Page 24 of Accidental Vegas Vows

I shrugged and took a single step to her side, leaning in just briefly and catching a wave of her perfume. “Guess you’ll have to find out.”

Chapter 9

Olivia

From the moment the door of his home swung open and he stood there in his crisp, white button-up and neatly pressed slacks, fingers fiddling precisely with the latch of his antique Rolex as he stared me down, I knew this was the worst possible idea imaginable.

The small amount of land didn’t seem to be an issue for him — the home, if I could even call such an insane building a home, seemed to be built vertically. It took advantage of its space on the hillside overlooking Presidio Park and the Golden Gate Bridge, with nearly every side consisting of windows or balconies that unmistakably drew my thoughts back to Vegas. But I’d forced myself not to hesitate as I’d climbed the carved stone steps up to the gate, pressed the buttons of the keypad with the code he’d given me, and slinked through the hedgerow up to his front door.

“You changed?” I asked. It was as if I had nothing better to say, as if I hadn’t spent the entire drive over here combing through conversation after conversation we could have. In fairness, I’d struggled to keep myself from imagining each of them ending with his hands on me, so none were truly usable. But it was an easy enough icebreaker, especially when I hadn’t bothered to change out of my work clothes — just a plain black pair of slacks and a light gray button-up.

His gaze lingered on me as he stepped aside, letting me pass over the threshold and enter into the extravagant space. “I’d hardly call removing my jacket and tie for comfort’s sake changing.”

I swallowed over the knot in my throat as I took in the entryway that led into an intensely modern living room. Polished, pristine hardwood lined the large space that took up almost half of the entire ground floor of the house. On the far wall, floor-to-ceiling windows offered a view over the veranda and the idea of privacy in the heart of a bustling city. Dark grey painted walls and heavy artwork lined the space, with a mounted, massive television on one side and a sofa set that looked like it had come out of my fucking dreams.

I knew he was rich. Owning a company like Blackwood’s would of course come with its perks, but this was… more than I imagined. And this was only half of the ground floor.

“You’re quiet.”

I followed him through the home, my heels clicking uncomfortably loudly, until we rounded a corner into one of the largest domestic kitchens I’d ever seen. “I just… I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting this,” I breathed.

He stepped behind the island and plucked two small, crystalline glasses out of the black cabinetry before placing them in front of his array of bottles on the shiny black countertop. Black, black, black. The entire kitchen was dark, save for the under-cabinet lighting, light gray backsplash, and metal hanging lights. Even the high-top chairs that lined the breakfast bar were dark, and somehow with the hardwood floors, it didn’t look bad. It looked sleek, and my God, it looked expensive.

As he placed a circular chunk of ice in each glass, I knew that what he was doing was a bad idea — for both of us.

“What were you expecting, Olivia?” he asked, glancing over one shoulder as he poured an amber liquid over the ice. “A hovel?”

I didn’t know what to say to him, didn’t know how to comprehend how someone lived in a space this lavish. It felt like I was sitting in the back row of the movie theater that was my mind, watching all of this through a screen instead of actively piloting myself. If I had any control here, I wouldn’t have come in the first place.

He rounded the counter, each hand holding a glass. His rings glinted off the overhead lights as he held one out for me. “I get that it can be a little overwhelming,” he said, his hardened features unchanging despite the softness of his voice. “This should help.”

The ice clinked as I stared at it, hesitation eating away at me. I shouldn’t drink. I knew what could happen if I did — what had already happened between us. But some part of me bent to him so easily, and I found myself reaching for it, taking the sweating glass in my palm, and holding it like a vice.

I couldn’t bring myself to sip it, though.

The silence was deafening as we stood there, no more than three or four feet apart, my heart pounding as little droplets of condensation coated my fingers. Somehow, the man in front of me, towering over me, all muscle and money and nearly twice my age, was my legal husband. How the fuck had it come to this? How had I let any of this happen? I was better than this, better than drinking myself into oblivion, better than walking down an aisle in a hastily built chapel with Elvis and Damien at one end and a cheap photographer and me at the other, better than standing in his home with just the two of us and tempting fate.

“Paperwork,” I choked. “You said you needed to go over some paperwork with me.”

He nodded as he sipped at his glass. From the scent alone, I was pretty sure it was whiskey, something far fancier than whatever he’d been buying for us back in Nevada. “I need your signature on a consent form. My lawyer, Ethan, will be filing on our behalf, and you need to sign off for him to do so.”

I paused.

My signature.

He just needs my fucking signature.

“Seriously?” I asked, a hint of irritation creeping into my voice. I set the untouched whiskey on the counter beside me. “You just need one signature?”

“Is that a problem?”

“We could have done this in the office,” I gulped, stepping back from him. “With other people present. With your lawyer present.”

“I thought you wanted this done as quickly as possible.” The little smirk he gave me as he took a sip of whiskey told me he knew exactly what he was doing here — he knew he was tempting me. Tempting us. “Sign it tonight and Ethan can file it first thing in the morning.”

The way he looked at me as if he could swallow me whole made my throat close in. “I could have signed it the moment I got to work. I didn’t have to come here. This… this could have been handled?—”

“What?” The sides of his eyes crinkled as his smirk grew wider. “Don’t trust yourself around me, Olivia?”

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