Chapter 7

7

TORI

Being married isn’t so bad. I’ve finally found a man who can out-eat me, and he paid for my food. I wouldn’t call Luca an open book by any means, but at our post-marriage celebratory lunch, I get to crack the pages a bit, and my husband seems like a pretty cool book.

“So, this agent of yours,” I say, taking a sip of my drink. “Does he know about all of this?” I gesture between us.

Luca shakes his head and drips more hot sauce on what remains of his second burger. “He’s been traveling the past couple days.”

“So, we’re surprising him.”

He nods and finishes off the burger while I watch with admiration. Hey, that kind of body doesn’t grow on a diet of lemon juice and cayenne pepper.

When we get to the high-rise in Century City where Luca’s agent Zach works, we have to kick our heels in his office for ten minutes while we wait for him to get out of a meeting. Zach’s office walls are covered with a myriad of things: motivational quotes, a few awards, and a metric ton of photos with him and various athletes.

I spot a familiar face and get out of my chair to look at the photo.

It’s Luca and Zach. Luca’s in his USC Trojans uniform and, based on the state of his sweaty, curly hair, it’s after a game. I have to admit to a little bit of hair envy. It’s a humbling thing to realize my husband might have better hair than I do. “Did you lose?”

Luca walks over to look at the photo. “No.”

I glance up at him beside me, then back to the photo. He’s wearing the exact same facial expression: stoic. “That’s your expression after a win? I can’t imagine what you’d look like after losing.”

“Like that,” he says, nodding at the picture.

I can’t help but laugh. “Are you one of those people who doesn’t care whether you win or lose? You’re just there for the love of the game?”

A hint of amusement lights his eyes as he looks at me. “You don’t get this far in competitive sports without wanting the wins.”

“But do you feel it when you win?”

“Of course.”

I turn to him, trying to puzzle him out. How can he be so deadpan while feeling strong emotion? “I get it now. You’re like an emotional mullet.”

“Huh?”

“Business on the outside. Party on the inside.”

That draws an actual smile, and now I feel like I just won a big game.

“Callahan!” Zach strides into the office, wearing a blue-checked dress shirt, tailored black slacks, and what looks like a very expensive watch. He’s got a head of neatly combed and pomaded blond hair and a pair of blue eyes that flick to me as he shakes Luca’s hand.

“What’s up, man?” he says. “You doing okay?”

“Yep,” Luca says. He’s a one-word-answer pro, I’m coming to find.

“Who’s this?” Zach examines me and puts out a hand.

“She’s…um…my wife.”

Right to the surprise, then.

Zach’s hand pauses with mine mid-shake. “What now?” He cocks his ear toward Luca.

“This is my wife, Victoria,” Luca repeats, straight-faced.

“Your…wife.” Zach’s gaze jumps between us, waiting for the punchline, then settles on me.

I clench my teeth together and smile. “Surprise!”

He drops my hand. “Wait.” He turns to Luca. “You’re married ?”

“Yeah.”

“No, you’re not.” He shakes his head. “I know your file. I’d know if you were married.”

“And now you know.”

Zach scoffs, but Luca’s direct gaze has him second-guessing himself. “Since when?”

Luca checks his watch. “About two hours ago.”

Zach’s jaw slips open, and I can almost hear him blinking. “Um…wow. Okay.”

Luca goes to Zach’s desk and grabs the Certificate of Record. “You think this will be enough to convince the teams they can draft me? The clerk’s office said it’ll take a few weeks to get the actual marriage certificate.”

I’m not convinced Zach is even seeing the paper. He’s stuck on the whole wife thing.

You and me both, buddy.

“Hold up,” he says, taking a step back. “You got married… today ?” He points down at the floor like that’s where today’s date exists.

“Yeah.” Luca stares at his agent with a frown that says he can’t understand why he’s having to verify these pesky details so many times.

I stifle a laugh. This is incredibly entertaining. I should get surprise-married more often.

Zach looks at the certificate again. The man seems to think Ashton Kutcher is about to pop out of nowhere because he’s being Punk’d.

“You said this was the only option, right?” Luca asks. “Marriage?”

“I mean, yeah. I was mostly joking, but…” He looks up, and the confusion in his eyes gives way to something else: hope. He lets out a breathy laugh. “I can’t believe you actually got married .”

“Will that paper work?” Again, Luca seems to be impatient to move past the incredulity.

“Dude. I mean, I know you’re a private guy, but I didn’t even know you had a girlfriend.”

“I didn’t.”

Zach’s confusion returns in full force, and he looks at me.

I smile again.

The certificate drops to his side. “Okay, hold on. Correct me if I’m wrong, but…did you get married to your friend”—he looks at me—“for a green card?”

“We’ve only known each other about a week,” Luca says, “but yeah.”

A burst of high-pitched laughter comes from Zach. It’s almost maniacal in its incredulity. “Have you seen The Proposal ?”

I look at Luca, who’s also confused. Seen what proposal?

“The movie,” Zach says. “With Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bu—you know what? Nevermind. Please tell me you at least signed a prenup.”

Luca’s eyes flit to me, and I smile through clenched teeth, which is apparently a permanent expression for me now. A prenup didn’t even cross my mind.

