Frank really looks disturbed. He gives Declan a look I’ve only ever seen used on my mom.

“Is there anything else I can do, Mr. and Mrs. McCormick?”

“Yeah. Leave.”

I know I didn’t say that, because I’m dipping a lobster tail in the fondue before Frank’s hand is even on the doorknob.

“Why are we getting a special buffet like this for breakfast?” I mumble around the gooey, stringy, tender perfection in my mouth.

Declan gives me a sour look. “It’s one o’clock in the afternoon.”

I would gag, but that would be a waste of perfectly amazing lobster. “Oh,” I finally choke out.

“You slept for a long time.” His anger starts to fade. “You needed it, after what happened yesterday. How are you?”

“Filthy.”

“Attagirl.” He kisses me, licking chocolate off my mouth. “Mmm. Good thing neither of us has a shellfish allergy.”

“Bite your tongue!”

“How about I bite yours?”

He does. I giggle. He lets go, looking me up and down.

“We’re both filthy.”

“Mmmm.” I can’t talk over the second bite.

“We need showers.”

“Mmmph?”

He’s in the bathroom, turning on the spray, before I can form words. I am coated in sweat and massage oil and melted chocolate minty mess. A shower would improve matters dramatically.

So would sex.

“Sex first, shower second?” I suggest, eyeing his jogging shorts, which currently look like he’s hiding a cricket bat in there.

“How about shower sex first, bed sex second?”

“Always the optimizer.”

Declan’s phone buzzes.

He cringes.

“Your phone is on?”

“We agreed to this before, Shannon. I wouldn’t work, but you’d let me leave the phone on.”

Then Grace’s ringtone fills the air. It’s a Melissa Etheridge song I can’t place right now.

He makes a strange grimace. “If she’s calling, there’s a glitch.”

“Our entire honeymoon so far has been a glitch! A glitch you haven’t been able to scratch! A swollen, blue glitch! Please don’t answer that.”

“I have to.”

“Please, Declan.”

We breathe, facing off, like two worthy generals in battle, at a crossroads where the only choice left is a poor one.

Knock knock knock.

“Mr. McCormick?” It’s Mr. Miyadori. “I know this is unusual, but we have a code red situation on site and could use your counsel. It is a convenient blessing that you’re present.”

I start banging my head against the wall. “Convenient.”

Declan closes his eyes, the gesture one of regret, the look someone in an action movie has on their face as they decide to be an astronaut on the assuredly-fatal mission to save Earth. The look my mother gets when she realizes the fifty-percent-off sale at the thrift shop only applies to yellow tags and she’s got a bunch of red-tag clothes in her arms.

You know that look.

“We need to leave,” I declare. “Go home.” I’m bitter. Too bitter, and dejected, and all the feelings you’re not supposed to experience on your honeymoon are rising up in me, vibrating at different speeds, making me shake.

“No,” Declan rasps. “I’m not giving up on our honeymoon. We’ve come too far. I just need one minute—”

“If you hold up your finger to get me to wait, I’ll break it off and shove it up your—”

He kisses me before I can finish the threat.

Then again, if I did that, he’d be getting more action than we’ve had since we arrived here.

“Give me twenty minutes. Whatever’s going on can be solved that fast. They’re just taking advantage of my being here.”

I pull out the nuclear option, saying the one threat that might make him change course. “If you’re not back here in twenty minutes, I’m masturbating.”

Declan was already opening the door when I say that, so the words ring out as Mr. Miyadori’s in mid-bow. He remains in mid-bow, poised there, trapped in time.

I wouldn’t want to look up and make eye contact with me right now, either.

Declan’s eyebrows meet his hair line, tongue against the line of his upper teeth, mouth open in surprise. He gives my body a crawling look of appreciation.

I sprint into the bathroom and turn on the shower.

I do not masturbate, because hope springs eternal.

Clean and shampooed, groomed and shaved, I emerge from the bathroom thirty minutes later.

To an empty room.

And an endless supply of chocolate and lobster buffet.

Chapter 7

You ever attend a luau alone? It’s not fun. At all. By dinnertime, all I have is a text from Declan that says, On conference call with legal. Turns out half the landscaping staff are undocumented immigrants, and our rivals turned it into a page one story. Sorry. Will be back by nine.

Nine comes and goes.

Declan’s just gone.

Where are you? I text again, giving the luau dancers a weak smile and another round of applause. The performances are impeccable. The food is fabulous. The atmosphere is romantic and relaxed, couples enjoying each other, holding hands, sharing bottles of wine.

And I’m staring at the roasting pig like he has my husband’s face.

Still in meetings. Almost done.

We need to go home, I text back. This is ridiculous. I want sex.

They won’t leave us alone! he replies. Might as well work.

If all you’re going to do on our honeymoon is work, I reply, then we might as well go home so we can have sex!

He doesn’t reply.

That’s it.

I call Grace.

“Hi, Shannon. What’s he done now?”

Grace is Declan’s second mother. Sure, she’s his executive assistant, too, and she practically runs his life, but more than any other role, she’s a mother hen.

“He won’t stop working.”

“Tell me about it. I was supposed to have a light week. Jeannie and I are celebrating our fifth anniversary in P-town and at this rate, she’ll divorce me.”

“I’m pretty close to getting an annulment.”

She laughs. “You can’t do that. You guys already had sex.”