I Do (Hate You) by Sienna Blake

James

I didn’t know who was on the other side of that door, but I was going to kill them and bury that cock blacker in the garden.

Shell slapped a hand over her mouth mid-moan and was now looking at me with terror.

“Don’t answer it,” she mouthed after moving her hand away.

“James! Open up! I can hear you in there!”

It was Logan. Fuck!

“Okay, answer it,” Shell whispered.

“What? Are you crazy?”

“He owns the hotel, idiot. He’ll just flag down a maid to get a key and open the door anyway. Just crack open the door and tell him to go away.”

“James! Come on, mate!” That was Rhys. And he never gave up.

“Just a minute,” I shouted. “I’ve got to get some shorts on!”

If Logan caught me handcuffed to his sister, there was no way I’d be able to explain it away. Best case scenario, my best friend never spoke to me again. Worst case scenario, he and Rhys would kill me. Logan wouldn’t even bother burying me in the garden. He’d burn me alive on a beach bonfire.

“Hide,” I whispered to Shell. She pushed herself up against the far wall but that yanked on the cuffs so I smacked my knuckles into the door. This wasn’t going to work. She slid halfway back as I took a step forward and we bumped into each other. Dammit!

“James?” Logan asked from the other side of the door.

I pushed Shell behind the door. There. She and I gave each other a last nervous look before I reached for the doorknob. Took a deep breath. And opened it.

“Hey, fellas,” I said, squeezing everything but my handcuffed left hand in the opening, hoping my stance and voice came off as casual. My heart was racing, and I could feel myself starting to sweat.

“Hey! How’s your suite? I just had the ones on this side renovated but I haven’t gotten a look at them yet. While I look, you can put on a shirt and we can all go to breakfast,” Logan said, taking a step toward the door. I held fast. There was no way in hell I was letting Logan into my villa.

“No! Nope. No. That is not a good idea,” I said, feeling a trickle of sweat roll down my back and into my ass crack even though it was squeezed tight from fear.

“Why not?” Rhys asked, immediately suspicious.

“I, um, I…”

I glanced over at Shell, who was trying to mime something at me, holding her stomach and then crossing her arms to form an X.

What the hell is she trying to get me to say? Is she…oh, I get it.

“I, er…just took a big dump in the toilet and I wouldn’t advise anyone to come in here for at least an hour!”

I looked over at Shell for approval but only got the stink eye. Oh well, I still had to roll with it.

“Stop lying,” Logan said.

Shit! He knows!

“I know the real reason you won’t let us in there,” he said, face so stony that I couldn’t read his emotions.

“You do?” I squeaked out like a little girl.

“Yeah, you’ve got a woman in there! Why didn’t you say so, mate?”

Logan popped me on the shoulder. Rhys leaned over to give me a high five. I held up my free hand while awkwardly keeping the door shut with my other shoulder.

“Who’s in there?” Rhys asked. “Natazia?”

“Nah, my money is on that big-boobed air hostess,” Logan guessed.

“Not exactly,” I began, ready to confess I was cuffed to his sister.

Logan cut me off. “I know. It’s both! You dog. You fuckin’ dog! Only you could pull that one off. Are they still in there? Is that why you’re sweating? My God, I bet that’s a workout keeping them both satisfied.”

I was about to agree when Shell jabbed me in the side. I had to bite back a grunt and say instead, “No, really. There’s no one in here.”

Logan and Rhys winked at each other as if they were in on the joke.

“Sure, no one is in there,” Rhys said elbowing Logan. “It was no one who was moaning against the door when we knocked. It was no one who you went off to see after you left the buck’s night last night. “

I froze. The buck’s night. I couldn’t even remember going to it but they sure did. Maybe they knew something that could help us figure out what happened.

“The buck’s night. Right. How did the rest of the buck’s night go?”

Logan rolled his eyes. “More of the same. Just a bunch of guys drinking port and smoking cigars. No strippers. No loud music. No dancing. Very civilized.”

“He means boring,” Rhys added. “It was like a buck’s night for eighty-year-olds.”

“Yeah, Lane was thrilled, but I really could have gone for at least some poker.”

“Did I, um, did I tell you where I was going to go last night when I left?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

“That’s a weird question,” Rhys said. “Don’t you remember?”

“Well, I was pretty drunk,” I said, hoping it was believable.

“No, you weren’t,” Logan protested. “You had one glass of port. You can usually have six glasses before you even slur your words.”

“Oh, I guess I just forgot then.”

Shit shit shit shit. Busted!

Rhys saved me. “Yeah, being that bored makes me forget things too. You just said you had a message to pick up something that had been express couriered at the front desk.”

“Oh, yeah. Now I remember,” I lied, and I could feel Shell gawking at me from behind the door.

