him. Whether I wanted to go or not, that didn’t matter. There was somewhere in the Mojave where he had a place.”

William dropped the backpack and reached for her.

“Please, let me finish. I have to,” she said.