Sophie sipped at her latte as we sat in the back corner of the bookstore, the plush sofas and little table giving us a decent amount of privacy. It was located on the ground floor of the Blackwood building, and during working hours, it was the perfect place to sneak away for a quick break and a conversation about what the actual fuck I was doing with my life.
“My parents are going to kill me.”
She pressed her lips together as she leaned forward on the sofa beside me. “You honestly think they’d have a problem with it?”
My eyes nearly bugged out of my skull. “You have no idea what they’re like,” I insisted. “You think I’m backwards? My brother and I weren’t allowed friends of the opposite sex at home. My parents didn’t kiss until their wedding day. They had chaperones for every date they went on and were barely allowed to hold hands. Damien and I did… a lot more than that.”
“Damn,” she breathed. “Surely they’re not like that with you, though, or they’d have moved out here with you.”
I nodded. “They left the church when I was a kid, but a lot of those ideals stuck with them. They’re still incredibly conservative. And if they find out I married my fucking boss in Vegas…”
She offered me a tight-lipped, sympathetic smile and placed a single hand on my knee. I tried not to imagine it was Damien’s, like when he’d touched me at two thirty in the morning before I dragged him into a bathroom, but failed miserably, and found myself wishing her bare hand was covered in platinum rings and an antique watch. “They won’t find out.”
I picked up my flat white from the table, wanting the warmth of it between my hands to calm me down. “They will if it goes on a little longer. He’s not some nobody, Sophie. It could end up in the news or something.”
“The marriage or information about what you two did?”
“Either,” I groaned. “We weren’t exactly discreet.”
Her blonde braid fell to one side as she tilted her head, the sneakiest grin tugging at her lips. “Don’t tell me you two were doing whatever you got up to in public.”
My cheeks heated uncomfortably as I cast a quick, cursory glance over my shoulder to check we were alone. “Yeah,” I said quietly, just in case. “Most of it was in public.”
“Oh my God.” The words were too loud, and she noticed immediately, covering her mouth with her hand as her eyes went wide. She checked behind her, too, as if I hadn’t already. “Sorry. What the hell? You can’t just give me tidbits of information and keep the rest hidden away.”
I sipped at my coffee, perfectly content to do just that. “I absolutely can.”
“Liv. No. Please. I need to know,” she laughed. “How bad is it? How terrible would it be if it came out? I can help you with damage control if I know what to expect.”
I narrowed my gaze at her, knowing damn well that wasn’t why she wanted to know. She was morbidly curious, and if I were honest, I would be too if it wasn’t happening to me. “Almost everything but sex.”
“Oh, my God,” she breathed. “In public.”
“Kind of.”
“What does that mean?”
“He… I don’t know. We were discreet, but we were wildly fucking drunk, so I don’t know how effective that was,” I sighed. To my left, an older woman stepped into the aisle closest to us, nonchalantly browsing book after book. Should’ve known it was a bad idea to hide near the romance section. I lowered my voice. “He, uh… touched me, at a bar. But then he rented a private balcony at another bar, and the curtains over the windows kept shifting, and… more things happened.”
“Oh my God.”
“I sat in his lap somewhere else and I’m about fifty percent sure my ass was on display. That was… that was far too public. But the worst of it was behind closed doors.”
“In the hotel room?” she asked, her cheeks blushing as she tried to contain her smile. It wasn’t working.
“In a bathroom,” I clarified.
“Liv. How bad was that?”
“So bad that we were almost having sex,” I croaked.
“You realize people will put hidden cameras—”
“Please don’t finish that sentence. Please.”
She nodded as she downed the last of her drink, shaking off whatever heat the topic had given her. “Okay. Right. Yeah, I can see why you’re worried.” She stared at the carpeted floor for a moment, the cogs in her mind visibly turning, and I wasn’t sure what plan she was concocting but I was desperate to hear it. “How big was it?”
Well, that was a disappointment. “Seriously?”
“I’m just curious!”
I shook my head. “I barely remember. I was practically blacking out when I saw it.”
“But from what you remember…?”
Covering my heated face with my hands, I audibly groaned into them, wanting to hide from the world and her and my parents and Damien. “I don’t think my fingers touched when I wrapped them around it.”
“Oh. My. God.”
“Please stop imagining yourself in my shoes and enjoying it,” I huffed.
“I’m not—”
“You are.”
“Okay. Fine. I am a little bit,” she laughed, letting her grin take over. “I just don’t understand why you want the annulment so quickly. You could, like, enjoy it a little more. You’re married, after all. You could just lose your virginity and be done with it. He’s hot as fuck, Liv.”
I shook my head, nausea churning my gut at the idea. That wasn’t a possibility — not when I barely knew him, not when I’d been saving myself for something special like my parents had drilled into me, even if he was incredibly attractive. “I can’t. I don’t want to. I need to keep my distance from him.”
“But you’re tempted.”
“Shut up.”
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” she sighed. “Have you spoken to him at all?”
“Nope. Like I said, keeping my distance.”
Placing her hand back on my knee, she gave it a little squeeze. “Maybe you should message him and check how the annulment is going. I know his lawyer’s good, but as far as I’m aware, they aren’t the quickest things to handle. Maybe just make sure he’s started the paperwork. At least then you can have a little peace of mind.”
She wasn’t wrong. That wasn’t the worst idea she’d come up with, and I desperately needed that peace of mind. I just hated the idea of messaging him to get it — it would open that door again, and I’d shut it when I left his room back at the Bellagio. I hadn’t even responded to his requests to meet them out for drinks the following night. I’d just holed myself up in my suite, trying not to think about how he’d only just booked my room that morning and how much I’d thoroughly enjoyed myself the night before.
I dug through my purse and slipped my phone out of it.
“Fine.”
