The Honeymoon Prize Read Online Free PDF Page B

asked.
    “They will be delivered to the bure ,” Brad said. “A little advice to make things easier. Ignore the cameras, pretend they’re not there, and most importantly, be yourselves.”
    This wasn’t going to work. If she and Nick acted like themselves, everyone would know they weren’t in love.
    She wanted to be someone different, someone new, someone off on an exciting adventure.
    Why had she thought that on the seaplane?
    Nick held her hand. “Come on.”
    She laced her fingers with his, trying to keep her hand from tensing too much, and walked next to him.
    He lowered his mouth to her ear. “I’ll figure a way out of this.”
    She wasn’t sure how he would, but she clung to his words the way she gripped his hand.
    “Trust me,” he whispered. “It’s going to be okay, babe.”
    The word babe bristled. Addie preferred being called honey. She didn’t like being lumped in with the long list of women he called babe, ones he’d dated and left. She wasn’t like them.
    Her dad had deserted her and her mom when Addie was a toddler. Her mother had dumped her at her grandparents when she was four. Her aunt and mother had evicted her after her grandmother’s death. Addie had no one to call family now, but she had Nick.
    She knew he would never desert her. He might not be perfect, they might not have seen each other much these past nine years, but his friendship was like the sun, always there. Constant. No matter if the sky was blue or overcast.
    Forget Prince Charming. She wouldn’t want to be on Starfish Island with anyone else. Nick would figure a way out of this reality TV mess and make everything better.
    The way he had in the past. The way he always would.

Chapter 3
    N ick’s feet sounded against the path, his steps heavier than Addie’s who walked next to him. He kept a smile on his face for the camera, but inside he seethed. What in the hell had Emily been thinking when she entered them in the contest?
    He was a personal security professional. He didn’t want the public profile that went with being on a reality TV show. Incognito was the way he lived when he was enlisted and now that he was out.
    Worse, hadn’t Emily considered how this would affect Addie? A friend should know better. She’d been through so much with her grandmother’s illness, the death, and the subsequent battle over the house. Addie needed looking after, not put on display for millions of viewers’ guilty pleasure.
    He would text Emily while he determined how to extract Addie from this situation. Sure, he could take out the entire film crew. Given their frat boy looks, spray-on tans, and underwear model physiques, the odds were in Nick’s favor even though he was outnumbered four to one. Too bad Addie would never condone violence.
    That meant figuring out another way to get her off the island in the next twenty-four hours—sickness, food poisoning, death of a friend or loved one, an impending lawsuit. The last one wasn’t much of a stretch given Addie’s family stealing her inheritance and breaking her heart.
    Yes, he could come up with an exit strategy and whisk her to safety. That was why he was paid the big bucks, but he needed time to call and make arrangements. Until then, he would keep holding Addie’s hand, being her husband, and making sure she didn’t get too upset.
    She shouldn’t worry. No laws were being broken. They were legally married. What did it matter if they didn’t plan to live as husband and wife and share a bed?
    They were good friends who got along better than some married couples he knew. They had kept in touch for the last nine years when he’d drifted away from most other civilians, including his parents. He and Addie had looked out for each other from the time they were little kids, through good times and bad. So what if sex wasn’t part of their marriage? There wasn’t another woman he respected more.
    Playing a dutiful, crazy about his bride newlywed until they left the island would be a