Logan took a few steps back and said, “Well, we understand why you don’t want to come to breakfast with us, seeing as you have no one in your room. Eat some protein and pound an energy drink and get back in there! I want to hear all the dirty details later.”

I tried to give out a manly, knowing laugh, but it came out as a nervous old-lady giggle. But at least they were leaving. I let out a sigh of relief and began to close the door.

“Oh, hey, James!” Logan said, turning back.

Goddammit, what else?

“Mmm-hmm?” I said, looking delighted to have him there on my porch instead of wanting him to get the hell away.

“Have you seen Shell? She’s not in her room.”

“Shell who?” I asked, which was the first thing that came to mind. When the actual Shell kneed me in the back, I added, “Haha. Just kidding. No, I haven’t seen her. She’s probably with Rupert. You should ask him.”

Logan made a face. “Right. Rupert. Thanks!”

I watched this time until the two of them disappeared past a jungle-looking bush with red flowers. Then I closed, locked and deadbolted the door behind me. I laid my forehead against it, still sweating from our near discovery, thinking of the irony of my lie.

When I turned my head to see how Shell was doing, she repeated my idiotic words, “Shell who?”

“I panicked.”

“You must only be able to lie to women,” she sniped. “Come on, let’s grab those scissors.”

Shell found a pair in the kitchen and slit open the side of my favorite polo shirt while I winced. She pulled a few safety pins out of the drawer too and pinned my shirt back together along the side while we talked.

“I still can’t find my cell phone, but I need to call the front desk to ask about that courier Rhys was talking about. What would have been so important that I left the buck’s night to go get it?” I asked.

“Good question,” she said around safety pins that she was holding between her teeth. She grabbed the villa phone from the bedside table and handed it to me.

Fortunately, the receptionist working the front desk last night was back again this morning and remembered me. Shell had finished pinning the shirt and held her face next to mine by the receiver so she could hear too. I tried not to smell the lovely scent of her hair.

“Quit sniffing me,” Shell hissed, her hand over the mouthpiece.

“I’m not,” I lied.

I could have told her there was a speaker button on the phone, but I decided I liked being this close to her.

“Mr. Kane, it was an envelope and I handed it to you personally,” the perky receptionist reported.

“I had a little too much to drink last night and I’m having trouble remembering what I did with it. Did you notice what I did with it or did you see anything inside it?” I asked, hoping I sounded charming and a little naughty instead of drunk and forgetful.

“You opened it at the front desk, and I saw two manila folders inside. I bet you put it in the safe in your villa because you asked me how to program it,” she said. I thanked her and rang off.

Shell and I went to the bedroom and located the safe inside the closet, and I read the instructions on how to open it.

“What are you waiting for?” Shell asked, slapping me on the arm with impatience. “Punch in the code!”

“I don’t remember the code.”

“How is that even possible?” she whined.

“You think I would forget how I wound up naked, wet and handcuffed to you but remember the code I used for this safe?”

She made a sound that was half rage, half frustration. “Yeah, okay. But at least we know a little bit more about what happened last night than we did a few minutes ago.”

“But we have more questions than answers. What would have been so important that I put it in the safe? Who sent me the manila folders and what was inside? And more importantly now, what fucking code did I use?”

While I talked, Shell began to dance. Not like a sexy dance, more like a little shuffling weird dance, where she kept her hands at her side.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “This is weird even for you.”

“Ohhhhh, I have to pee,” she whispered, her dancing getting more frantic. “And I don’t want to do it in front of you.”

“Oh good lord, come on,” I said and dragged her off toward the bathroom. “I have seen you naked from the waist down plenty of times, including this morning.”

“You said you weren’t looking!” Shell squawked as she shuffled behind me.

“You believed me? God, you’re gullible.”

When we got to the bathroom, I turned around and closed my eyes. “There. My eyes are really shut this time. Do your business and I won’t look.”

I heard her slide her shorts down and sit on the toilet, but after a minute she said, “I can’t.”

I opened one eye in disbelief. “You’re kidding me!”

“You’re looking!” she accused.

I closed my eyes again before she threw the toilet cleaner at me. “Just pee already.”

“I can’t do it while you’re listening,” she said, embarrassment obvious in her voice.

I thought of ten obnoxious things to say but then remembered what my mother used to do when my brother and sister were little. I cleared my throat and began.

“What are you doing?” she asked, interrupting me.

I shuffled, eyes still closed. “I’m singing so you can pee.”

“You’re…singing?”

It worked. By the sound of it, the woman had the bladder of a camel. I kept on singing with my eyes closed even as I heard her stand up and flush, trying to remember where I’d heard the song and why I connected it with Shell.