7. Dalton

SEVEN

I just wantto lay here, like a husband weighted blanket, for the rest of the day. Actually, fuck that. I never want to leave this room.

Just as I'm trying to figure out if my budget will allow me to buy this whole fucking hotel, a quiet ding breaks the silence of the suite. Dia and I look over to the nightstand, where her phone lights up with a new notification.

"Ugh," she groans, attempting to reach for it, but I'm still pinning her down. "Get off me, you human tank."

I chuckle, moving just enough for her to roll out from under me. "You know, I liked you better when I had my tongue in your pussy. You were a lot nicer then."

"Yeah," she says, rolling her eyes. "Don't get used to it. As soon as we sign those papers, I get to go back to being mean."

Not if I have anything to say about it.

She looks at her phone, eyes widening when she reads the message. "Oh, shit. It"s Mads. They"re leaving to go back to Boston and want to know where we are." She looks at me, worried. "What do I tell her?"

"That we fell in love, got married, and are busy fucking each other"s brains out in our honeymoon suite," I say, wiggling my eyebrows.

She scowls at me, and fuck, I want to put her over my knee again. "We had a deal, remember? They can't know." Worry settles back over her expression. "We were both missing all night. They"re going to know something is going on. What am I supposed to tell them?"

I force an exhale. "Just tell them we slept at a different hotel. You were supposed to go home to Chicago anyway, so you can just tell them you"re going straight from here. And say I didn"t want to leave you alone, so I"ll hop on a later plane after you"re gone." She says nothing as she chews on her fingernail. Something is definitely up. "What?" I ask. "What"s wrong?"

She looks around the room, trying to avoid eye contact. I wait, staring at her, hoping she'll tell me what"s going on. After a minute of silence, she finally relents. "I…um…I don"t know if I have a home to go back to in Chicago," she says, quietly.

I sit up on the bed so I can be face-to-face with her. "What do you mean?"

She stands, putting some space between us as she pulls a blanket from the chair in the corner of the room and wraps it around her naked body, keeping her back to me. "Fuck," she says. "I only have two dresses to wear. All the rest of my stuff is in Mads' suitcase. What am I going to wear out of here?"

Okay. Cool. Ignore me.

I stand from the bed, walking over to her and gently grabbing her by the arm to spin her around. "Dia, what's going on?" I ask again.

"It"s not your problem, Dalton," she says. "I"ve been on my own, figuring out my own shit, since I was a kid. That"s not going to stop now."

"Like fuck it isn"t," I say, firmly, "You"re my wife."

Her eyes shoot up to mine. "Yeah, well I won't be for long," she spits. "Leave me alone."

"No," I yell, a lot louder than I mean to. But goddamn, this woman is stubborn. "Tell me what's going on or I'll call Blaze right now and tell him everything." Apparently, blackmail is a new thing I do. In my defense, she's not giving me a choice.

She lifts her chin in defiance. "You wouldn't."

"Try me, sweetheart," I say with a smirk. "You're breaking the deal by not acting as my wife in this room."

Defeated, she backs away, plopping down on the couch. She twists her hands into the blanket, never looking up at me as she speaks. "I got fired on Friday." It's barely a whisper. I want to scoop her up and hold her in my arms, but I know she needs space in order to open up to me. This isn"t something she"s used to, and I don"t want to scare her. "I had put in for vacation time, because there was no way I was missing my best friend's first big gig at the Super Bowl. They called me Thursday night and told me that they would need me to work the whole weekend. I reminded them that I was off, and they told me that if I didn"t show up on Friday, I would be fired. Sure enough, they stuck to their word. And since my apartment is also owned by my boss, I can assume I no longer have a place to live, either."

Fuck.

