“Speak for yourself,” he answered.
“Oh, so you were in your right mind when this happened?” I shook the certificate in front of his face.
“Clearly neither of us was,” he said in a voice that was probably supposed to calm me down. “Now we need to figure out how tofix it. Damage control. Can you remember anything about the ceremony? Was anyone else there?”
I paused. “I’ve got nothing. The last thing I can clearly remember is that guy offering us the suite for the night.”
He grimaced. “Same.”
He leaned over the side of the bed again and came back up already dialing his phone.
“Who are you?—”
He was already focused on the call. “Drew, I need to talk to you.” A beat. “No, not about Dad. Me. Something happened last night, on Nésion.”
My head was foggy, but I finally remembered that Drew was one of his brothers. Logan was calling for help with damage control.
“I, uh, woke up married.”
The resulting laughter was so loud that Logan pulled the phone away from his ear and fumed.
“Yes, I know her,” he hissed into the phone once Drew finally calmed down. “It’s Nina Reyes. She’s helping with Noah.”
I watched him listen to his brother.
“No, we’re still in the suite they gave us. Yeah, comped, because Nina won at craps. I don’t know, we didn’t count it out.Anyway, how did you handle your…scenario? I’m putting you on speaker so we can both hear.”
Drew was still chuckling as the call clicked over.
“Hi, Nina, I’m Drew Ashford. Welcome to the family.”
It was enough to make him launch into another fit of laughter. Logan’s jaw tightened as he waited, yet again, for his brother to calm down.
“Hi,” I said weakly.
“Just tell us your best practices for navigating a scenario like this,” Logan demanded. “You had an unexpected engagement, and you lived to tell the tale. So what should we do?”
“Sorry, guys, totally different scenario in my case. Ineededthe world to believe that Emilia and I were together, so it was no holds barred to spread the word about our fake engagement. You two are the exact opposite; you don’t want anyone to find out that you put a ring on it.” He snorted softly at his lame joke.
Logan ground his teeth together. “Drew.”
“Look, this doesn’t have to be a big deal. All you have to do is keep it quiet until you get home, then quietly file for divorce. Or maybe even an annulment? Simple, and no one will be the wiser. You can even alert the team so they can start working now.”
Logan considered it, frowning. “Fine. I’ll handle it. Don’t say a word to anyone, got it?”
“Aw, bud, what about a big party to celebrate the news? I’m sure Emilia would love to help plan?—”
“Drew,” he growled. “Enough.”
“Sorry, sorry,” he backpedaled. “In any case, you’ll be fine. Keep the certificate safe since you’ll need to have the right information for filing.”
“And take this thing off,” I added as I wrenched off the ring.
Logan nodded and struggled with his until he got it off as well.
“Hey, it’ll make for a great story once you’re past it,” Drew said. “Nina, thanks for putting up with my brother and helping Noey.”
“He’s a great kid,” I answered, happy to focus on something other than our terrible decision-making for a few seconds.
