His head falls back against the chair, a heavy breath escaping him. “Oh, thankGod.” I worry about the integrity of his neck with the way his head snaps up a moment later, eyes wide. “Not that—not that I don’t think you’d make a wonderful wife, or that I’m pleased you’ve had another wedding go horribly awry, but—”
“Please stop,” I interrupt, lifting my hands to rub my aching temples. “I know what you mean, and I agree.”
This could have been disastrous for both of us. Honestly, it still might be if anyone else knows about it, legal marriage or not. Clearly there were witnesses—Black Elvis, whoever took those photos, and anyone else at the chapel—but I have to hope they’re a discreet bunch who won’t snitch on us to the press. If I thought the headlines before were bad…Fuck, I don’t want to think about what these might be.
“I can’t believe we did this,” I go on, because what thehellpossessed me to do something so ridiculous? All I wanted was to get railed. How did everything shift from sex to marriage?
“I guess we were inspired. And very drunk.” He pauses, eyes drifting to the bed as he considers something. “I’m guessing that bottle of whiskey was the culprit.”
A memory punches its way to the front of my mind when I look at the bed again, one of Thomas and me stumbling into his room, kissing desperately and tearing at clothes. If my shattered brain isn’t lying to me, then I definitely ditched my dress and got to see his abs up close and personal after he shed his shirt. Oh God, I think I evenlickedthem. But if I was already down on my knees, then why didn’t it go any further than that?
The answer comes more as a feeling than a memory—disappointment. It didn’t go further because neither of us had a condom.
Thomas must get hit with the realization as well, because a wash of color spreads across his cheekbones. “We went out to get condoms, didn’t we?” He pauses, waiting for another thought to fully form. “And…tacos?”
He seems unsure about the last bit, but I’m suddenly not. “We eventually did. But before we went out, we called down to the concierge to see if they’d bring us condoms.” I was half naked, after all, and Thomas was sporting an obscenely large hard-on. Not exactly a sight for public consumption. “And I was hungry, so we ordered food too. I wanted tacos, butyouwere the one who insisted on the whiskey.” Despite that, I’m almost certain I dared him to do shots with me.Shit.
His expression is pinched, drawing something from the depths of his mind and ignoring my attempt to lay the blame at his feet. “I must have confused the concierge with my combination condom and taco request, because they sent extracondimentswith the food.”
Well, that would explain the container filled with a selection of salsas.
“So we ate, drank, got dressed, and went out to get condoms ourselves.” Like the Hoover Dam opening, more details flood back, drop by horrific drop. “And the pharmacy just happened to be right next to—”
“A wedding chapel,” he finishes for me, remembering it now too.
“A wedding chapel,” I repeat on an exhale. Un-fucking-believable.
Regrettably, that’s where my recollection of the night ends. I don’t know what convinced us to go into the chapel, or what spurred him to propose, or what made me say yes.
“Do you have any idea where the doughnut plays into things?” I ask, hoping that might trigger something.
Thomas frowns as he ponders it. “Well, obviously, I couldn’t get you a real ring on such short notice, and since you run so many bakeries, I guess I picked the one baked good with a hole in the middle.”
“Huh. Creative.”
I’m starting to slowly come down from my anxiety high, even though I don’t have any more answers for us. I’m taking solace in the fact that the marriage isn’t legal. We should be able to move on from this easily if we can clean up the other messes we made—and if no one else blabs about the trouble we got into.
“We should stop by the chapel at some point today or tomorrow and see if we can get everyone there to sign an NDA,” I suggest, though I’m really just declaring what I plan to do to handle this. “I’ll call my lawyers to see what they can do.”
“Good idea,” Thomas says. “If you need me to get my solicitor involved as well, just say the word.”
I’m not unused to dealing with men as moneyed and powerful as I am, but it’s always nice when they’re willing to lend a helping hand instead of expecting me to figure everything out. “Thanks. My team should be able to handle it, though.” That settled, I restart my search for my clutch and shoes. “Do you have any idea where my things are?”
“Maybe check the living room. You’re wearing shoes in the photos, so I assume they made it back here.”
I nearly gag at the idea of walking the Vegas streets barefoot, praying that even though I was hammered enough to marry a stranger, I still had enough wits about me not to do something so disgusting.
Leaving Thomas to recover on his own, I pad into the living room of the suite, taking in the destruction there. There’s a box of a dozen doughnuts on the coffee table, but no signs of anything I actually need.
I’m on my hands and knees looking under the couch when Thomas calls out, “Stella darling?”
The endearment has me frowning. It’s far too sweet and intimate for a one-night stand, even one I attempted to marry. But the more I turn it over in my head, the more it starts to grow on me. I mean, who doesn’t want a hot Englishman calling themdarling? I’m not immune.
“Yeah?” I shout back, squinting into the darkness to see if I can spot anything.
He comes around the corner a moment later and I sit back on my heels. He’s wearing that damn grimace-adjacent smile again. “I need you to take a look at one more photo.”
I huff in annoyance before I can stop myself. “If it’s another one of me making a damn fool of myself, I don’t want to see it.”
