Page 37 of First Comes Marriage

Chapter Twelve

“No, I don’t fucking understand.” Baz pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to remember not to swear like a sailor in the parking lot of a church. “Explain.”

“Annulment isn’t a thing in Rhode Island,” came the reply from the other end of the phone. “In special circumstances you can ask a judge to rule that the marriage never legally existed, but I can tell you right now, getting drunk in Vegas is not one of those special circumstances. Especially when you’re in the process of adding her to your health insurance.”

“Then what the fuck am I supposed to do?”

“You can get a divorce like every other person in the state who wishes they never got married.”

Was that true? Did Baz wish he’d never gotten married? The sentiment didn’t sit right, like an oil slick on his skin that he wanted to scrub off. It wasn’t that he wished the last few days had never happened, just that he needed it to stop. The other night he’d come way too close to treating her like she was actually his wife and not...whatever the hell she actually was to him. The only way he could see to getting out of this with his sanity intact was to no longer be married to the redhead who’d invaded his home and his thoughts.

“I can start the paperwork today.”

The door at the side of the church opened and Sabrina leaned out. “Sebastian?”

She was always beautiful, but when she wore a pencil skirt and heels, she was absolutely breathtaking. The gold chains of her necklace fell beneath the neckline of her floral blouse and her hair fell over one shoulder, fluttering in the late summer breeze. He knew what was on the end of that chain now—a delicate ceramic curlicue doubling back on itself in an intricate pattern. Knowing felt intimate somehow.

She smiled, red-painted lips pulling into a tantalizing curve, and cocked her head to the side. “You ready?”

He ran his eyes over her, lingering on the place where those chains dipped into her cleavage, the flare of her hips, the smooth skin of her bare calves. “I have to go. Don’t do anything yet,” he said into the phone, ending the call.

“Everything alright?” she asked.

“Fine. Let’s get this over with.”

He followed her down the dark hall on the ground level of St. Anthony’s to the large meeting room where the Merchants’ Association held their monthly meetings. Tessa and Jamie hovered around the refreshments table at the back of the room, adjusting the display of mini pastries Tessa’s bakery had provided. Kyla, Gavin, and Ethan sat off to one side of the bank of metal folding chairs, chatting happily with Natalia, the lingerie shop owner, and Lindsay, the owner of the fancy breakfast food truck. At the front of the room, Norm, still in his signature beanie and flannel despite the August heat, fiddled with a projector. He turned at the clicking of Sabrina’s heels along the linoleum floor.

“Good. You’re here. Let’s get started.” Norm held the remote control for the projector out to Sabrina. “How do you want to be introduced? Mr. and Mrs. Graham?”

“No,” Sabrina and Baz said simultaneously and a little too quickly.

“We’ll introduce ourselves,” Sabrina said.

“Everyone already knows us,” Baz pointed out.

Norm chuckled. “Suit yourselves.” Then, to the assembled group, “Alright, let’s get this thing started.” The crowd settled into the folding chairs as conversation died down, turning their attention to the front of the room. “We’re skipping our usual business tonight so we can come up to speed on the Vegas conference and make a plan for this year’s Food and Wine Festival. Unless anyone has anything pressing.”

A hand shot up on one side of the room and Jenny from the hair salon got to her feet. “When are we going to talk about the fact that wedding bookings are still down?”

“Temporary market dip,” Norm said.

“Maybe, but I don’t know how many years in a row my business can survive thistemporarydip.” A murmur of agreement rolled through the room. “You can’t keep punting on this, Norm. We need a new plan. I don’t much care if it’s more weddings or something else entirely, but we can’t simply keep wringing our hands and taking the hit.”

Natalia chimed in, “The Food and Wine Festival has already proven there’s a real market for bringing other kinds of tourism to town. Maybe we should explore ways to do that all year, and not only in the winter.”

As the meeting quickly devolved into side conversations, Sabrina leaned close to Baz, whispering. “Do you think they’d notice if we left?”

He choked on the burst of laughter that tried to work its way past that lump in his chest. When he turned his head to look at her, she was close enough that he could count the freckles on her cheeks. He wanted to kiss each one, see if the freckles near her ear tasted different than the ones on her clavicle, see where else those freckles dotted her skin.

Where the fuck did that thought come from?He couldn’t remember the last time he’d thought this much aboutkissingsomeone.

He swallowed hard and turned back to the chaos of the room. “Did you go to the seminar on gamification?”

“You know I did.”

He did know. He’d spent half the lecture obsessing over the red mark that appeared on her knee when she crossed and uncrossed her legs, and the other half hating himself for even noticing it.

“Could be a solution.”

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