Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

Blakely

I rinse my toothbrush and look at my reflection.

My hair is ratty, matted in places by what I’m hoping is ice cream. Eye makeup is smeared across my face. The evidence of red lipstick is hidden on an earlobe.

I can’t decide if it looks like I’ve had a good night or if I was mauled by a bear. A very large, muscled, handsome bear. Ugh .

“How do you run off and get married after dinner, Blakely?” I shut off the tap. “Marriage isn’t an after-dinner snack.” I set the toothbrush in the travel case. “Renn might be a snack, but marriage is not.”

I groan, mentally lambasting myself for making light of the situation. Because light, it is not.

There must be something no one has caught—a lie, a misstep in the paperwork, some freaking reason two people can’t just accidentally get married . This is Vegas, for Pete’s sake. Doesn’t this happen all the time ?

Ella comes in, offering me a pain reliever and a sports drink. “Here. This will help.”

“Thanks.” I toss the pill in my mouth. The drink makes me want to hurl when it splashes into my stomach.

Ella runs a bath, adding a squirt of shampoo for bubbles. “Okay, this feels like a rough start to the day, I’m sure. But this isn’t the end of the world.”

“Easy for you to say. Your name isn’t on the front page of Exposé. Again .”

Memories of the first time my name was in bold lettering online have me gripping the tub’s edge to steady myself.

“I agree—this isn’t a best-case scenario,” she says. “But this isn’t Edward we’re dealing with. Renn isn’t feeding the tabloids stories to distract them from his bullshit. It’s not the same thing.”

I exhale a shaking breath. “It doesn’t matter. The magazines don’t care about the truth. They blamed me for crashing Edward’s car, trashing his house, and trying to blackmail him for cash.” Bile creeps up my throat. “Do you think there’s a chance they aren’t going to call me a gold digger again? If so, you’re being naive.”

“Get in the bath. Everything is better in the bath.” She turns her back to give me some privacy. “Besides, you stink.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“How much did you drink last night?”

I shed the robe and what’s left of my bra. Then I sink into the tub. “Enough to get married.”

Ella pulls the footstool across the room and sits.

The heat of the water soothes my stomach and helps clear some of the funk from my head. I take my loofah and clean the melted ice cream from my skin.

“You’re sure it’s a real marriage?” I ask, still in shock.

“I’m sure, friend. Here.” She clicks around on her phone and then hands it to me. “There are pictures. Maybe if you look at them, it’ll help trigger your memory.”

I take the device warily after drying my hands on a towel.

Resting my pulsing head against the bath pillow, I look at the images from last night. In the first picture, we’re standing in a line.

“Hey, I remember this. There was a couple in front of us—Oliver and Izzy.” My jaw drops, and I look at Ella. “How do I remember two strangers’ names and not my wedding?”

She shrugs.

“Oliver kept taking selfies. He was adorable. And I think they took a picture of us? Maybe? I can’t remember.” I swipe to another image. “Don’t remember that. Or that,” I say, swiping again.

I stop on a picture of Renn and me in front of a black-haired, lip-curled man holding a book—a Bible, to be exact.

Renn has his arms around my waist, his hands locked at the small of my back. I have no idea what he’s saying, but my face is scrunched in a laugh that makes me smile. The way he’s looking at me makes my chest tighten.

His eyes are bright and pinched at the corners. His smile stretches across his face. There’s a gentleness in his hard exterior, happiness—a carefree vibe in his features. Oh, Renn. What did we do?

“Do you remember that?” Ella asks softly.

I shake my head. I wish I did .

I give her phone back to her. “So how pissed is Brock?”

“Oh, he’s livid. He was ready to tear Renn’s limbs off and beat him with them.”

Yikes .

“But don’t worry about him, Blakely. You need to worry about yourself and what you need to do. Brock’s a big boy. He’ll deal with this—you know that. He’s always on your side.”

I shift my gaze away from her.

That’s easy for her to say—to not worry about my brother. But she wasn’t there when the fallout of dating Edward landed partially on Brock. She didn’t watch him feel handcuffed by the situation, wanting desperately to help me but feeling the pressure from his team and managers not to get too publicly involved. It was almost as hard on him as it was for me. And I still feel terrible about that.

“I don’t want this to affect him,” I say.

She smiles. “I think that’s the last thing he’s worried about this morning.”

I press my fingertips against my eyelids and blow out a breath.

“What do you want to do?” Ella asks. “We need a game plan. I’m here to ride this out with you, but I need to know what way we’re rolling with it so I can prepare for battle.”

My lips quiver. This sucks so bad. But at least Ella is here.

