Jenn came to her senses through layers of hangover misery. Her head hurt. Nausea churned in her belly. Her mouth tasted gritty, like sand. She’d had way too much to drink last night. And had she really…
Her eyes popped open. Cole lay facedown in bed beside her, wearing only black boxer briefs. Horrified, she lifted the sheet to find that she was in nothing but her bra and panties. Oh my God… He lifted his head, staring at her through bleary, bloodshot eyes. She yanked the sheet back against herself, and her gaze caught on the gold band on her left ring finger. This was a dream. A nightmare.
This is not really happening.
Her stomach heaved. She leaped out of bed, and where the fuck even was she? This had to be Cole’s room. She ran for the only open door—hoping it was the bathroom—and slammed it behind her. She made it to the toilet just in time to lose the remnants of last night’s moonlight martinis, the desperate kind of vomit that left her breathless with tears streaming down her face. When the tremors finally ceased, she collapsed on the floor, weak and shaky.
Slowly, she raised her left hand and stared at the ring there. It was gold, with delicate flowers woven into the band and tiny bead-cut diamonds inserted into the design. It was beautiful. Unique. Maybe the prettiest ring she’d ever seen. But…
Groaning, she dragged herself to her feet and went to the sink to freshen up, squirting some of Cole’s toothpaste onto her finger, which she scrubbed across her teeth. Ugh. Her head pounded, and her stomach threatened to revolt again at the slightest provocation. She splashed cold water on her face and walked back into the bedroom to find Cole sitting up in bed, eyeing her with a strange look on his face.
“What the fuck happened last night?” she whispered, but it sounded more like a hiss.
His eyes narrowed. “I’m not entirely sure what—”
“Did you…did we…” She gestured toward the bed with its rumpled sheets and the semi-naked Cole still sitting in its midst.
“We definitely didn’t do that.” His expression was pained, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembered his confession last night…how he hadn’t had sex in a year. Right now, she couldn’t care less, because—
“Please tell me this ring is a joke.” She held up her left hand, even as tears burned behind her eyes because she knew it wasn’t a joke. She might have been drunk off her ass last night, but she had fuzzy memories of exchanging vows with Cole beneath the lighted arch, of kissing him in the moonlight as they were pronounced husband and wife. She had the ring, the hangover, and the sand in her hair to prove it.
“I was drunk enough to marry you,” he said quietly, “but not drunk enough to forget that it happened.”
“What the fuck, Cole!” She grabbed her dress off the floor and yanked it over her head.
“Don’t you dare blame this on me.” His eyes snapped with barely contained rage. “Getting hitched was your idea, as I recall.”
“Wouldn’t it be hilarious if we stood in for the bride and groom the way I stood in for Kate during the video shoot earlier?”
Her own words echoed in her ears, and God-fucking-dammit, he was right. It had been her idea. Of course it had. She’d become fixated on getting married, and she’d been swooning over that stupid arbor on the beach from the first moment she’d laid eyes on it. And now, everything was ruined. She’d waited her whole life to have the perfect fairy-tale wedding.
Instead, she’d gotten drunk and married a near stranger on a moonlit beach in the middle of the night, and no amount of wishing—or money—could ever change the fact that this had been her wedding day. She’d spent her wedding night in her underwear, too drunk to even realize what had happened. “Oh God.”
“You’re telling me.” He rested his face in his hands. “This is an absolute fucking nightmare.”
“Maybe it wasn’t legal.”
“I’ll get my lawyer on it.”
“Me too,” she muttered. She didn’t have a lawyer, but she knew Kate’s well enough to give him a call. No way was she going to trust Colton Nix to handle this with her best interests in mind.
“We’ll get it sorted out.”
She grabbed her purse and looked around for her shoes before remembering she’d been barefoot last night at the Tiki Bar. “I have to go.”
“Wait, you shouldn’t—”
But she was already out the door before she’d heard what she shouldn’t do.
Jenn silently freaked out all the way back to her room, and luckily—thanks to the early hour—she didn’t bump into anyone on the way. The most shameful “walk of shame” she’d ever made. The only time she’d ever had to make the walk of shame. Except she hadn’t even gotten laid.
She’d gotten married.
Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit…
She headed straight for the shower because she had sand everywhere and just felt generally scummy. She took off the ring and set it on the bathroom counter, torn between her desire to flush it down the toilet or keep it in case…well, she didn’t know yet. Her stomach was still queasy, and her head pounded. By the time she’d showered and guzzled an entire bottle of water plus a couple of ibuprofen, she was feeling a little bit better…physically, at least. Mentally? Not so much. She picked up her phone, intending to look up the number for Kate’s lawyer, but instead found a text from Kate herself.
Lunch at my villa before you leave? I’m hearing some interesting rumors this morning!
