My hazy recollection of her being clever solidifies into a hard, intimidating fact. She gets dressedunderneath the towel, pulling on panties and a bra with alarming speed. She’s talking circles around me, and I’m just a naked man covering his junk with a towel, my brain desperately trying to catch up.
I don’t want her to leave.
That’s the one clear thought I have.
She yanks a white satin dress over her head—the same dress she wore up the aisle, I remember that dress!—and is grabbing her purse when I finally get my legs to work. I move between her and the door.
“Hang on a second,” I say, trying to sound calm and not as bewildered as I feel. “You’re my wife.”
She shakes her head, not looking at me. “Don’t worry, I know it’s not going to be legally binding. We were inebriated. Intoxicated. Under the influence of?—”
“Sure, it wasn’t the best decision we could have made,” I admit, trying for the Granger smile that usually works on… well, everyone. “But we made it, right? So…”
It doesn’t work on her, not even a little. Her face remains a careful mask of regret.
“Look, Logan…”
So she knowsmyname, at least.
With a big inhale followed by a carefully released sigh, she pokes a finger into my bare chest. The contact is electric. “I don’t know what you were expecting me to say, and maybe you don’t even remember as much of last night as I do. To be honest, I don’t even want to explain it right now.” He voice gets really tight. “So let’s leave it at this. I don’t hold you to anything you said last night. And soon enough, you’re going to understand exactly why we cannot do this. Whynobodycan ever know what happened last night. But I need to leaveright now. Because you have morning skate, remember?”
I just stare at her, completely lost. Except, fuck, she’s right. Idohave morning skate, and a team meeting after that, and I’m going to be late to both if I don’t get dressed.
And if I miss a team meeting, I’ll be healthy scratched again.
“Other than your lawyers—and I trust the Granger family has a very good firm on retainer—no one caneverknow,” she insists, her eyes boring into mine. “You and me. We’re strangers. Okay?”
Before I can protest, she sidesteps me and pulls the door open.
As it clicks shut behind her, I’m left with three things: a pounding headache, a towel that won’t wrap all the way around my waist, and a wedding ring put on my finger by a gorgeous little stranger whose name I still don’t know.
CHAPTER 2
FRANKIE
Fourteen hours earlier
My phone vibrates on the very nice tablecloth in the very nice restaurant. Without looking at it, I know it’s from my mother. It’s probably something like,Remember, opening your heart to forgiveness is freeing.
Is it, though? This dinner does not feel like freedom to me.
Against my better judgement, I agreed to have dinner with my father.It’s a sign, my mother said,that you’re both in Vegas at the same time. It’s neutral territory, and you’re both grown-ups.
The flaw in her logic is that my father does not see me as a grown-up. “Just remember, Frankie. You can make whatever choices you want, however misguided they may be. But you cannot escape the consequences of those choices.”
He’s baiting me, I know that, but I fall for it anyway. “And what would be the consequences of me staying in California for my training?”
“Do you want children?”
He does this, answering questions with questions of his own. Leading you into a trap. I can only imagine what it’s like to beone of his players and deal with this every single day, with no out because it’s your job. Shudder.
When I don’t answer, because that’s none of his fucking business, he continues. “At some point, you’ll look up and realize that you abandoned your mother. And since you’re hell-bound on a career that will make it very hard to be a parent yourself without significant support, that gaping wound—and geographical distance—will come back to bite you in the ass.”
Oh, how wrong he is. I will always mourn the loss of my relationship with my mother, but going no contact with my father was the best thing I did for myself. This dinner is just reinforcing that choice as the right one.
And now I’m really regretting not going out with my friends. They’re currently at a burlesque shownotjustifying their residency match requests to someone who they will never, ever actually impress.
“It doesn’t occur to you that if I have children, it might be with a partner who wants to be a stay-at-home parent?”
