This tall, blond stranger had been the closest thing to my salvation last night.
The morning after, on the other hand?
The world had taken on a different look.
3
VAUGHN
With her awake and my memory stirring alongside her, a few things became clear.
First, she was intelligent.There was something almost refined about her.I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what, but that word came to mind.There was no pretense, giggling or flirting, or errant hair extensions or false eyelashes lying on the pillow.She didn’t pretend this was a happy accident like maybe fate had brought us together, the way I imagined most women would when they found out they married a wealthy man.
Second, I knew she was hiding something.
Call it my overactive imagination, though I had never been accused of possessing one before, but there was something haunting about her last night.It was one of the many things that had factored into approaching her to begin with, not to mention her beauty.
Her beauty was on display now, even with the raccoon rings of mascara under her dark eyes and a distinctly greenish tint to her complexion.There was something wounded in her gaze, something still haunting—big, brown doe eyes which even now drew my focus when she looked me up and down while I sat in the armchair near the bed.“What are we going to do?”she asked in a husky voice that could have had to do with all the shouting it took to be heard over hundreds of voices and a constant barrage of music.
Music so loud I vaguely remembered not catching her name despite her repeating it.“You have a unique name, right?You’re…”
“Nova,” she murmured before her existing frown deepened.“And you are…”
“Vaughn,” I replied.
“Right.”So that was out of the way.I now knew my wife’s name.
Not like she’d be my wife for long.“Quickie annulment?”I asked with a shrug.This was an experience I could cross off my bucket list—the morning after, with wedding rings included and definitely not a situation I wanted to repeat.
“That sounds good to me.Just making sure.”If it sounded so good, why did she sound so hesitant?
“So, you never did tell me last night,” I ventured.It seemed necessary to get a read on her somehow.It wasn’t a fuzzy brain that left me unable to remember much about her.She had gone out of her way to avoid answering personal questions.“Who are you related to?”
Her brows drew together like someone pinched them.“Excuse me?”She sounded almost offended.
“At the wedding,” I explained.The fuck was with her attitude?“Who were you there for?I should’ve asked that way, I guess.”
“Oh.Right.”Her mouth pulled upward at the corner—nice mouth, full lips, the sight of which made my mouth go dry.“The groom.”
Interesting.What interested me more than her willingness to go further, though, was what I saw on her arm when she lifted her hand to run it through her tousled hair.The sunlight hit it just right, making the ugly marks on her bicep stand out in contrast.Bruises.The dress she wore last night must have covered them unless I made them myself.I couldn’t imagine why or how.Even if we tested the bedsprings, which I didn’t believe we had, I wasn’t the rough type.No amount of alcohol would have changed that.
She caught my stare and drew her arm beneath the duvet in a fluid motion without offering an excuse.“Anyway, I guess I’ll get out of your hair.This is pretty awkward, isn’t it?”Her laughter was soft, half-hearted.
I couldn’t laugh, even the empty sort she managed to come up with.Is someone hurting her?Should I ask?Wait, what was I thinking?I didn’t know her.Her problems were not my problems.
Though if the person who gave her those bruises found out she was married, even in a drunken stupor, they might take it out on her.I would hate to be his excuse to do worse.“Is there anything I need to be worried about?”I asked rather than blurt out the concern bouncing through my head—a head that truly wasn’t up to the task of thinking about much of anything.
“I mean, I already said I’m ready to get an annulment,” she reminded me, lifting a sculpted shoulder.“I’m not sure what else I can say.”
Evasive.None of it boded well.In fact, it pointed toward a much larger issue.“Was there someone at the wedding you were trying to get away from?Is that what this is all about?”
“Excuse me?”She had the nerve to take offense, her shoulders rising around her ears, where a large pair of diamond studs sparkled.They were the real deal.“What are you trying to say?”
Waving a hand between us, I asked, “Was this whole thing between us a way of getting back at whoever bruised your arm?I need to know.I think it’s only fair.”
The way her nose wrinkled, I may as well have been last week’s leftovers forgotten in the back of the refrigerator—something nasty, disgusting.“Well, I now understand why you didn’t have a plus one with you last night,” she concluded, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and tossing the duvet aside.It was a shame she chose to do that exactly when she did because my heart stuttered at the sight of long, lean legs, perky tits encased in lace, a flat stomach, and a small waist that flared into full hips.The sort of hips a man liked to sink his fingers into while…
If anything, the fact that I could muster up such thoughts in my pitiful condition was a victory in itself.“Don’t take it personally.We both live in the real world.You seem like a smart girl.”