Jenn’s stomach, which had just started to settle, lurched violently. If the press found out about her and Cole’s midnight debacle…
Yes, she texted back. Ugh. She hadn’t wanted to have to share this with Kate, or with anyone, really. Who in real life actually got so drunk, they married someone? That kind of thing only happened in books and movies.
But since this seemed to actually be happening, she called Sterling Lewis and spent the next thirty minutes hashing out her legal troubles (and spending the better part of this week’s paycheck in the process). Until he’d seen the paperwork, Sterling couldn’t be sure if their marriage was legal or not, but the good news was that even if it was, they should be able to have it quietly annulled, which would make it—almost—like this never happened.
With that taken care of, she packed for her flight that afternoon, triple-checked all of Kate and Josh’s reservations for the rest of their vacation, and spent almost an hour researching the legal requirements to get married on Luca Cay (which did not seem to bode in her favor). After much internal debate, she tucked the ring into the inside pocket of her carry-on. It just seemed too risky to leave it behind here in her hotel room. Still buzzing with restless energy, she slipped on her sunglasses and sloughed her way through the sand to Kate’s villa on the far side of the island.
Going without shoes for three days had been amazingly freeing. Luca Cay was pretty much heaven on earth, except for its lax rules on allowing drunk people to get married on the spur of the moment—which was no doubt why it was such a hot spot for high-profile elopements. Somehow, she imagined Cole’s celebrity had played into the willingness of everyone involved to make his wish their command last night. The resort staff had even opened the jewelry boutique in the middle of the night to bring rings to the beach for him. Thank God his villa was at the opposite end of the island from Josh and Kate’s.
Kate opened the door wearing a loose knit dress and a wide smile. “Is it true?”
“Is what true?” Jenn fought a fresh wave of nausea, trying not to notice the irony of her boss, the superstar, asking about her own personal scandal for once.
“You and Cole making out last night on the beach?”
“Oh.” She winced, even as relief flooded through her. Thank God the island wasn’t buzzing with rumors of a scandalous wedding. “Yeah, we had a little bit too much to drink last night.”
“And?” Kate asked, still smiling as she led the way to the table where a picnic lunch had been set up for them.
“And I did some stupid things I’d rather not rehash.”
“Like what?” Kate prodded as they sat.
Jenn felt her cheeks burn, and for the first time, she had an inkling of how Kate must have felt every time the most intimate details of her personal life had been discussed in depth with her manager and other staff. Jenn herself had been present at plenty of such meetings. “I’d really rather not talk about it.”
Kate went very still. “Oh, Jenn, he didn’t…”
“What?” She registered the look of horror on Kate’s face a moment too late. “Oh God, no. No, he didn’t…we didn’t…”
“Oh.” Kate smiled again, but it was different this time…forced. She’d once been the victim of a violent rape, and Jenn hated that she’d caused her to believe, even for a moment, that she might have been through something similar.
“We didn’t even have sex,” she said, feeling more dejected than ever.
Kate leaned forward, her brows knitted. “Then what?”
“We got married.” She just blurted it out, then covered her face with her hands. She and Kate had long since crossed the barrier from boss and employee to friends, but even so…
“Holy shit!” Kate shouted.
“I know.”
“What in the world, Jenn?”
“I don’t know,” she answered miserably. “We were talking at the bar…flirting. I decided to have a one-night stand with him, but we had too much to drink, and somewhere in there, we walked out to that arbor on the beach, and I made a stupid joke about standing in for the wedding couple the way I’d stood in for you in the music video, and apparently we actually did.”
“Wow.” Kate stared at her, wide-eyed. “That is so…well, so unlike you.”
“It’s a mess. A really stupid mess.”
“Well, I suppose even the most straitlaced people land there occasionally.” Kate was smiling again. “I can call Sterling for you if you want.”
“I already called him.”
Kate’s smile widened. “Of course you did. Well, he’ll be able to find a way out of this for you, and I’m sure Cole has someone working on it too. I have to say, I don’t think anything you could have told me today would have shocked me more. You and Colton Nix getting drunk-married in the Bahamas?”
“I’m officially never drinking again.”
“Relax. I’d say you were due for a screwup. We all make them.” Kate added a finger sandwich and a sprig of grapes to her plate and motioned for Jenn to dig in too. “Lord knows I’ve screwed up enough times.”
“Honestly?” Jenn gave her a shrewd look. “I don’t think you’ve ever done anything this stupid.”
Kate laughed. “Okay, fine, you win for drunken screwup of the year. How did you and Cole leave things this morning?”
“I kind of just freaked out and bolted.”
“You spent the night in his room?”
Jenn nodded, popping a grape into her mouth.
“But you’re sure you didn’t have sex with him?”
“I’m positive.” She remembered enough of last night to know she and Cole had passed out as soon as they’d made it back to his room. There had been some fooling around, but he hadn’t even tried to get her naked.
“Well, thank goodness for that. A lot of men would have…well, I’m just glad he didn’t.”