“Nope. Don’t start crying,” she says. “I swear to all that’s holy that if you make me get emotional about this, I’ll never forgive you.”

I laugh, choking back the sob that wants to escape. Thanks, tequila .

“Do you think you need an attorney?” she asks. “I can call my dad and see if he can help us find one. He usually knows someone who knows someone.”

“I don’t need an attorney … right?” Do I ? “I just want to get this thing annulled as quickly and quietly as possible. It’s not like we’re really married.”

Ella nods as if she’s just going along with me.

“Look up annulments—or hell, canceling a marriage license,” I say. “There has to be a way for people who wake up married in Vegas to end it. This has to happen all the time.”

“Uh-huh.” She types into her phone. “I hope you’re right.”

I lay my head back and close my eyes.

Thankfully, my stomach has settled. The ache in my head isn’t as sharp as when I woke up. But the stress in my neck that I managed to shed last night is back—with a vengeance.

I’m married. I snort. This is not the birthday memory I wanted to make.

“All right,” Ella says. “There are two types of marriages you can annul in Vegas. One is void marriages and the other is voidable marriages .”

“Gimme. How do I void this?”

“You don’t have a void marriage because neither of you were already married, and you aren’t closely related.”

I make a face. “Nope. We’re not. What’s the other kind?”

“ Voidable marriages are those without consent if under age, lack of understanding, mental incompetence, and the existence of fraud.”

I sit up and turn off the tap. Water sloshes around me. “ That’s it . Lack of understanding. Clearly, we didn’t know what we were doing.”

Relief floods through me. My shoulders slump. Thank God for the internet .

“Not so fast,” Ella says, grimacing. “Keep in mind that I’m on a random lawyer’s website, okay? So I could be wrong. He could be wrong for all I know. But I think this says that if you have a spur-of-the-moment wedding and regret it, that’s hard to prove in court.”

“ In court ? I don’t want this going to court.”

She sets the phone on her lap and winces. “It looks like the fastest you can get this taken care of is one to three weeks— if you can get it annulled.”

“And what if we can’t?”

“Then you have to get a divorce.”

I stare at my friend as if she will suddenly spit out the answers I want to hear—that this will be quick, easy, and quiet. But she fails me.

No, I failed me .

This is no one’s fault but my own. And as bad as this will suck for me, I know it will suck for Renn even more. There goes his good boy clause .

The only way out of this is to get to the courthouse. The sooner we start the dissolution of our accidental marriage, the sooner it’s over. Because if I know one thing, I know this—I don’t want to be Mrs. Brewer.

I can’t be Mrs. Brewer.

Tears fill my eyes once again.

There’s no way to escape this. Things will get progressively worse as the hours, and days, go on. And I have no idea what it will do to Renn or his family’s business deal, but I’m sure it’s not good for them, either.

Oh, Blakely. How do you get into these things?

I promised I’d do better. For me. Yet here we are.

I married a proverbial bachelor, one of a few men more popular than Edward DiNozzo. It doesn’t matter that Renn is a good friend or that he’s been nothing but kind to me. Too much is on the line. He’ll have no choice but to save himself.

And I can’t blame him.

There’s little chance we end up anything more than enemies when this is over . We might as well get it over with as quickly as possible.

“Fine,” I say, lifting my chin. “I guess I get cleaned up, get dressed, and go file the papers because, either way, this has to end.”

***

Renn

I sit on the bed and hold my head in my hands.

Dammit, Renn.

My lungs fill with air, doing their job and keeping me alive. But, somehow, it doesn’t feel like I’m breathing.

I jump back to my feet and pace across the room.

The enormity of the situation hangs over my head— I married Blakely Evans last night . The burden of the event sits heavily on my shoulders— it was my job to protect her . The responsibility for the fallout lands squarely on me— and I don’t know what the fuck to do .

And for the first time in my life, I care .

I go back and forth across the bedroom, my footsteps falling hard against the floor.

When I usually wake up in some kind of scandal, I take a shower and have breakfast—an omelet, if I can find one. Festering bullshit doesn’t bother me. There are always two sides to every story, but I don’t often care if my side is told. No one listens, anyway.

My suspensions are always a spectacle. But things happens when you get a group of aggressive, competitive men on a field and hand them a ball—and I get paid to win games. Sometimes, when I do what I’m told, the powers that be decide it was the wrong move. Someone must publicly pay for that—and it’s not going to be team management. It’s interesting to get punished by the same people who requested the behavior, but there are NDAs to keep players from talking about that.

