Take Me (Take Me 1)

Lily tilted her head at him in puzzlement, but before she could get a good answer out of him the priest placed Travis’s hand over Lily’s on the vase, raised their arms high into the air, then let go.

“I think this is our cue,” Travis said with an air of foreboding that made Lily shiver with sudden unease.

Looking Lily in the eye, he said, “On three. One, two, three.”

The pretty vase smashed onto the stage before them into a million pieces, and the cheers were deafening.

Lily stood frozen, like a statue. The townspeople lifted her and Travis off the stage while throwing brightly colored confetti everywhere. When her feet touched solid ground again, she reached for Travis.

“What just happened up there?” she asked in a shaky voice.

Travis’s voice was a low rumble. “I’m not sure you want to know.”

Fire shot into Lily’s eyes. “Tell me what happened, Travis.”

With a sigh, he said, “My Italian is pretty rough.”

“Stop stalling.”

“You and I were just… ” His words fell away again, but Lily was pretty sure she could finish the sentence for him.

“Married.”

She expected him to pull away from her, to go running off down the hill. The Travis she had always known would have been on the next plane to the farthest place he could get to. Away from her. Even if it was just a pretend marriage for one night in Italy, she knew he had to feel caged. Trapped.

Lily stiffened every part of her body to try and steady herself for his rejection. So when Travis pulled her into his arms and kissed her like a man kisses a woman he’s in love with, it took a few seconds for it to sink in.

“I love you, Lily.”

Lily held on to him for dear life, shell-shocked. “I love you, Travis.”

In the past week her life had, somehow, changed from a boring late-night TV show to a glorious old black-and-white film, where she was the gorgeous star with the to-die-for hero lusting after her. But although it was amazing and wonderful, it was also weird. Not to mention terribly hard to comprehend, as if she were going to wake up any minute, and it would have been no more than a ridiculous dream.

She heard her name being called out, more and more frantic each time.

“Lily! Lily!”

Oh no, she thought, I knew this was a dream! A really, really lifelike dream, but unreal nonetheless.

Travis’s arms were strong and warm around her. His lips tasted of sugar and lemons. Was it possible to taste in dreams, she wondered? And then there was a small hand on her back, and Lily knew that she wasn’t dreaming.

Even so, she had just been woken up with a splash of ice-cold water.

Two very familiar voices beamed through the happiness-filled, lust-laden haze clouding her synapses.

Janica and Luke had come to Tuscany.

And she had a sinking feeling that she knew why. Project Save Lily had begun.

“Luke?” Travis stared at his twin with equal parts disbelief and distress.

His brother’s usual smile was gone, replaced with a grim stare. “Travis.” Luke’s voice was clipped and filled with unmistakable disapproval. And, if Travis wasn’t mistaken, a fair measure of loathing.

Travis scrambled for something to say to his brother who had traveled five thousand miles to surprise him in Tuscany.

“What are you doing here?” It wasn’t exactly gracious, but it was all he could manage at the moment.

After all, he had just gotten married to Lily in a spontaneous Italian ceremony. Considering the changes he’d been through during the past several days Travis was amazed that he was still standing. Over Luke’s shoulder, Travis could see Lily talking to a small dark-haired girl.

His worst fears were realized. “Janica?”

Lily’s little sister spat his name. “Travis.”

He barely resisted taking a step back. If the look in Janica’s eyes was any indication, the little sprite was gearing up to kill him. Slowly and painfully.

Janica advanced on Travis. “What was going on up there on the stage?”

Lily grabbed Janica’s arm and tried to pull her away from Travis. “I’ll explain everything to you guys later.

Right now Travis and I have to—”

This time Luke was the one taking menacing steps toward Travis. He poked him in the chest. Hard.

“You’d better explain this right now, ‘cause I’m itching to break something on you.”

Travis felt like he was falling deeper and deeper into a hole that he hadn’t seen until it was too late. He looked at Luke, his twin’s anger palpable. Janica speared him with a glance of ultimate fury. And then there was Lily.

Travis badly wished he could read the look in Lily’s eyes. Was she angry? Was she sad? Had she wanted to marry him? What did she want him to say?

For the first time in his life Travis was at a complete loss for words. He didn’t know what he should do.

He didn’t know what he should say.

So, in a moment that would live on in his nightmares for months, he fell back into his usual modus operandi; He made a joke out of everything.

Forcing his muscles to ease up, he chuckled and waved his hand in the air. “We were just messing around up there,” he said, effectively dismissing not only the marriage ceremony between him and Lily but their entire relationship.

Lily’s mouth fell open. Then closed. He was dying, couldn’t she see that? Didn’t she know how hard it was for him, to love her, need her so much, so quickly? He wished they could be alone to try and figure out how to get through this, how to deal with making their relationship public. But instead of pulling her away from Luke and Janica, Travis stupidly filled the silence with more garbage. “We were giving the locals a good show, right, Lily?”

He didn’t look at her to see if she nodded or not. He couldn’t bear to. Not right then. Travis had felt so calm during the ceremony, even after he realized that it was for real. But that was when he’d been able to pretend that it was just the two of them, that no one knew them. That no one was going to judge Lily for being lush and round. She was so beautiful to him, but he knew firsthand how important bones and angles were when it came to treating a woman nicely. Just because he had faced up to being a shallow excuse for a human being, didn’t mean that his friend and coworkers would behave the same way. If anyone said anything to hurt her… he couldn’t stand to even think about. And even though he knew that Luke and Janica loved Lily for who she was, just seeing them made all of his fears rise up. He didn’t have a plan in place, and this was all happening so fast that he couldn’t hack it under the pressure.