“Me too.” Jenn scarfed down two finger sandwiches and a plateful of fruit while they were talking and felt one hundred percent better now that she had something other than the remnants of last night’s alcohol in her stomach. “Where’s Josh?”
“Fishing,” Kate said. “He went out on a boat with a couple of guys from the crew. Hey, remember what you told him last night? Your husband would be a few years older, comfortable but not rich, with a steady job…”
“And I never date men in the business. Yeah, I know.” She scrunched her face. “How old is Cole?”
“Twenty-seven, I think,” Kate said, looking amused.
“Great. I married a younger man who is the polar opposite of everything I want in a husband. On the plus side, he’s rich and sexy, which is all the more sad since I didn’t even get to sleep with him.”
“Pretty sure you could still change that part of the equation…”
“Not a chance. Last night could have been a fun one-night stand, but now that we’re married, the whole dynamic has changed. Plus, it’s much easier to get our marriage annulled if it hasn’t been consummated.”
Cole paced from one end of the living room to the other. He wanted to go for a jog or a swim, go pound the shit out of the punching bag at the gym, but he didn’t dare leave his villa, not until he knew the damage had been managed. Being a celebrity was the loneliest fucking thing in the world sometimes. Jorja had chartered a plane that should be arriving in a few hours to take him home, and it couldn’t happen soon enough as far as he was concerned.
A brisk knock sounded at the back door. Who the hell was that, and why were they at the back door rather than the front? If one of the groupies from yesterday had somehow found out which villa he was staying in…
He strode to the door and yanked it open, not realizing the snarl that must be on his face until he saw Jenn blinking up at him, her expression wary. The sight of her sent a punch of pure adrenaline racing through his system. He inhaled, schooling his expression as he stepped back to invite her inside. “I’ve been trying to track you down ever since you bolted out of here this morning.”
“Well, I’ve been busy since I left,” she said, her tone neutral. “I sent all the relevant paperwork to my lawyer so he can determine if our marriage is legal, and if it is, how best to get out of it, quickly and discreetly. And I’ve been running damage control here on the island. I printed out a nondisclosure agreement and convinced as many resort employees as I could find that were working last night to sign it, preventing them from sharing anything they may have seen or heard.”
Well, holy shit. Jennifer MacDonald meant business, and she might be the only woman on the planet as interested in getting out of this mess quietly as he was. “That’s…that’s good. I’ve got my lawyer working on the same thing, but I didn’t think of NDAs. That was really smart.”
“There’s a reason Kate’s kept me around for this many years, and it’s not because I’m pretty,” Jenn said, narrowing her eyes at him.
Maybe not, but she sure as hell was pretty.
“Do you have a card for your lawyer?” she asked. “I’ll put him in touch with mine, and hopefully they can work out the formalities for us. We’ll just need to sign on the dotted line and get this thing annulled.”
“I don’t have a card, but I can give you his number.” He thumbed through his contacts, somewhat put off by her businesslike manner. She was saying all the things he wanted to hear and giving him exactly what he wanted. She wasn’t trying to get any of his money or even grab her own moment in the spotlight as his wife. So why did he want her to show some sort of emotion about this? Why did he want her to be at least somewhat disappointed about divorcing him?
“That will work.” She held up her phone and stared at him expectantly.
He read off the number.
“Great. Here’s mine.” She handed him a crisp white business card.
Of course she carried her lawyer’s card around, even while she was working on location in the Caribbean. “Guess that’s that, then.”
She gave him a tight smile. “If all goes well, this should be nothing but a bad memory by the end of the week.”
“It wasn’t all bad,” he said, still irrationally pissed that she seemed so unaffected by their night together…at least the part before they got married.
She shrugged. “That’s your opinion. I don’t think I’ll look back on last night with anything other than frustration and embarrassment.”
“That’s cold, Jenn. I was genuinely into you last night. I enjoyed hanging out with you at the bar, and I was sure as hell looking forward to having you in my bed.”
“I’ve got dreams.” Her green eyes flashed. “Expectations. I want to fall in love and get married the old-fashioned way, and my husband will be absolutely nothing like you.”
“Sorry to break it to you, sweetheart, but I am your husband.” His face was only inches from hers now, and goddammit, he wanted to kiss her as badly as he wanted to throttle her for the words coming out of her mouth.
“Once the annulment goes through, you won’t be.”
He curled his fingers against the desire to touch her. “We were both drunk last night, and we did a hell of a stupid thing, but I still liked and respected you this morning, right up until this fucking moment.”
She drew back, some of the bravado fading from her expression. She stared at him for a long moment, then nodded and headed for the door. As she yanked it open, she glanced back at him. “There’s just one thing I still don’t understand. I know why I thought getting married last night was a good idea, but why did you agree to it?”
He turned away, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Because I’d just realized you were too drunk to come back to my room, and I was that desperate for a chance—any chance—to see you again.”
Her eyes rounded. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it and walked out the door, shutting it softly behind her.