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stepsister. It’d probably be on the national news.
    And that can’t happen.
    I shake my head and take the ticket out of Travis’ hand. “It’s too dangerous, Travis.”
    “What? Laney, we got fucking married for this shit.”
    “I know, but we were drunk. What am I going to tell my boss about how I got into Royal Shores? She’s a journalist. She’ll check my story, and then I’ll be done for.”
    “You’re overreacting. I’ll just schedule some event nearby and you can claim you were tagging along. Come on, it’ll be fun. It’s fucking Hawaii.”
    I shake my head. “It’s just too dangerous. We have to get this taken care of as soon as possible, and that means no honeymoon.”
    I put the tickets down on the nightstand.
    “Fine, but I’m holding onto the tickets in case you change your mind. And I’m pretty sure once we get back to LA and you spend five minutes with Nina, you’re going to be begging to go to Hawaii with me.”
    I roll my eyes and head back into the bathroom to finish my shower. He might be right, though. I wanted to scream at that cocktail party, and I have a feeling that it’s only going to get worse.
    But why did my lucky break have to come with an arrogant, oversexed stepbrother attached? If I say yes, he’s going to take it as some kind of sign to start hitting on me like he did when we first met, only probably even harder, because he’ll have nothing to distract himself with.
    He’d be all over me…and he might even try to get me back into his bed. And this time, it’d be for real.
    I shake my head and twist the shower knob all the way to the right. My shower’s going to have to be a lot colder to get my mind off of that .

Chapter 8: Laney
     
    I take a deep breath outside of Anna’s office, holding her coffee in both hands so I don’t spill it. She likes it filled all the way up to the top, so it’s easier said than done.
    When I enter her office, she’s sitting at her desk, shaking her head. “Oh my God, these are the worst fingernail implants I’ve ever seen.”
    Anna looks over at me, and then swivels her computer monitor around so I can see.
    “I mean, look at this.”
    There’s a blurry, zoomed-in close-up of somebody’s hand on the screen.
    “Wow, uh…weird.”
    “Seriously. Who does she think she’s fooling?”
    Anna Wolfe may strike fear into the hearts of everyone in Hollywood, but whenever I talk to her, I just feel like I’m talking to a mean, gossipy high school girl. As far as I can tell, that’s what she was, and instead of growing out of it, she turned it into a career. She’s good at it, too: she’s like a bloodhound when it comes to gossip, and her ability to sniff out celebrities’ embarrassing secrets is why she’s the boss around here.
    “Nina keeps telling me I should get them…but I keep telling her that I don’t want to end up like that.”
    “Good call. Hers are real, though, right?”
    I nod, and Anna shakes her head.
    “So how was your weekend?”
    What? A question about my personal life? Usually Anna just thanks me for the coffee and goes back to what she’s doing.
    It’s too bad I can’t tell her anything about my weekend.
    “Uh…pretty good. Kind of boring.”
    Anna’s cold, brown eyes lock onto mine and her lips curl into a smirk. “Kind of boring, huh? I don’t think so. I know about you and Travis.”
    My stomach drops through the floor. I keep my composure, but I have no idea how. My hands start to shake, and I can feel the coffee slosh back and forth, rising dangerously close to the edge of the cup.
    “Oh, yeah, I should have mentioned that. I did hang out with Travis.”
    “You didn’t just hang out with him.” A drop of coffee escapes the mug, running down my side of the cup. I wipe it off with my thumb, as Anna swivels her monitor back towards me, revealing a picture of Travis and I walking into the casino.
    “You were gambling with him.”
    Yeah. Just gambling. Let’s go with that.
    “Oh, uh…yeah.