“I promise I’m not planning to take Luca’s money,” I reassure Zach. “Is there a way to sign a…postnup? Is that a thing? Because I’ll totally sign it.”

Zach narrows his eyes as he studies me as if he’s trying to figure me out. “So, what exactly is in this for you?”

Luca shoots him a look that says thanks a lot .

“Not that this guy isn’t cream of the crop,” Zach says, “but…I mean, it’s not like you guys signed up for a game of mini-golf. You got married.”

“Yeah, but just on paper,” I argue. “He saved my life, and he needed a wife. A life for a wife.” My cleverness knows no bounds.

“Wait.” Zach’s gaze fixes on me intently as though he’s having a small epiphany. “Are you the reason he was at the hospital?”

“You make it sound like I put her there,” Luca says.

“Well, you did force me to go,” I say.

“After saving your life,” he shoots back.

“And crushing me.”

“Didn’t you say you’d rather be under me than a semi?”

My eyes widen. How dare he repeat my own unintentional double-entendre?

Zach’s head moves back and forth with each comment like he’s watching a tennis match. He laughs. “You guys are absolutely nuts. But”—he raises his brows at Luca—“I know how hard you’ve worked for the past few years, Callahan. I’ve been racking my brains trying to figure out another option since that judge’s idiotic ruling, but I’ve been coming up short.” His eyes narrow as he looks from Luca to me and back again. “This could actually work, though.” He rubs his chin, still staring at us. A smile creeps back onto his mouth. “I thought we were totally done for, and then you come up with this Hail Mary move, you sly dog.” He rushes over to Luca and fake-punches him in the gut a few times. “Congratulations, man. This is huge.” He pulls Luca in for a hug.

He’s not much shorter than Luca, but he’s still dwarfed by him. Zach takes care of himself, but Luca’s body-fat percentage is probably half of his.

Zach pulls back and comes over to me. “And congrats to you, Mrs. Callahan.”

I give a breathy laugh as I let him hug me. Mrs. Callahan? That’s a whole new level of weird.

“I owe you two a wedding gift,” Zach says after. “I’ll send you an Instant Pot from Amazon or something.” He heads to his desk and takes a seat, straightening the certificate for a better look. He chuckles and shakes his head again, then sets it down and looks at us. “All right”—he cracks his knuckles—“the deed is done, so let’s get rolling. We’ve got our work cut out for us. You two will need to get your story straight—and keep it that way.”

“Our story?” I repeat, not quite sure what he means.

“You’re USC’s best wide receiver, Callahan,” he says. “People will be interested in the woman you married, and rightly so.” He winks at me. “So, what is our story? Long-time secret relationship? Whirlwind romance after you saved her life?” He snaps. “That’s the one. People will totally eat that up. It’ll be great press. Besides, keeping close to the truth is probably for the best.”

I blink quickly, and my mind hops to Tyler Warren, who’s under the impression Luca and I were already engaged before the hospital. An impression I handed him on a platter.

“Oh!” Zach snaps again. “We need to get some good shots of you two together for the media. I’ve got some contacts, so I can set something up.” He scribbles something on a sticky note. “Obviously, we need to get the ball rolling ASAP on all of the paperwork. Immigration stuff is notoriously slow, and this type of visa isn’t my domain. But”—he pulls out his phone—“I’ve got a buddy from college who works at a boutique firm that handles high-profile immigration cases. I’ll bet he can push things through. It won’t be cheap, but hey, the payoff will be worth it. Right, Callahan?” He grins at Luca and starts scrolling through his contacts.

Luca doesn’t smile back, which, I realize, doesn’t mean anything. Maybe inside he’s jumping up and down and screaming like a tween at a Harry Styles concert. Whatever he’s feeling inside, he’s looking at me, not Zach.

Only now that Zach has stopped talking do I realize how fast my heart is going. The way he’s talking makes it sound like “marriage on paper” isn’t the most accurate way to describe things. Getting our story straight? A photoshoot? Good press?

“Can I talk to you for a minute, Victoria?” Luca asks me. “In private?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Zach puts his phone to his ear and smiles like he suspects we’re heading to the closest closet to make out.

Luca holds the door open for me, and I step into the hallway, which is lined with a row of newspaper clippings highlighting accomplishments of some of the athletes represented by the company.

“What’s up?” I say, hoping I sound calmer than I feel.

He looks at me for a few seconds before responding, and suddenly, it feels like the man who never shows emotions can see straight through me. That seems unfair.

“You don’t have to do this,” he says.

I let out a laugh, but it doesn’t sound right. “Um, we kind of already did do it. We’ve got the certificate to prove it.”

“Who cares? This”—he gestures back at Zach’s office—“isn’t what you signed up for.”

I let out a breath. Just having him acknowledge that fact helps me relax a bit. “Guess we should’ve done a bit more research before sprinting to the courthouse.” I look up at him, and the level of seriousness on his face drives me to diffuse things with a joke. I fake pity. “You just couldn’t resist me, though.”

He gives a half-hearted chuckle, but his expression slides right back to the usual broody brows. “I’m so sorry I roped you into this. I knew it was dumb. I guess I just…” He grimaces.