And the outcry against my social media snafu was amusing. Sure, I inadvertently posted a picture not meant for public consumption. My dick should not have been in my Social Stories for six minutes. Got it . But the same people chastising me only do it to be on the right side of the conversation. If it were socially acceptable to post dick pics, they’d be all for that, too. Yeah, me accidentally sharing a picture of my own body is so awful. Please .

The night I was carted away from a bar in handcuffs? That made a terrific headline. I bet the tabloid downloads the following morning were off the charts. But the part of the story that got left out, and the one I didn’t mention to anyone but the police, was the guy I sent to the hospital had just physically assaulted a woman in the bathroom. He wanted to fight—maybe not me. But when you swing at a woman, you lose the right to be selective about who swings back. So, yeah, I’m the bad guy. Fine.

But this time, it’s not just about me. It involves Blakely, too. While I might not care what is said about me, I care— a lot —about what is said about her.

My hand clutches my stomach. Don’t get sick. There’s no time for that.

I stop next to the bed and rest my head against the wall. So many thoughts, ideas, and possibilities swirl inside me. I don’t know which to grab. There are so many moving parts … but only one that really matters.

Her.

I glance at the door. Should I check on her? Should I see if she’s okay?

“I need a few minutes alone.”

“Dammit, Renn,” I mutter, smacking the wall as I shove off it. “Think, asshole. How do you manage this?”

“But then it was the accusations, the headlines—the paparazzi used to camp outside my work … That was really, really hard … It’s left me with wounds that haven’t healed … Like being made a joke of in public. Like having a fear that when I love someone, they’ll leave.”

I run my hands through my hair and tug hard .

I haven’t looked at anything besides what Astrid sent me this morning, and that was bad enough. If Blakely thinks it was bad with DiNozzo, she has no idea what’s about to come her way.

A shot of vomit races up my throat. I dart into the bathroom and spit it in the toilet.

I rack my brain for a list of contacts, searching for the right person to handle this public relations disaster. My PR team is the logical solution, but I know what will happen. They will spin the situation to benefit me . That’s what I pay them to do —especially when I have so much on the line. So much to potentially lose.

But not this time.

I won’t allow them to put Blakely in a bad light, no matter what it costs me.

My heart pulls in my chest as I think of her. I’ve got you, cutie. I promise.

I pick up my phone and ignore the missed calls, voicemails, and text messages. I scroll until I find Frances’s direct number. She answers in two rings.

“Renn, you’re making me work for my money this morning,” she says, her tone edged in annoyance. “We’ve been inundated with requests for a statement. I’ve put together a response for you to approve. It’s in your email.”

“I’m having a terrific morning, thanks. How are you?”

“Cut the shit. We don’t have time for that today.”

Her abruptness eats away at my already frayed nerves.

“Have you checked your email?” Frances asks.

“No. As you might imagine, I’ve been pretty busy since I got up.”

“I’ll break it down for you. The only solution is to try to get ahead of the story and admit it was a mistake—”

“I’m not saying that.” I stop in my tracks. This is exactly why I’m calling you . “I’m not throwing the door open for Blakely to get smeared by those fucking snakes that call themselves journalists.”

“I understand that. But I’m paid to protect your image. Your father has already called this morning—”

“Who pays you, Frances?” I ask, my voice shaking with anger. “Me or my father?”

“ You . But sometimes, in these situations, you forget the value of your image. Of your family’s image.”

I laugh angrily. “And what about Blakely’s? She’s disposable—why? Because her last name isn’t worth as much financially as mine?”

She sighs. “Renn …”

I start pacing again. “I’m not issuing anything that puts Blakely in the crosshairs. Period. It’s out of the question . Don’t frame this as a mistake that’ll have everyone speculating that she coerced me into it, tried to trap me, or is looking for a payout. I won’t sign off on it.”

“You realize that short of this being a real marriage because you’re in love, the only way to possibly save Blakely’s image, your contract, and your father’s purchase is to nip this in the bud, right? Make it a nonissue. We need to frame it ourselves—and we have a very small window to do that. The media will have their day with it; we can’t help that now. Our best option is to own it, sit back, and let it burn itself out. You can make a sizable donation to a charity next week for a good photo op, then move on.”

I clench my jaw, hissing a breath through the phone.

She’s right and I know it. We’ve done it before. Frances can whip something together, phrased just so, to explain this off, while putting the least amount of blame on me as we can. I’ll probably keep my contract. Dad will figure his shit out; he always does. But what happens to Blakely?

“An annulment takes time,” Frances says, her voice lower. Calmer . “We need your attorneys on this now—if you haven’t called them already.” She takes a deep breath. “We need to stay on top of this, Renn. The longer we go, the less control we’ll have over the narrative. So what do you want to do?”

