Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 97836 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 489(@200wpm)___ 391(@250wpm)___ 326(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97836 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 489(@200wpm)___ 391(@250wpm)___ 326(@300wpm)
Landry handed the certificate to Zane and sat down next to me. “Where’s the guy now?” His usually snarky voice had gone soft and kind, which brought the horrifying reality of the situation into sharp focus like nothing else could.
“Gone.” My voice carried a nervous wobble while I tried very hard to keep my thoughts from going there.
If this marriage was real… then I was in trouble.
A metric shit-ton of trouble.
A nightmare dumpster fire train wreck of trouble, as my sister, Camille, called her worst nights in the ER.
Half-a-fucking-billion dollars’ worth of trouble.
Landry and Zane exchanged a look before Landry quickly dialed someone on the phone. Within seconds, our beloved, dependable assistant answered, sounding cranky as fuck.
“What the hell, Landry?” Kenji asked on an exhale. “You left your phone charger here. As I’ve told you before, my home is not a lost and found for your miscellaneous junk. And if you’re in jail again, I swear to god—”
“I’m not the one in trouble this time,” he said quickly, never taking his eyes off me. “It’s Silas.”
The silence from Kenji lasted several beats. “It’s never Silas. What did you do to him?”
Blood pounded in my head as they all spoke over each other, discussing my “predicament.” Had I been targeted at the bar last night? Did this cowboy somehow peg me as wealthy and deliberately set out to entrap me?
Everything in my gut screamed that he hadn’t. That he’d genuinely been a fish out of water in that bar last night while people showered him with free alcohol.
I tried to remember how our interaction had begun. I’d noticed him the minute I’d entered the bar. In fact, I’d deliberately sat next to him because the only other empty stool had been next to a couple of women taking selfies from multiple angles.
And then I’d watched people attempt to pick him up for an hour. The cowboy hadn’t been the one to initiate our contact; it had happened when I’d started outright laughing at him. He’d been adorably oblivious and uncomfortable.
And hot.
My sluggish brain took a moment to ponder just how hot he was. Thick forearms and wrists covered in golden hair. Big hands with blunt nails and calluses. Working man’s hands. Blue jeans that might as well have been a love letter to the man’s muscular ass. That snap-front shirt, fitted enough to emphasize his trim waist. I’d assumed he was straight, but I still hadn’t been able to take my eyes off him.
And then we’d danced. My fingers flexed, remembering the feel of his abs under the warm cotton.
Fuck. Why had he let me touch him? Kiss him?
I pressed fingers into my forehead to try and stop the pounding.
Kenji’s voice was all business, as usual. “I’ll start an investigation on the man now. Zane, shoot me a picture of the document. I’ll get our lawyers working on an annulment. Silas, do you have the guy’s phone number?”
It wasn’t until Landry barked my name that I jumped and realized Kenji had been talking to me. “How the fuck would I have his number? It’s not like I asked him out.”
“No.” Landry’s tone was dry. “Just married him. No big.”
“His name was… Way?” I said, vaguely recollecting the sound of it spoken in his deep drawl. “That can’t be right.”
Zane read off the paper. “Waylon Heath Fletcher. Of… Majestic, Wyoming. Where the hell’s Majestic, Wyoming?”
The details came back to me in errant sparks. Way from Wyoming. The sweet man who was willing to marry a pregnant friend to help her out. The man who’d made sure to tip the bartender, even though his wallet had been painfully thin.
Landry snorted. “Silas got himself a real-live cowpoke from nowheresville. Tell us he’s pretty, at least?”
I snapped a curse at him without opening my eyes. “Kenji, figure out what I have to do to get this reversed. Surely they’ll void this thing if I just go down there and tell them it was a drunken mistake.”
Keyboard clacking came over the speakerphone before Kenji’s voice returned. “Doesn’t look like it, but I’ll wait to see what the attorney says. Hang tight.”
He ended the call right as the food was delivered to the room. The scent of it turned my stomach, but I forced myself to choke down some coffee and dry toast.
By the time Kenji called back, my head had begun to clear.
“No annulment,” he said quickly. “You don’t qualify. And since you used your Delaware address on the marriage documents, there’s a mandatory six-month waiting period after you file for the divorce to be granted—”
I squawked. “No way. I’m not waiting six months.” I didn’t mention that this guy was straight and was probably freaking out even more than I was this morning. Surely Way would be as eager for a quickie divorce as I was.