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But as the reality of the circumstances that brought her here quickly seeped in, the fairytale crumbled like a sand castle in my hand.
Mere hours ago, Nadia and I drunkenly stumbled into a grimy ground floor chapel on the Strip. Some sketchy bohemian pastor read us vows that we giddily agreed to. And now Nadia is my wife.
I’m taking a wild guess here, but I’m pretty sure she won’t be happy about that when she sobers up. The minute she opens her eyes, she’s going to regret that she did this with me. She’s going to change her mind about us. She’s going to want to have ‘the talk’.
Being sober issooverrated.
She stirs softly and a sweet, wispy sound slips past her perfect heart-shaped lips. I hold my breath waiting to see if she’ll wake. But she only burrows deeper into the bedding, wearing nothing but my tangled sheets and a contented, little expression on her face.
Fuck. She’s so beautiful.
And I’m going to lose her.
I finally bagged the only woman I’veeverwanted. But the minute she wakes up and realizes the mistake we made last night, she’ll be shoving divorce papers in my face.
I drag my fingers through my hair and pull. Hard. Oh, my head hurts.
I always promised myself that once I got married, it would be forever. That divorce would never be a part of my life story. I promised myself I’d get it right. That I’d be better than my parents.
But now, here I am.
It’s less than twelve hours after saying ‘I do’ to the perfect woman for me and I know that the clock is already ticking down to the end of our marriage.
I don’t even have the luxury of standing here and feeling sorry for myself. I need to do something.
What’s the plan, Harry? What’s the plan? What’s the plan?
Charm her into giving this marriage a shot? Argue with her until I’m blue in the face? Race to the airport, hop on a plane and take up goat farming in the Irish countryside?
Fuck it. I’m running.
I tiptoe out of the bedroom and creep down the stairs and shove my workout gear into my gym bag. I speedily heap a messy scoop of protein powder into my workout jug, drown it in orange juice and shake it all up. Not my usual mix but today, it’ll have to do.
I grab my shit and turn to slip out the door, jogging down the front steps, only to realize that my car is nowhere to be found. That’s a good thing. At least I wasn’t dumb enough to try to drive last night.
I get flashbacks to our drunken taxi ride home, to the horrified driver who had to witness my wife and me having a shameless slobber fest in the back seat after we eloped on the Strip.
Fuck. Nadia ismy wife. Sorry for repeating myself but I’m still in shock.
Ahead of me, my entire neighborhood sits in darkness. I glimpse up over my shoulder at the blinking rainbow of lights framing my bedroom window, beckoning me back toward my house.
Nadia Chester—correction, NadiaWestbrook—is in my bed.
My feet shake beneath me.
My wife is in my bed, and I’m just gonna sneak out of here? Without even leaving her something to eat? That’s fucking low.
I should take off running and get away while I still can. But I can’t. I just…can’t.
Because as shitty as this whole situation is, I got my wish. Nadia gave me a shot. That counts for something. No matter how this situation ultimately turns out in the long run. At least she was mine for the night.
I creep back into the house and head for the kitchen. Aside from all my basic baking ingredients, all I have in my pantry is the boring, healthy shit I eat during the football season.
But I do my best to scrape something together for her to eat. I don’t come up with much—a banana, some dates, a scoop of almond butter, some other stuff I rustle up.
I sneak up the stairs and quietly settle the pathetic breakfast on the bedside table by her head, together with a note I scribbled on the back of an envelope.
Creeping across the room, I scoop her ballgown off the floor and drape the crumpled dress over a hanger. I find her lacy underwear peeking out from under the bed and I loop it around the hook before hanging the whole thing on the outside of the closet door.
