"Me?" he chuckled, pointing at his chest, which I swore was puffed out a little to show off.
"Yes, you. Now." I stole a bottle of tequila and a bottle of cherry schnapps, then took off toward my clothing I’d left lying on the floor by the door.
"Well alright then. Get dressed. We're gettin' hitched."
I was making the worst choice of my life—or the best. Only time would tell.
3
KADE
I felt the pounding in my head before I even opened my eyes, and the heat of a body on me—well, tangled up with me. What the hell did I do?
My eyes popped open at the sound of soft snoring and the vibration of my phone on the nightstand. I didn't know what to look at first, the gorgeous woman I slept with last night—multiple times—or my phone.
Lainey Rowan was a stone-cold fox, and a bold-faced liar. Her little sob story about never doing anything adventurous or wild in her life hooked me so fast, but it was her body that had been so intoxicating I lost my mind. And my God, when she fell apart around me it felt like destiny—out of this world, like no other woman on this planet.
But marriage?
I grumbled and covered my eyes, letting my phone ring and go to voicemail. There had been a lot of times I'd made bone-headed decisions my parents had to bail me out of. The time I graffitied the Sphere, that one night in my late twenties when I got aDUI, and most notably when I went with Gavin to hook up with that Hilton girl and ended up being chased off her father's hotel property by armed guards.
But this took the cake. I was so drunk and she was so incredible, it was easy to make bad choices. And I wouldn't say I didn’t enjoy it. Sex with Lainey was on another level—maybe because she was very inexperienced, or maybe because she was so vocal and responsive—but God I'd do it again right now if she was awake.
The phone started buzzing again. I slowly untangled my body from hers and sat up. If she woke up and remembered half of what happened she'd be lucky, but there was no way I was getting out of this easily. That tattoo of my signature on her side was very much permanent, and the rock on her finger that’d cost my dad a pretty penny would have to be returned or he'd have my neck.
My head throbbed as I stared down at my lit-up phone’s screen that showed my mother's face. Seventeen missed calls, ten missed texts, and I was in a world of trouble. It was ten-fifteen a.m. and I was expected at their place fifteen minutes ago for some stupid brunch they’d insisted I attend. Probably just another way for them to fix me up with some cheap bimbo they thought was "in my league."
I obviously wasn't planning to attend that now. And given how I screwed up last night, my first line of business was to get Lainey fully sober, fully awake, fully dressed, and fully annulled.
I reached for the phone and silenced the call, then opened my messages app and scrolled through the texts, which got increasingly more aggressive as I read. Then I typed a response.
Kade 10:16 AM: Sorry Mom. Overslept. Not gonna make it.
And I hit send. I knew it would land about as calmly as the nuke at Hiroshima, but there was nothing to be done about it. So I muted her contact for an hour and opened a new thread, this one to my lawyer.
Kade 10:17 AM: Dude, Danny boy, I need a favor. How fast can you get a marriage annulled? Will it cost me a ton?
If anyone could bail me out of this crap shoot it would be Mr. Daniel Price, the family lawyer. I just hoped he kept his mouth shut, at least long enough for me to make sure Lainey wasn't just out for money. God, I screwed up so bad.
I crammed a hand through my hair and stood up, looking around for my pants, which hung over a lamp across the room. After the chapel wedding and several more mini bottles of all sorts of liquor, I’d enjoyed Lainey’s body twice before we both passed out. And dang was the sex hot. I could teach that girl so much.
But she was going to kill me when she woke up and saw that tattoo. I knew she didn’t remember that. She was so gone by the time we stopped there and Razor put her in that seat. Practically stripped her entire dress off to let him ink her, and I had to cover her tit the whole time so he didn't get distracted. Dude was a perv, for real. But she’d insisted, and I was wasted.
"God I'm an idiot," I grumbled as I yanked my pants up and tugged on my shirt. The girl had been through so much, though. It wasn't like me to care, so it felt like I'd been conned or something, but Lainey was so sweet. I really didn’t think she was conning anyone.
Looking down at her as I slid on my shoes, I decided to let her down easy. Chances were she'd freak out too. Maybe she'd beangry at me for the whole thing, but we were perfect strangers. Both of us would get over it eventually, even if my parents had to pay out some massive fortune to buy her off, which I prayed would not happen.
Fifteen minutes later, after agonizing about leaving her alone in bed, I stood at the counter in the Atlas Diner, next to the slot machines at the opposite end of the casino from the bar. Darla was working the register as normal, and when she saw me she made it a point like always to plump her tits and wink at me. It was a nice rack, but she wasn't my type at all.
"Morning, Mr. Kingston. What can I get for you?" Her batting eyelashes were distracting, way too long to be real.
"I'm Kade, not Mr. Kingston. That's my father. I've told you that." No matter how many times I corrected these people, some of them never got the point. "Two cafe Americanos, one with sugar, one without."
Darla tapped at her computer’s touch screen while glancing up at me. My eyes tracked to the mirror behind her that showed a view of the whole dining room. My hair stuck up; my eyes were bloodshot. I was a wreck, though hopefully in a sexy way. I didn't want Lainey thinking she'd slept with a pig last night.
"Rough night?" Darla asked, smiling at me as she leaned on the counter. The position made her tits push out even farther, like she was begging me to look down her shirt. It was gross. Women everywhere threw themselves at me and I hated it. Sometimes I wished I'd never been born a Kingston. The name and money were as much a curse as a blessing.
"I actually had a great night last night," I said as I ran a hand through my hair. The flash of light reflecting on my hand had mestaring at it. A thick gold band ringed my fourth finger on my left hand and caused a knot to form in my chest.
