Page 43 of The Proposal
I press my fingertips against my eyelids and blow out a breath.
“What do you want to do?” Ella asks. “We need a game plan. I’m here to ride this out with you, but I need to know what way we’re rolling with it so I can prepare for battle.”
My lips quiver.This sucks so bad. But at least Ella is here.
“Nope. Don’t start crying,” she says. “I swear to all that’s holy that if you make me get emotional about this, I’ll never forgive you.”
I laugh, choking back the sob that wants to escape.Thanks, tequila.
“Do you think you need an attorney?” she asks. “I can call my dad and see if he can help us find one. He usually knows someone who knows someone.”
“I don’t need an attorney … right?”Do I? “I just want to get this thing annulled as quickly and quietly as possible. It’s not like we’rereallymarried.”
Ella nods as if she’s just going along with me.
“Look up annulments—or hell, canceling a marriage license,” I say. “There has to be a way for people who wake up married in Vegas to end it. This has to happen all the time.”
“Uh-huh.” She types into her phone. “I hope you’re right.”
I lay my head back and close my eyes.
Thankfully, my stomach has settled. The ache in my head isn’t as sharp as when I woke up. But the stress in my neck that I managed to shed last night is back—with a vengeance.
I’m married.I snort.This is not the birthday memory I wanted to make.
“All right,” Ella says. “There are two types of marriages you can annul in Vegas. One isvoid marriagesand the other isvoidable marriages.”
“Gimme. How do I void this?”
“You don’t have avoid marriagebecause neither of you were already married, and you aren’t closely related.”
I make a face. “Nope. We’re not. What’s the other kind?”
“Voidable marriagesare those without consent if under age, lack of understanding, mental incompetence, and the existence of fraud.”
I sit up and turn off the tap. Water sloshes around me. “That’s it. Lack of understanding. Clearly, we didn’t know what we were doing.”
Relief floods through me. My shoulders slump.Thank God for the internet.
“Not so fast,” Ella says, grimacing. “Keep in mind that I’m on a random lawyer’s website, okay? So I could be wrong.Hecould be wrong for all I know. But I think this says that if you have a spur-of-the-moment wedding and regret it, that’s hard to prove in court.”
“In court? I don’t want this going to court.”
She sets the phone on her lap and winces. “It looks like the fastest you can get this taken care of is one to three weeks—ifyou can get it annulled.”
“And what if we can’t?”
“Then you have to get a divorce.”
I stare at my friend as if she will suddenly spit out the answers I want to hear—that this will be quick, easy, and quiet. But she fails me.
No,Ifailed me.
This is no one’s fault but my own. And as bad as this will suck for me, I know it will suck for Renn even more.There goes his good boy clause.
The only way out of this is to get to the courthouse. The sooner we start the dissolution of our accidental marriage, the sooner it’s over. Because if I know one thing, I know this—I don’t want to be Mrs. Brewer.
I can’t be Mrs. Brewer.
