Page 7 of Marrying Mr. Majestic

We’d learned this from personal experience.

I remembered Way’s comment about not being able to afford the drinks at the bar. The guy didn’t have a pot to piss in. So even if he was the most honest man in the world with the best intentions, if this cowboy in his tiny rural town of Majestic discovered he’d accidentally married into hundreds of millions, the chances he wouldn’t see this as the biggest payday anyone had ever brought home from Vegas were less than zero.

Which meant I needed to get out of this marriage without him finding out exactly who he’d married.

“…says if you can get him to sign papers for an uncontested divorce the way they prepare them, you should be fine,” Kenji continued. “If it’s uncontested, there’s a way to list the accounts without including their balances. The assumption is the other spouse can do their due diligence once they know the accounts exist, but they’re banking on the fact this guy won’t bother and won’t have a bloodthirsty attorney on retainer. Hopefully, he wants out of this mistake as much as you do, and he’ll see various accounts listed and assume they’re standard checking, savings, retirement, etc.”

“But he could inquire about the balances?” Landry asked. “Like, he’d have a right to ask for statements or something if he wanted to?”

Kenji hesitated. “Yeah. That’s where you’re going to have to sweet-talk the guy, Silas.”

Zane and Landry both groaned in defeat.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, assholes,” I snapped. “Have you forgotten I have a reputation for corporate negotiation?”

Kenji sighed. “With all due respect?—”

Landry cut in. “Kenji’s too professional to say bullshit. This requires finesse, Silas. Not corporate negotiation. You think some good ole boy is going to see you pull up in your Range Rover and believe it’s in his best interest to sign those papers without asking questions? Small town doesn’t mean small brain.”

I clenched my teeth as I imagined trying to manipulate the sweet cowboy. This whole thing was a disaster. “Then I’ll rent a… an economy car. A compact or whatever. I’ll wear normal clothes. I’ll look like a regular guy.” I gestured to the clothes I was wearing. “I’ll show up in sweats, for fuck’s sake.”

They stared at me before Landry pointed a long, lazy finger at the logo down the side of my leg. “Your eight-hundred-dollar Alexander McQueen joggers? Is that what you’re referring to?”

Kenji cleared his throat. “Everyone be quiet and listen to me. I know exactly what we need to do.”

THREE

WAYLON

The bell over the outer door to the mayor’s office jangled cheerily as it was yanked open Monday morning.

“Waylon Fletcher,” my cousin’s deep voice commanded. “Get your ass out here.”

Back in my private office, I groaned lightly but pitifully into the wooden surface of my desk. “Can’t. Sorry. Closed today. Go away.”

A long, low whistle confirmed that Foster hadn’t listened. “You look rode hard and put away wet, Mayor.”

I opened my eyes and summoned the will to glare at the man whose tall form was slouched casually against the doorframe, one ankle crossed over the other. “Thank you so much, Sheriff. What would we do without your astute forensic skills?”

He lifted one eyebrow and resettled his hat on his head. “Wow. Add cranky to that list. I’m guessing shit didn’t go down quite the way you planned in Vegas?”

I blew out a breath. For some reason, the faint thread of sympathy in his voice made my stomach quake in a way that nothing else in the past thirty-six hours had—not the vast quantities of alcohol Saturday night, not my bumpy flight home yesterday afternoon, not even the moment of absolute crushing panic yesterday morning when I’d woken up in a man’s bed.

And not just any man… Silas.

My husband.

“I’m fine,” I told Foster, ignoring the way my heart had begun beating somewhere in the neighborhood of my throat the second I pictured Silas’s face in my mind. “Just a little hungover, that’s all. Nothing to worry about.”

Foster’s expression didn’t change. “Uh-huh. That why I’ve gotten calls from no less than five Majestic citizens attempting to report a missing person in the form of one Waylon Heath Fletcher?”

I stared at him. “Someone reported me missing?”

He began ticking names off on his fingers. “Mrs. McGillicuddy on account-a you promised to consult on the trimming of some ornamental tree in her yard. Jackson Painter because he expected you to stop by and pick up something or other from his shop yesterday. Your sister Sheridan because apparently you’d agreed to have lunch when you returned, and she’s dying to ask you how things went with Eden. And my own damned mother, who absolutely insisted on finding out why you were seen by someone in her alumni Facebook group at the airport up in Billings getting on a flight to Vegas.”

I closed my eyes and fought a wave of nausea.

“I’m the mayor,” I reminded him, getting to my feet and pushing past him to the front office. “I’m slammed with work right now, especially since I gave Bernice the day off.” I hooked a thumb at my administrative assistant’s desk with its tidy stack of files labeled Waylon: To Do. “This week, the town’s voting on replacing the stop sign at Sunset and Timmerock with a stoplight?—”

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