“No, they’re the same two I’ve had in my wallet for … a while. And I have two in case one breaks.”
That made sense, and it was typical Reece—safety first. She chewed on the tip of her thumbnail. “You don’t think we did it without protection, do you?”
“No.” He turned her so she faced him. “Neve, if we’d had sex, with or without protection, I would remember. That’s not a detail I’m likely to forget.”
Confusion and disappointment swirled inside her. Like him, she would have remembered if they’d had sex. Plus, there would have been evidence, and there wasn’t any. Yet somehow they’d ended up in bed together. But that wasn’t the part bothering her. It was those two condoms in his wallet. He was prepared at all times to have sex with a random someone. How often did those condoms need to be replaced?
She nibbled her thumbnail in earnest as she tried to pull order from a situation that had no order to it.
His hands still rested on her arms, and he gave them a gentle squeeze. “I don’t know what the solution is until I have the whole picture, but I do know this is going to be hard to explain to Cantrell when he finds out youwoke up naked next to me. If you let me, I’ll lay it out for him so he understands it was an epic mistake.”
“And what are you going to explain? That we got shit-faced and wound up”—she held up her left hand and pointed at the bling on her finger—“married?”
“I was thinking more of the we-didn’t-sleep-together part.”
“Wedidsleep together.”
“That’s way different than having sex, which we just determined didn’t happen.”
She looked up at him and no longer felt like laughing at the sight of him in the ill-fitting robe. “As long as we’re married”—she emphasized the last word with air quotes—“I need to know who ‘Chelse’ is.”
Chapter 10
The Twilight Zone
Horrified. That was theonly word that could describe the emotion stepping to the fore in Reece’s bruised brain. Disbelief was tapping on its shoulder.
This can’t be happening!
What kind of man would let himself get so drunk he couldn’t remember proposing, much less exchanging vows? Especially one who prided himself on being a cool customer when everyone else was falling apart.
How the fuck did I get here, and why did I drag Neve along for the ride?
Maybe this was one big joke. But how and why would he have let himself get talked into something so outrageous?
Control was Reece’s middle name. Heownedit. At all times. Whether it was a dire situation on the side of a mountain or his own fuckinglife. Not only had he yielded everyscrapof self-command—and in rather spectacular fashion—but he hadn’t protected Neve from his boneheadedness.
And how the hell had he come to the conclusion that dropping eighty grand on rings was a stellar idea? Had someone held a gun to his head? It wasn’t that he couldn’t afford it. He’d have to move money around, but the extravagance was as out of character as Scrooge McDuck throwing open his vaults and letting the masses help themselves to his piles of gold.
He had married a childhood friend—Reece, not Scrooge. Okay,possiblymarried. Nevertheless, he had gone through a ceremony with a woman who, until recently, hadn’t been a blip on his mostly malfunctioning romance radar. Why Neve? Why now?
At least they had the “getting to know you” part out of the way. But was it possible to leap from best friend to spouse? Maybe. Lots of people married their best friends. But what about the leap to lover?
In what fucking universe did I think this was a good idea?
God, he needed to have his head examined—after it stopped throbbing. The damn thing thumped with the questions spinning inside it like wooden blocks in a dryer. He had to talk to his brothers; he needed answers. Had to find out how this had all gone down. More importantly, he needed to not panic. He wasn’t a panicker. Was that even a word?
Neve watched him with wary, expectant eyes. How did she know about Chelsea anyway?
“Uh, what was the question?” Yeah, he was stalling. Buying time with crappy currency. Trying to pick his words carefully so he didn’t come off like a total douchebag while his brain was being manned by a skeleton crew.
His partner in crime puffed out a breath that ruffled a lock of hair on her forehead. “Chelsea. You used her name while you were … bear-hugging me in bed.” She jabbed a thumb toward the other bedroom.
Reece rocked backward on his bare feet.Shit!He cringed at the murky memory of humping Neve’s hip with his morning wood.
“Idid?” his mouth spewed before he could stop it. Why the fuck hadn’t he deflected by saying he didn’t know any Chelseas? It wasn’t as if he was calling up memories on the daily about his ex-bed partner-slash-ex-boss anymore. Well, none that were pleasant anyway.
“Aha! So she does exist.” Neve crossed her arms over her chest in a triumphant motion.