I close my eyes. “You realize that short of this being a real marriage because you’re in love, the only way to possibly save Blakely’s image, your contract, and your father’s purchase is to nip this in the bud, right?”

“I’ll call you later, Frances. Just hold off for a little while.”

She sighs in frustration. “Make it quick, Renn.”

The call ends.

I look at the ceiling and groan, sliding a hand down my face.

My right eye is sore from one of Brock’s shitty punches. There’s a small knot on my jawline. And … what’s that on my chest?

I glance down and spot a bandage. “Huh?”

I pull it off to uncover a tattoo … of Blakely’s name. Over my heart.

My laughter shakes my whole body as vague memories of lying on a chair with Blakely standing over me with a marker trickle through my mind. I can hear her giggle as she drew on my skin. The playful sweetness in her eyes as she watched the artist imprint her design onto me.

The memory doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t make me mad or embarrassed. In fact, it makes me smile.

She makes me smile.

If the paparazzi weren’t involved, this whole thing would be hilarious. I married Blakely Evans . For once, I made a great choice.

And I’m the only person in the world who will get on board with that.

My spirits sink.

I wander around the bedroom, wishing my life was simpler. That I could run upstairs, laugh about this with Blakely, and then go to brunch with her, Brock, and Ella. I wish I didn’t have to worry about headlines, publicists, and contracts.

But I do.

Anger floods me again as my conversation with Frances hits me again. “I’m paid to protect your image. Your father has already called this morning …”

Fuck this .

I’ll be damned if this is handled like Blakely is a nonissue—if my father tries to get involved to save his own skin and act as if Blakely is inconsequential. He might treat me like that, but I’ll be damned if he does it to her.

What does she even think about this? I’m sure she’s as gobsmacked as I am. And what is Brock’s reaction going to be once he’s settled down? I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t try to fight me again.

I don’t know whether to smash something or vomit.

My phone rings, tipping the scales toward vomiting. I know it’s Dad without looking. I can feel the judgment, the wrath about to come my way.

I take a long, deep breath before looking at the screen.

I might as well get it over with .

“Hello?” I say.

“Renn, what the fucking hell is this shit ? I wake up this morning to calls that you got married last night? Are you out of your damn mind?”

I wince. “Ah, you heard …”

“How about for once in your damn life you listen—and you listen good. This little stunt of yours could cost me a deal worth three-quarters of a billion dollars that I’ve been working on for two years—not to mention your contract. My God, Renn. Do you realize how badly you’ve fucked up this time?”

“You know, it’s really not that big of a deal.”

I regret the words as soon as I say them. I pull the phone away from my ear just in time.

“ Not that big of a deal ?” His laughter—loud and obnoxious—is at my expense. “Son, getting married and filing for an annulment less than twenty-four hours later is a big fucking deal. That’s especially true when your employer just made you sign a fucking waiver that you won’t embarrass the team or become a media distraction!”

“You realize that short of this being a real marriage because you’re in love, the only way to possibly save Blakely’s image, your contract, and your father’s purchase is to nip this in the bud, right?”

I tune out my father’s rant and do my best to sort through the alcohol still in my system and think that last thought through. Short of this being a real marriage because you’re in love …

My heart pounds.

What if we didn’t get an annulment? What if Blakely and I stayed married? Would it really hurt anything?

I pace back and forth across the bedroom.

It wouldn’t hurt anything for me. I’d have a beautiful wife who’s respectable and classy. But would it hurt anything for her?

I’m kind of scared to answer that. But I can answer what staying married could help … lots of things.

Maybe everything.

“This is a ridiculous question because I know you didn’t think this through. But on the off chance that you had any thoughts at all—did you think about a prenuptial agreement?” Dad asks. “Or a postnuptial one? Tell me you took some precautions.”

His insinuation cuts through me like a hot knife, and I stop in my tracks. “ Excuse me ?”

“You have to think about this shit. I’m sure the pussy is great, but—”

“ Watch your mouth .”

“Oh, Renn.”

My blood boils as I stare out the window. “Believe it or not, there are other people in this world besides you. And all of them aren’t bad.”

“What has she done to you?” he asks, chuckling.

I ball my hand at my side. Fuck this . “I’ll call you later.”

“Renn!”

I end the call before I say things I can’t take back.

My anger grows as I replay our conversation. Prenuptial agreement. Postnuptial agreement. “I’m sure the pussy is great …”

“This is what they’ll do to her—what my own father will do to her,” I say to the empty room. “And I can’t let that happen.”

I toss my phone on the bed and head for the shower.

I need to wash some sense into myself before I do something really stupid—like propose a fake marriage.