Page 16 of Wife By Accident

“Oh, no. Please, no. I will absolutely die of embarrassment if some strange guy sees us locked up like this. He’ll have lots of questions, and we won’t have any answers, and it’ll just be a huge mess.”

“Well, at the moment, I’m afraid the choices are either to die of embarrassment or to starve to death because we can’t get unlocked and won’t leave the room,” Leo joked.

Olivia chuckled and sighed. “You might be right. Isn’t there anything else we can try first?”

“I’m out of ideas.”

Olivia nodded stoically. “All right, then. Let’s call the handyman.”

They returned to the bed, where Olivia sat next to Leo and reached for the phone. She dialed the front desk and pressed the speakerphone button. A friendly masculine voice picked up after the first ring.

“Carlton Hotel, how can I help you?”

“This is Olivia Keller in room seven-zero-two,” Olivia said brightly. “Is there a hotel handyman we could see?”

“Certainly. What’s broken?”

“I… um…” Olivia looked at Leo in a panic.

“We’re handcuffed together and lost the key,” Leo said. Olivia gestured at him in horror, but Leo just shrugged. He figured it was better to be honest and hopefully get help, than to lie and make the whole situation more difficult.

“I understand. Our handyman is in his office on the first floor, so the fastest way would be to go to him. I can send him to your room, but it might take a while for him to get you free, especially if he doesn’t bring the right tools.”

Olivia sighed again but nodded. “We’ll be there in a minute.”

She hung up and turned to Leo.

“Why did you tell him?”

“This kind of thing must happen all the time in Vegas,” Leo pointed out. “The receptionist didn’t seem fazed. I bet people getting locked together is just as common as people losing all their money to slot machines or getting food poisoning from strip-club buffets.”

“Or getting so drunk they wind up married to strangers?”

Leo pointed at her. “Exactly. Now you’re getting it.”

Olivia laughed. “I guess so. Maybe. I just… I never expected today to go like this.”

“If it helps, neither did I. Now, let’s get free so we can get back to our regularly scheduled programming.”

“Agreed.”

They stood and headed for the door. Before they left, they each took a moment to smooth their clothes and hair as best they could with one free hand — then they stepped into the hallway. To Leo’s relief, it was empty. He hadn’t seen the point of lying to the receptionist, but he didn’t relish the thought of trying to explain the leopard-print handcuffs to strangers, either.

They headed to the elevator and pressed the button. After a moment, the doors opened with a ding to reveal an elderly couple with gray hair and neat clothes. They took in Leo and Olivia, and their expressions narrowed.

“We’re married,” Olivia said. “It’s our honeymoon.”

“We are married,” Leo agreed.

They stepped into the elevator and headed down. The elderly couple got off first, exchanging pointed glances as they did so, and Olivia and Leo followed. At first, they tried to go in different directions, unused to walking together in a large space. The movement tugged awkwardly at the handcuffs, and Leo started to think that people might be watching them.

“We should hold hands,” Olivia suggested. “It’ll make the handcuffs less obvious.” Leo nodded, taking her slender hand into his grasp. After that, they were able to cross the lobby to the handyman’s office down a small staff hallway.

Leo tried to ignore the warm, soft feeling of Olivia’s hand in his. Still, her touch brought back memories of the kiss, one of the last things that was clear in his mind before the blankness of alcohol-induced amnesia. That had been some kiss. Leo wasn’t going to forget it anytime soon. And he couldn’t help wanting to repeat it, even in his current hungover and blurry state.

“Here we are.” Olivia pointed to a door marked Handyman then rapped on it with her knuckles. There came the sound of footsteps, and the door swung open. On the other side stood a middle-aged man in a neat uniform. He looked from Olivia to Leo, then to their handcuffs, and smiled.

“Come on in. I know the right bolt cutters to use.”