Page 44 of Mr. Big Mistake
“Not good,” I murmured.
Brenden took my hand. “Just breathe. I’ll handle the rest.”
I drew in a deep breath through my nose as the judge sat at his desk. I saw him rifling through the documents Brenden gave to that woman in the office, but I couldn't read his face. His lips were pursed. His eyes were practically slits as he stared at them through his thin reading glasses. The gray hair at his temples told me he’d been doing it a while, and the wrinkles of his forehead told me he wanted to be anywhere but here right now.
That might work in our favor.
Then again, it might not.
The judge removed his glasses. “All right. Help me make sense of what’s in front of me.”
Brenden stood. “Your Honor--.”
“You don’t have to stand. Just talk to me.”
He sat back down. “Your Honor, my friend and I, we--.”
I looked over at Brenden as he struggled with his words.
“Yes?” the judge asked.
He sighed. “It’s a ridiculous story, but I promise we had the best of intentions.”
“Then, why don’t you tell me this ridiculous story?”
He nodded. “My friend here, Kelly Brown--Crown. I’m sorry, Kelly Crown.”
I rolled my eyes. “Wonderful.”
The judge chuckled. “I know you’re nervous. I just want to know the story.”
Brenden cleared his throat. “Yes. Right. Okay. So, my friend here is a virgin.”
“Oh, God,” I groaned.
“And she feels like it’s holding her back in the dating world.”
“Can I die now? Is that a thing?”
The judge chuckled. “Go on.”
“And what she wanted to do was sleep with my brother, which isn’t good enough. Not for her. She needs someone who cares about her, right? Who knows her.”
“So, you offered up yourself. Right?”
Brenden nodded curtly. “Right. But, I wanted to make her comfortable and get her to relax and kind of ease into things. So, I figured, why not stage a wedding? I could add all of her favorite elements, make it a Christmas-themed sort of thing. We could go have dinner, book ourselves a nice honeymoon suite for a week, and kind of ease into things as she wanted. No pressure, no commitment, and her completely taking the reins on this part of her life.”
The judge smiled. “It’s not a terrible idea. I can see why you thought it would be a good one.”
I wanted to melt into a puddle and soak into the sewer system. Anything to get out of that embarrassing situation.
“Right?” Brenden asked. “But the receptionist I coordinated all of this with quit. And I wasn’t informed. So, instead of us signing a waiver that stated the wedding wasn’t actually legitimate, we signed a marriage certificate that had been filled out by the new receptionist that had gotten things confused.”
I sank further down into my chair and pinched the bridge of my nose.
Brenden started chuckling, but I didn’t hear the judge joining in. And when I peeked up, I saw him staring at me. Clear as crystal, with a hard look on his face.
“Is this what happened?” he asked.