“It’s not dumb, Luca. It’s your dream.”

“It’s not yours, though.”

I meet his gaze for a few seconds, then smile wryly. “The only reason I can even talk about dreams right now is thanks to?—”

“Victoria,” he says, cutting me off unapologetically. “Yeah, I saved your life. So what? That doesn’t mean you should spend the rest of your life strapped to me.”

I scoff. “That’s not what this is. We’ll get divorced once everything’s settled for you. And I made the suggestion to get married, if you remember.”

“Yeah. And I agreed. But that was before either of us realized it would be more than paperwork.”

I search his face. He’s right, obviously. And if we’d stayed in that office with Zach going full speed ahead, I might’ve been the one to pull Luca out into this hallway to express my reservations. But now that Luca’s the one arguing that I don’t have to do this, it frees me up to play devil’s advocate.

This guy in front of me has gone from planning for the NFL to losing it all to getting it back and now possibly losing it again. And yet, in this moment, he’s worried about me.

“What do you suggest?” I ask.

He shrugs his massive shoulders. “I don’t know. An annulment?”

I wrinkle my nose. “Like when Britney Spears married that guy for two days? I’m not trying to be in the Guinness Book of World records, Luca. Do you want an annulment?”

He doesn’t answer right away. A muscle in his jaw jumps as he holds my gaze, thinking. “I don’t want to trap you into this situation.”

My phone dings, and I pull it out. My brows go up. It’s Tyler.

Tyler

Hey, I’m sure Luca is taking great care of you, but I wanted to check in on my patient ;) You had any issues since the accident? It was great to see you!

The second I’ve finished reading his text, a picture comes through. It’s of Tyler, Luca, and me in the hospital room. I can’t help but smile at the sight of it. Luca’s standing next to the hospital bed, and I’ve got my arm wrapped around his, leaning my head toward him with a smile.

He, on the other hand, looks almost exactly like the photo on Zach’s wall, except there’s a slight deer-in-the-headlights vibe.

I hold my phone up for him. “Kind of like I trapped you into being my fiancé at the hospital?”

He glances at the photo, then back to me. “This is different.”

“It is. Because I didn’t give you a choice in the matter.” I look at Tyler’s text again. I would stake my life on the fact that he also sent that picture to Ryan.

There’s a nice dose of satisfaction in that knowledge. The truth is, I’ve let what happened with Ryan keep me down for too long, and now that I’m realizing that, I’m embarrassed. I like the idea of him seeing this photo and believing he didn’t hurt me as much as he did. That I didn’t lose myself trying to prove him wrong and protect myself from being hurt like that again.

Even more than that, though, I like the idea of believing in myself again. I like the girl in this photo who’s not afraid of doing spontaneous, even crazy things, and figuring it out as she goes.

I’ve missed her.

And, hey, if I can help Luca achieve his dreams while recapturing what I lost after Ryan, that feels like a win-win to me.

I turn off the screen and look Luca in the eye. “I don’t want an annulment.”

A frown flickers across his brow.

“Hear me out, okay?”

He nods.

“I have a few arguments to present. Firstly, it’s a done deal. We got married. That genie isn’t going back in the bottle—at least not without a fight. I may be wrong, but if what Zach says is true about the interest in you, news will get out about an annulment, and I don’t think either of us want that sort of publicity.” I almost shudder just thinking of Ryan reading those headlines.

“Secondly, you don’t have a backup plan. Right?” I search his eyes, and even though he doesn’t say anything, we both know the answer. “This is your shot at the NFL, Luca. You should take it. Thirdly, it’s not what we expected, but it doesn’t sound too bad, right? Fill out more paperwork—which, by the way, I’m extremely good at because it’s kind of my job—take some pictures together, tell a story that gets people excited.” I shrug. “Sounds like a fun challenge.”

Luca doesn’t say anything right away. Instead, his brown eyes stay fixed on me. The man could stand in for a lie detector if the NFL gig doesn’t pan out.

“What about reason four?”

I raise my brows. “Reason four?”

“I’m guessing there is one,” he says. “Your ex. Ryan, right?”

I don’t respond.

“It’d probably be pretty nice to keep the story from the hospital alive for his benefit.”

I open my mouth to argue, but he keeps going.

“I’m not judging you, Victoria. I don’t like the guy, either.”

I give a soft laugh. “Because of what Tyler said Ryan thinks of you?”

Luca shrugs. “I don’t like when people doubt me.”

“Doubting people is a favorite pastime of Ryan’s. It’s why he makes a good lawyer. It’s also why he made a crappy boyfriend. But this isn’t about him. Would it be nice for him to see me happily married? Yeah, of course. But that’s a bonus. And, to reiterate, I’m not just doing this for you, either. I’ve been asleep at the wheel for a while, and finally, I’m awake. But if you want an annulment, then?—”

“I don’t.”

His swift response after suggesting and then arguing for one catches me off guard.

“I want to play in the NFL,” he says more calmly. “So, if you’re really in and you’re not doing this out of guilt…I’m in too.”

I smile, feeling a surge of anxious excitement. “In it to win it.”