“No.” Eli pulled at his tie again, totally wrecking it.
“I think I have all the information I need.” The judge leaned forward, elbows on her desk. “Do you know how many couples I see here in my courtroom every Monday morning?”
Marlee’s heart started pressing against her lungs in a way she’d never known was possible. She shook her head.
“No, Your Honor,” Eli said. The red flush creeping up his cheeks countered the smooth words.
“I’ve been a Las Vegas judge for thirty years, and every Monday morning, it’s the same thing. The weekend revelers show up looking to erase the past.” There was no sugar anymore. Just a whole lot of snap. “I, for one, am sick of it. Two weeks from retirement, and this is what I spend my time doing.” She stood.
“All rise,” the bailiff said a touch too late.
“We just need the annulment,” Marlee whispered into the microphone.
The judge wasn’t done yet.
“I don’t know what your story is, and I don’t care. You don’t meet the grounds of annulment in the State of Nevada, so I wish you all the luck on your divorce.” After a smack of the gavel, she shuffled from the room.
“Fu-u-uck,” Eli said under his breath. The red was now absent as he’d gone pale.
Marlee opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it. “I’m not even sure what happened in here.”
The one thing she was sure of? They were still married. Mistaked.
It didn’t matter what they called it, because this was the real deal.
Chapter Nine
Later That Day
“I’ll come with you when you explain things to your parents.” Eli lifted Marlee’s last suitcase into her SUV.
“No.” If there was one thing Marlee was sure of, it was that this was not the time for Eli to meet her parents. She’d prefer that they liked her best friend’s brother, not hate him on sight because of a mutual bad decision that would soon result in divorce. “It’s best if I just do this alone.”
Marlee had finally turned her phone on at the Las Vegas airport and it immediately went bananas. TheDenver Posthad run a story of her wedding in the online social section.What Happened in Vegas? Who is Marlee’s Mystery Groom?
That’s what the headline read. So far, they didn’t have Eli’s name. But that was only temporary. They both knew that.
After a momentary bout of heart palpitations, she had shut the thing off. The idea of turning it on made the pit in her stomach turn to acid.
She had to deal with all the calls.
All the questions.
Scotty.
Wasn’t it just her luck that the weekend she got married in Vegas was the same weekend one of Denver’s first round draft picks got arrested after trashing a hotel room at The Wynn? And wasn’t it just her luck that theDenver Postreporter sent to coverthatstory caught her leaving the annulment hearing? And wasn’t it just her luck that he then started nosing around in her personal business?
Every possible scenario of facing her parents had played through her brain. She decided going with the truth was her best bet—just lay it all out there for them.
A jumbo jet scraped through the Denver sky over the parking garage. Becca and Kellie had flown straight home from Vegas, leaving Marlee and Eli with the uncomfortable silence that followed them on to the plane back to Colorado.
Neither had said much after the disaster in the courtroom. He’d called Sadie immediately, and she was already working on the divorce paperwork. Once everything was filed, there would be a ninety-day period before the divorce became final.
One crisis at a time. There was no over or under, so the only way to come out on the other side of this mess was straight through. She’d laid out the steps in her mind, and step one was checking into the hotel. Step two was spilling the news to her parents before a nosy reporter at thePostdid it for her. Step three was finding a new job—since she was in no way ever working with Scotty again.
Step four was figuring out what she could do to build up some good juju. She’d already missed her Monday morning coffee delivery to Bert. She’d need to come up with something else.
“Okay.” Eli shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, his thumbs sticking out over the sides.
