Decked with Holly

In the past three days I had seen him disgusted, annoyed, nervous, cynical, and snarky . . . but never with this look of full-blown panic crossed his face.

Unless I counted the time he mistook me for a zombie. But considering that a millisecond later I was blasted with pepper spray, it was hard to gauge the accuracy of that particular memory.

Performing in front of millions of screaming teenagers didn’t seem to faze him, but apparently horses were an entirely different story.

Dominic Wyatt was practically quaking with nerves.

Hilarious.

“Come on, they don’t bite,” I told him as I slowly stroked my horse’s neck. “They’re very sweet.”

“They have huge teeth.”

“And?” I waited for him to make a point.

“I don’t want to give him any reason to sharpen them on me.”

Apparently, there were a lot of things I still didn’t know about Nick, including where he had gone after dinner the night before. As soon as we left the dining room together he went cryptic on me and disappeared.

I probably shouldn’t have cared. He didn’t owe me any explanations. If he wanted to drink and gamble in the casino all night there was nothing stopping him. He was a twenty-one-year-old rock star; he could do whatever he wanted.

It just struck me as strange since we hadn’t had anything even bordering on a serious dispute in . . . days? I thought we were becoming . . . friends.

I must have misread the situation. And even though I knew it wasn’t worth obsessing over, I kept trying to identify what had triggered his need to ditch me. Plus the air of secrecy around it had definitely piqued my curiosity.

Especially since he wouldn’t say a word about it in the morning.

Of course, one glimpse at a horse and he looked ready to tell me almost anything if it got him out of horseback riding.

“Hurry up, Nick.”

He glared at me, then the horse, then back at me. “I’m not sure which of you is a bigger nag.”

“Very funny.”

“Not really. I fail to see any humor in this situation.”

I dismounted from my horse, handed the reins to one of our guides, and walked over to Nick. “It’s simple. You put your feet in the stirrups and you sit. No buttons or hand signals or oxygen pumps or . . . whatever required.”

“I’ll stick with scuba diving, thanks.”

“I was nervous but I gave that a shot.” I gestured toward the horse. “Your turn.”

“Or we could try trekking together. Or rent off-road vehicles. What do you say?”

“I say, get on the horse already.”

But because I knew the press was probably lurking around somewhere, I leaned in to him and ruffled his hair in a very proprietary girlfriend kind of way. “You don’t want America thinking that a few little horses scare you, right?”

He glared at me again, but this time the look was more out of determination.

“I’m not scared. Merely cautious.”

I grinned and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. It felt warm and a little scratchy and . . . nice. Definitely time for me to get some space. Clear my head. “Saddle up, rock star.”

He began to slowly approach his horse, flinching when it flicked its tail. “You know, ‘rock star’ doesn’t sound like a compliment when you put it that way.”

I was about to tell him that it wasn’t meant to be a compliment when Allison and Claire nudged their horses over to us.

Well, over to Nick anyway. They ignored me entirely.

“Hey, Dominic. So Claire and I were just thinking—”

Never a good sign.

Nick just let out a quiet “Mhm?” as he took a few more halting steps toward his horse.

“Well, we heard that Heidi Klum always throws this outrageous New Year’s party. Masks. Costumes. The works.”

“Uh, okay.”

Nick gripped onto the saddle for dear life and managed to get one foot in a stirrup before sliding into the seat. His every muscle remained perfectly tense as if he expected to be tossed and trampled at any minute. The poor guy looked downright miserable.

Allison continued right on anyway.

“So Claire and I were hoping you could get us in.” She laughed softly. “We thought you might have some friends we could meet, you know, if you’re still unavailable.”

Wow. Talk about obvious. I was a little appalled by just how transparent they were being. And for the life of me I couldn’t figure it out. Normally, the twins are so good at toying with people, it’s scary. But Nick’s celebrity status seemed to have them off their game. Either that or they felt supremely confident that they hadn’t overplayed their hand.

“Uh, I can’t make any promises right now.”

Probably because he didn’t think he’d return to the ship in one piece. The guy was really terrified of horses.

I probably shouldn’t have found that cute, but I did.

“Oh, sure. We understand.” For the first time that day, Claire turned to me and I saw something nasty glitter in her eyes. “Holly, we need to talk.”

I could have insisted that anything they had to say in front of me they could say in front of Nick . . . but the last thing he needed was to be caught playing interference with my cousins. So, I mounted my horse again and followed Allison and Claire down the beach for a bit more privacy.

Although I instantly regretted it when Allison hissed, “We haven’t mentioned that you’re screwing Dominic to Grandpa. . . yet. But if you expect us to keep quiet, you better get us invited to that party.”

As if I had any control over the guest list. Not so much. Plus, it felt skeezier somehow to be using Nick for his famous contacts. I didn’t know why that seemed worse than wanting a rock star–related popularity bump at school, but it did.

Maybe because we had agreed to those terms. And Victoria’s Secret parties had not been part of our deal.

“You wouldn’t want Grandpa finding out that his innocent little girl has been deflowered, do you?” Claire added nastily. “He’d be so disappointed.”

I tried to play it off with a shrug. “He already knows we’re dating. It’s not like it’d come as a complete surprise to him. Besides, who says we’re having sex?”

Allison snorted. “Of course you are. Why else would a guy like Dominic Wyatt waste his time with a girl like you?”

Ah, cousinly love. So sweet.

“Well, I’m not worried about Grandpa,” I lied. “You’ll have to do better than that to scare me.”

“We still have those photos, don’t we, Allie?”

Crap. I had forgotten all about the Santa debacle.

’Tis the season, all right . . . for blackmail.

“There are some tabloids that’ll pay good money for those shots. Especially the ones where Holly’s skirt is around her waist and she’s straddling—”

“Fine! I’ll ask him!”

Claire smirked at me. “You do that. And remember: Say anything we don’t like, and we’ll destroy you.”

This is why I don’t understand the appeal of “quality family time.” It never ends well. Then again, maybe most people aren’t engaged in a Cold War–type situation where only the threat of mutually assured destruction keeps even the semblance of peace.

There was no childhood grievance at the root of it either. The girls had just taken a dislike to me, and years later . . . nothing had changed. And my grandpa probably thought it was normal “girl stuff” that would pass with time. Yeah, and the Israelis and Palestinians had a few “issues” that some therapy could fix.

Not likely.

I was still scowling at the Twins from Hell when my grandpa waved me over.

“Ride with me, Holly. I want to hear more about this Nick fellow of yours.”

Which was pretty funny considering that if he actually wanted to get to know Nick he could have steered his horse over to where the rock star sat tightly clutching his reins. I felt guilty for insisting he join us. I would have backed off if I had known he legitimately feared horses. Then again, he wasn’t actually there for me: He was playing it up for the press. Horseback riding on the beach with his new girlfriend and her family . . . girls like Jen would be swooning for sure.

Not that it usually required effort on his part to make that happen.

Still, he was a rock star and nothing mattered to him more than staying on top. Although I had a feeling that staying on top of his horse was his current number-one priority.

Oh, yeah, this was going to be one really long beach ride . . . for him.