At first, she seemed confused, maybe surprised.How was that possible?A woman as gorgeous as she was must have had experience in getting picked up at events like this.I would be surprised if she made it down the street without hearing at least one proposition.Her big, dark eyes and sensuous mouth drew me in like a moth to a flame.But it was the worry in those eyes, the apprehension, that held me in place, even as her head snapped back in disbelief.
“Does that line work on all of the women you approach at weddings?”Her voice was rich, throaty, touched with intelligence and humor.Instead of giggling like a fool, thinking I’d be attracted, she chose skepticism.Intriguing.Until then, I had spent the night avoiding the pitfalls so prevalent at events like this—horny old women hoping to reclaim their lost youth, if only for a few hours.Hungry young women flashing their tits, hoping luck would smile on them in the form of a willing, wealthy partner like we lived in a fairy tale where strangers fell in love during drunken flings.This wasn’t an old Sandra Bullock romantic comedy.
So finding somebody willing to call me out and push back a little on my obvious pick-up attempt caught my imagination.“You tell me,”I’d replied, chuckling when she did.“I’m sure it isn’t a new, original line, but you are much too beautiful to be alone tonight.At least let me get you a drink.The dumbasses who overlooked you will see how stupid they are.”
“Am I giving off a helpless vibe right now?”There was a healthy bit of skepticism behind her big, brown eyes, and I’d be damned if it didn’t intrigue me more than ever.She didn’t jump at the opportunity.She wanted me to work for it.
“A little bit,”I’d replied.“But you are free to tell me to fuck off.”
She didn’t, did she?No!She ended up in my bed.I would have remembered if we had sex.I needed to believe that, or else I had turned a corner I never wanted to approach.Drinking to the point of blacking out with a stranger was asking for trouble.
Again, I ran a hand through my hair, pushing my qualms aside.She seemed cool last night.Mature.This didn’t have to be a big issue.
Or so I told myself before looking at the hand I had just raked over my head.There was something different about it—alarmingly different, so different my eyes bulged, and my mouth fell open as the implications became clear.Sure, it felt like my brain was wrapped in cotton, but something about the sight of a cheap gold band on my ring finger had the power to make me forget my hangover.
A wedding band?
I sure as hell wasn’t wearing that before the reception.
Fuck.Everything was starting to come back to me.
“This is completely insane!Are you sure you want to do this?”She was laughing, shaking her head like she couldn’t quite believe it.As for me, I had never been so sure of anything in my life.This was the woman I wanted to be with.It made all the sense in the world.
The Chapel of Love.I saw the blinking neon sign and heard the music piped in through a sound system—the “Wedding March.”I was standing in front of a man in a studded leather jumpsuit and black pompadour wig.
Holding hands with the woman now in my bed, both of us giggling our way through the ceremony or what there was of one.It didn’t last very long, if memory served.Then again, how did I know?It was still so patchy.
But the ring didn’t lie, nor did the memory of kissing a woman whose name I had already forgotten as an Elvis impersonator wished us a future full of burning love.
My bloodshot green eyes were wide when they met mine in the mirror above the vanity.
It couldn’t be.
But the ring didn’t lie, and neither did my patchy memories.
It wasn’t the aftereffect of binge drinking making my stomach churn this time.The sick, icy sweat now coating the back of my neck had nothing to do with having a few too many.
I was married to a complete stranger.
2
NOVA
You’re a smart girl.Be smart and pretend you were never here tonight… or else.
My eyes flew open, my body frozen in fear.It was always like that after a nightmare, wasn’t it?Being stuck between the dream and reality.Almost afraid to move, afraid to breathe.The way I was last night.
I was no longer in the waiting area outside my father’s office, where his sweet, motherly assistant normally sat.Where a man with eyes as dark and empty as a doll’s had held me in place against her desk.
Instead, I was in bed, wearing nothing but the white lace bralette and panties I wore last night.Right away, my heart started racing again, only moments after my pulse began to slow once I realized I was safe.Was I actually safe, or was this an illusion?
I needed to get out of here.Nico might come after me, and then what?That sickening, pulse-pounding fear was so fresh, even if I couldn’t remember a lot of what happened after my escape.There was no way I could forget the feeling of my entire world crashing down around me.The betrayal, the disappointment, the sense of everything I thought I knew being a lie.
What did happen afterward?
This was not my bed.That much I knew right away, even if the bed in my apartment didn’t really feel like mine, only a few days after returning from my two years at Oxford.“Don’t you worry about a thing,” Dad had told me when it came time to arrange my return.“You just tell me where you want to live, pick out the furniture you want, and I’ll make sure it’s all taken care of.”
He had to because that was the sort of father he was.He did whatever he could for me, down to arranging movers while I was on the other side of the Atlantic.By the time I landed in Las Vegas, my apartment was set up exactly the way I wanted.Although, it just didn’t feel like mine yet.
