Page 74 of Accidental Vegas Vows

“I do,” he sighed. In the background, his engine whirred to life. “We can put it back through when everything is said and done. But we can still cancel it.”

We can put it back through when everything is said and done.

That, that right there, was my saving grace. A month and a half extra was sellable. I could tell her it was a backlog of paperwork, a flaw in the system, anything. We could put it back through and she’d have no idea.

“Do it,” I said, hating myself just a little bit more as the words slipped out. “Cancel the annulment.”

Chapter 27

Olivia

Noah’s never-ending grin the moment he stepped out of the school doors as I was there to collect him would be forever burned into my memory, but I was still in panic mode. I wasn’t sure exactly what Damien had done, but the post on instagram was gone along with the article — but there were lingering effects scattered across the internet. I didn’t know how long it would take to be scrubbed, and every passing second and vibration of my phone sent anxiety coursing through my veins. So when I picked up Noah and gave him the biggest bear hug I could muster outside of the school gates, only to be interrupted by the chiming phone in my back pocket… I wished that wasn’t tied to the memory.

The moment I noticed that it was a text from Damien, the panic calmed just a tad.

Damien: Spoke to Ethan. He said he can’t give a firm timeline, but assured me that it’s in the right hands and it shouldn’t be too much longer. We’re still working on the photo. I’m sorry.

Another two came through a moment later.

Damien: I’ve got a lot to work on tonight with Ethan about the custody case. It’ll be a while until I’m home.

Damien: Caroline said she was having enchilada night with Lucas. She extended an invitation to you and Noah if you want some company. I can meet you there later.

I sighed and shoved my phone back into my pocket as I hurried Noah back to the idling car. The driver stood by the backseat door, his suit and tie for once not looking out of place in a sea of rich children’s drivers, and Noah practically ran to dive into his carseat.

“I made four new friends!” he said excitedly to Paul, parroting what he’d already told me. “Alex, Sarah, Muhammad, and Talon.”

“Talon?” Paul asked quizzically, his gaze turning to me as one brow raised.

“Rich people.” I shrugged.

————

“If I speak super fucking honestly about my life, will you tell Damien?” I asked, clutching my glass of red wine like a vice. Carrie and I sat on the back deck of her house, looking out across the rolling hills and green. It reminded me almost too much of how nice it was back up near Seattle before it all came to a shattering halt. Through the crack in the sliding glass door, a robotic voice droned on offering cake as some kind of reward, and Lucas spoke over it, explaining to Noah that the robot was lying.

“Nah. I have no problem keeping secrets from my brother,” she laughed. “Unless you tell me you killed someone. Then I might need to tell someone because, you know, Noah.”

I stabbed the cut off bit of shredded, Mexican style chicken encased in a tortilla, dipping it into my little pile of sour cream. “I haven’t killed anyone,” I chuckled, popping the bite in my mouth before following it with a sip of wine. “At least not yet. My parents are likely to keel over the moment they see that image.”

She winced. I’d already explained to her how I’d been raised, how I viewed certain things, how they viewed everything else. And I’d shown her the image — she thought it was cute.

“I think everything is starting to hit me,” I sighed, setting my fork down. “All of it. The accidental marriage. The photo. How much I care for Noah.”

I paused, and she waited, as if she knew exactly what I was going to say.

“How much I care for Damien,” I added, biting back the knot in my throat. “I don’t think I could bring myself to admit it to him. But it’s… there.”

“It’s okay to have feelings for him,” she offered, her voice a little quieter, a little softer. “You’ve basically been flung into the thick of married life with him out of nowhere. It would happen to anyone.”

Fuck, why did that hurt? She wasn’t wrong, of course, but it felt like more than that. It felt higher than a circumstantial thing, it felt like more. “I don’t think it’s just because of the time we’ve spent together,” I said.

Her mouth popped open as she quietly gave me an, “Ah.”

“It’s just making this all so much harder than it needs to be. This has to end, but I keep finding myself wishing that it won’t,” I admitted, my stomach churning again from far too much honesty. “I know I’m a people pleaser. I know I do a lot of things for other people that I don’t need to. I’m starting to wonder if me wanting the annulment is just another aspect of that.”

“You’re still going through with it?” she asked, her gaze fixing on mine as she lifted her glass to her lips.

I nodded. “I don’t have much of a choice. And I thought… this sounds stupid, but I thought I was doing it for me. I thought I was going through with the annulment because I wanted it, because I couldn’t see myself marrying someone just to sleep with them, because I didn’t want that to be my story. But it feels more like I’m doing it so that my parents don’t disown me. It feels more like I’m doing it because it’s what would be expected of me. And if I had a choice here…”

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