I had to stifle a groan—this might as well have been Allie asking for money. I did let myself make eye contact with each of my friends. Cade was as steely as ever, though one of his thick brows did quirk up a little. Luca looked nervous as all hell, but that wasn’t much different from the moment before Allie spoke, the poor guy.
“You want me to buy you a recording contract,” I paraphrased for Allie, who immediately frowned.
“No! No, I—I want to earn it by my own merit. With my talent,” she said, throwing another curveball my way. “But I’m sure you know how to get me in the right room with the right people. You have connections. Industry parties you can drag me along to, so I can mingle and make my way on my own.”
This woman was exceeding my expectations at every turn. I tried not to be impressed by her wanting to get famous the old-fashioned way—I’d met tons of talented people who had the same wish, of course. But I couldn’t help but admire the savvy it took for her to come up with this idea. Networking was everything, even more necessary than talent. I wasn’t exactly excited about the prospect of parading around someone who may not have an ounce of musical ability to the music industry bigwigs I knew, but hey, I’d slept with this girl once and it had been damn good. It couldn’t be too terrible to spend more time with her.
“I…think that can be arranged,” I answered Allie coolly. Her answering smile had more than a little relief in it.
There were still plenty of logistics to figure out on our journey to unmarry Allie Tate, but there didn’t seem to be much else we could talk about just yet. After we all exchanged contact info with Allie, there was nothing else for us to do but go about our days as usual. Or at least as usual as a day could be when you’d just met up with your accidental Vegas maybe-wife.
Since I’d driven us to Marv’s in my swanky SUV, I opted to drive us back to the beach house too. Cade climbed into the front seat, Luca accepting his relegation to the back with grace. Once we got on the road, I dialed Jack Bloom, the PI I’d solicited to help us with this whole marriage mess, and let his voice spread through the car on hands-free mode.
“Jack Bloom, PI,” he answered the phone gruffly—a habit that made me roll my eyes from the first time I’d called him.
“Jack, it’s Gavin Richards,” I replied, using the fake name I’d decided on with only a second of thought. I wasn’t exactly well-versed in the ins and outs of vaguely shady businesses like he seemed to run, but I figured it was better to avoid using my real identity if I could. Reputation and business and all that. Who would take me seriously as the young new CEO of the company if they found out I’d been drunk-wed to some girl I’d just met only a few years ago?
“Just calling to check on the progress,” I told Jack, glancing at each of my friends in turn as we pulled up to a stoplight.
“I told you, buddy,” his slightly sleazy voice rang through my car, “I’ll let you know when I’ve tracked down the marriage license, but you didn’t give me much to go on. You sure you can’t tell me which chapel you may have gone to?”
I resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of my nose, keeping both hands firmly on the wheel. I did let my frustration come through by pressing the gas a little more firmly as we got onto the highway though.
“I already told you I don’t know,” I snapped. “Anyway, I need you to dig up as much info on Allie Tate as you can. Focus on the marriage stuff, of course—but I want to know who we’re dealing with.”
“It’ll cost you extra,” Jack Bloom said, surprising me not at all. I should’ve splurged on someone more professional, but in my frantic need to get this done quietly, I’d gone with the first shady PI I could find online. It was clear Jack saw me, as so many people did, as a good mark for a thick paycheck.
“Fine,” I spat. “Just get it done.”
Jabbing the end call button on the vehicle’s console screen didn’t have the same satisfying impact as slamming a phone would have, but it would have to do. I swore once it was just me and my friends in the car again, and Luca spoke up.
“Glad to know I’m not the only one who’s stressed out by all of this,” he said without an ounce of humor. “I know it’s usually just me.”
That was true enough. Cade added, “I just want my damn ring back.”
“We know,” Luca and I chimed in unison, and even grumpy Cade laughed at himself with us.
When we were finished laughing and almost back at our temporary home, Luca said the words Cade and I weren’t sentimental enough to say, though we all felt it: “Well, if we’re going to be in this wild mess, at least we’re in it together.”
It was a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.
5
ALLIE
Physically, I was sitting in Kara and Brandon’s living room, waiting for it to be my turn in the game of Candy Land we were all playing at Daphne’s request. But mentally, I couldn’t escape the memories of a hotel room in Vegas five years back, and damn it if my body wasn’t responding to those memories with just as much heat as they had back then. Damn it, damn it,damn it.
“It’s your turn, Mommy,” Daphne reminded me sweetly from my left. I blinked myself out of the reveries, nodded a little too frantically, and geared up for my turn in the game. We all knew Daphne would win, whether through her own wits or because none of us could deny her any small joy in this life, but we had to put on a good show until then. It would make her victory all the sweeter.
It wasn’t a sufficient distraction from my chaotic thoughts, but it was all the distraction I had.
Even more than the lusty fantasies, my head was swimming with uncertainty about my own reactions ever since that day at the coffee shop. Why the hell did I think it was a good idea to try and jumpstart my long-shelved dream of a music careerby basically blackmailing Gavin Ratliff? On the one hand, it was almost nice to know that my youthful recklessness hadn’t completely disappeared since I had Daphne. Kara and Brandon were always telling me to be more selfish, to let myself be young while I still was, and I was too concerned with being a good mother to listen to them. But on a much more real level, I was now mature and level-headed enough to realize I should have just cooperated in the annulment stuff without conditions. It would have made things easier for everyone.
One thing was for sure though. I knew that at least one tiny part of my motivation had been a subconscious desire to see the men again. I was still a woman, and there was no way I could be confronted with the guys who had sustained my every sexual fantasy for the past five years without quietly hoping for some kind of encore. My body had felt that strong pull toward them from the second I realized who they were. My brain wasn’t strong enough to fight it.
And if I was honest with myself, I didn’t want to. It was so nice to be attracted to someone again, even if that someone was three someones, and one of them was unknowingly Daphne’s father.
Daphne needed a potty break, which interrupted the board game. I used the opportunity to slip away into the kitchen under the guise of needing a drink. I found Kara already in the kitchen, leaning against the counter with her arms crossed. The look on her face told me she’d been waiting for me.