My instinct is to tell her to come home with me, but I'm not sure she would be down with that, especially if we go through with the annulment. I also know that she won"t take money from me even though I have more than enough for several lifetimes. I"m at a loss for what to say to her, so instead, I walk over and sit down beside her, pulling her into my arms. "It's okay, baby," I say, kissing the top of her head as she melts into me. "Fuck those people, anyway," I tell her. "Have you ever considered moving to Boston to be closer to Mads? She"s just as alone as you are when we're on the road. I"m sure she"d love to have her best friend with her."

She sighs. "I"ve thought about it a lot," she replies. "But with a job that pays next to nothing, barely any skills, and the fact that it costs so much to move, it just wasn"t possible. Even now that I'll have to find a new job somewhere, I still can"t afford to pack up all my shit and relocate to a new city."

"Sell your engagement ring," I tell her. I"ll buy her another one if she agrees to stay with me. But this is the best way for her to get the money she needs to move to Boston. I"m not technically giving her any money, so hopefully she'll do it.

She holds the ring out, staring at it. My heart skips a beat when the light glints off the large diamond. "Dalton," she says. "We haven't even been married twelve hours. I"m sure you can return this and get your money back."

"No can do," I tell her. "The law states that once we signed that marriage certificate, the jewelry belongs to you. Just like my ring belongs to me."

She rolls her eyes. "Your ring does belong to you. You paid for that one, too. Remember?" Such a little smart ass.

I click my tongue before sucking a breath through my teeth. "I don"t make the laws, babe. It"s just the way it works. That ring is yours to do whatever you want with. I bet you could get a pretty penny for it. Probably enough to move and live off of until you find a new job in Boston."

She looks up at me, her beautiful brown eyes connecting with mine. "I know what you're doing."

I grab my chest, feigning offense. "I have no ulterior motives here, Wifey. I"m just really good at problem solving."

She smiles. "Yeah?" she chides. "Then where are we going to come up with normal clothes so we can get out of here?"

I grab her phone from her hand, opening the DoorDash app. "Lucky for me, my wife is about to come into a large sum of money. So, she can have matching sweatsuits delivered for us."

"Oh my God, you're so annoying," she says, leaning back into me with a laugh.

One hurdle down, a million to go.

"I can't believe you actually ordered these," Dia says, looking at our reflection in the full-length mirror.

"What?" I say, smoothing the non-existent wrinkles from my hoodie. "You don't like our groutfits?"

"What the hell is a groutfit?" she sasses.

I scoff, because does she live under a rock? "It's a gray outfit. Get it?"

"Oh, I get it," she replies. "What I don"t get is why you got exactly the same thing for both of us. We look like idiots."

"Nonsense," I say. "We look cool."

She rolls her eyes as she walks away, throwing her phone in her small purse. We're having the hotel ship our wedding clothes back to my place in Boston, so we don't have to carry them around. Dia was ready to just leave them behind, but fuck that. What if we want to relive the memories later on?

"Ready?" she says, moving toward the door.

No, I'm not ready to let you go.

"Hold on," I say, closing the space between us in three long strides and crashing my lips to hers. I fist her hair in my hand, afraid that if I let go, she'll disappear into thin air. I can't stop myself from pushing her against the door and pressing my body tightly to hers, connecting us at every possible point. I kiss her like I'll never get to again. The thought alone makes me want to rip my heart out right here and hand it to her. Because if I have to live a life where this woman isn't my wife, I know I'll never need it.

I swallow every little whimper that leaves her as she brings her hands up to fist the soft fabric of my hoodie. She's going to have to be the one to stop this kiss, because I never fucking will. If it means staying here with these rings on our fingers, I'll move in right now.

Unfortunately, Dia pulls back, dropping her hands at her sides. Her head falls back onto the door as she squeezes her eyes shut tightly. If I didn't know any better, I'd say she doesn't want to walk out this door any more than I do. "Are you sure this is what you wa?—"

"It has to be this way, Dalton," she whispers, cutting me off. "You promised."

"Okay," I relent. But if she thinks I'm giving up, she couldn't be more wrong.