This was not part of my ten-year plan. In fact, there was no room for error in the plan. And a delayed wedding would blow out my timeline.
I growled and my eyes went wide at the sound. I didn’t growl. Especially not in public.
I ran my now sweaty hands up and down my dress self-consciously. I overslept this morning and rushed to get out of the house. Henry didn’t like it when I was late, which was always. Hoping to avoid another argument, I threw on the first thing I could get my hands on—a lime green baby doll dress with frogs on the hem. And here we were, at the California County clerk’s office to get our marriage license—and failing. My humiliation was complete.
I pasted a bright smile on my face, remembering my manners. “Thanks for your help. Have a nice day.”
She didn’t acknowledge me.
Sighing, I turned around, searching for Henry. My fiancé had been on the phone the whole time we’d been here. He didn’t even realize we hadn’t signed anything. Instead, he started walking outside when he saw I was no longer speaking to the clerk.
I followed him and waved my hand in front of his face when he ignored me. After looking up briefly, he walked to the car that was waiting for us.
The driver met us at the side and opened the door.
“Thank you, Stuart,” I said and slid into the cool interior.
“I need to go back to the office,” Henry said, pausing his phone call only long enough to bark out his instructions to Stuart. The drive was blissfully silent, and I didn’t have to make up a phony excuse why we couldn’t get a marriage license. Not that Henry seemed to notice we didn’t do the one thing we went there for.
The car stopped and Henry leaned over, his lips ghosting over my cheek. “See you later, honey.” His attention was back on his phone as soon as he was out of the car.
“Bye,” I replied to his back, already dismissed.
The door closed, and we pulled back into the busy afternoon traffic. I sank into the soft leather and took a deep breath. It would take a while to get back to my apartment.
Henry and I weren’t living together. Instead, I rented a two-bedroom apartment in downtown Los Angeles with my sister, Brielle. She was the main reason why I hadn’t moved into his McMansion yet. The two didn’t exactly get along. But I loved him and ignored their disagreements. Lately, they seemed to have come to a truce and were at least tolerating each other. But neither one of them knew about Landon.
I thought I would never have to mention my time in Vegas. But with the way things stood, the one and only time I decided to just go with my gut ended in a mess that I didn’t know how to fix.
And now here I was, trying to come up with a way to tell my fiancé that I was already married. I had no way to predict how he would react. He was a calm guy. Never yelled. Never got angry. Annoyed, yes, but not once had he yelled at me. We barely ever fought. Agreed on most things.
I was happy when he asked me to marry him, but now I wasn’t so sure. Because thinking of Landon brought up feelings I thought I’d buried in the deepest recesses of my heart.
Maybe if I could find him and get him to sign the divorce papers, I’d never have to tell Henry about my foolish mistake.
A plan was forming in my head. One that would get me out of this mess and back on track.
Turned out divorcing Landon was harder than I thought. I didn’t have his number anymore, since I deleted it when he didn’t respond to any of my messages after Vegas. But with the help of the Internet I tracked him down within a day.
I remembered the name of the garage where he worked, and it didn’t take long to find out that he was still there. But talking to my husband turned out to be more difficult. I left several messages at his office, but they all went unanswered.
After three days of calling and getting no response, I decided to go see him. He was only a short flight away, and I had his work address. I needed to get a divorce soon or I wouldn’t be able to get married in three months.
I booked my flight to Denver for the same day, leaving me just enough time to pack and get to the airport. Pulling my biggest suitcase out of my closet, I started throwing clothes inside. I had no idea what I should bring. What did one wear to get a husband she barely knew to sign divorce papers?
Brielle tore into the room while I was packing my running shoes. “Where are you going? You can’t just leave without warning. I need time to prepare for your departure. This causes undue emotional stress.”
My sister was as dramatic as a toddler. I loved her with all my heart and enjoyed living with her—most of the time. She’d worked as a waitress since finishing high school a few months ago. She said she was still trying to find herself. I thought all she was trying to find was the next deadbeat who treated her like shit. But that was an argument we had too many times to count.
“Something came up, and I have to go to Colorado for a day or two,” I said, throwing more random clothes toward my suitcase.
She pushed out her bottom lip. “But I’m starting a new job tomorrow. I need moral support.”
At that, I stopped packing and looked up. “You didn’t tell me you were changing jobs.” And I knew why. She wanted to avoid a lecture. Because she’d already switched jobs three times in the last few months. “What’s the new job?”
“Retail. My friend Marcy works at this little boutique. And they were looking for someone.”
“That’s good,” I said, thinking that wasn’t good at all. Marcy was my least favorite of all her friends.
