Page 77 of Scarred Crown

There are a few snaps from earlier in the night when we were still in our hotel room that would make an excellent screensaver if Nick and I were really together. The later shots, though… glassy eyes, bright smiles, an ease between us we’d never be able to fake. They’re exactly the sort of photos I could have taken with any of my boyfriends when we were on a night out together. Drunk and joyful. Happiness oozes out of us.

I wish I could remember.

He looks like my boyfriend.

If only we stopped there.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

I can’t ignore the evidence on my phone, the tattoo on my finger. It appears we’re also…

My mind stutters on the truth. I glance at Nick, but he’s still thumbing through his phone with a crevice between his brows.

How did this happen? What must he be thinking? How did we get here?

I stare at his name scrawled across my finger. It resembles his handwriting, as though he autographed me. Why would I agree to have him brand me?

Maybe I’ve played a drunken prank on myself? Drunk me always thinks she’s so funny when she’s not bawling her eyes out.

I lick my finger and rub at the ink, but it doesn’t come off.

When I glance at Nick again, he meets my gaze. I can’t decipher his expression, and we just stare at each other for a beat. I search for some indication of exactly how upset I should be. How upset is he? I can’t read him, and I can’t get a handle on my warring emotions.

I think we’re… I’m pretty sure we’re…

“So, wife,” Nick says. “I guess we showed my father. No arranged marriage for me.”

All the blood drains from my face, and my stomach rolls. I fumble for the airsickness bag in the front pocket of the seat. I latch on to it and barely get it open before the contents of my stomach riot.

Nick and I are married.

Nick is my husband.

Nicholas

Jules is my wife. The thought plays on repeat through my stunned brain while we collect our baggage, meet our ground security, and climb into the backseat of the black Rolls Royce.

Even flipping through the photos on the plane didn’t bring the night back in enough detail to make what’s happened real. We got matching tattoos.

If that doesn’t spell commitment, I don’t know what does.

And yet…

The last thing I remember is asking her to marry me. My clearest memory is staring into those blue-gray eyes and hoping she’d understand how serious I was.

What I can’t remember is whether I had to convince her, or she said yes willingly. My level of drunkenness suggests one of two things.

The first could be that we were so happy and so in tune with our decision that I didn’t need to worry about my alcohol consumption. Everything was great—who cared how much I drank?

The other option is that I drank to forget how hard I had to talk her into it, how reluctant she was to marry me, how I might have even resorted to a former-best-friend guilt trip.

Not one of those is beneath drunk me.

Drunk me is a classically bad decision maker. Epically poor.

Her reaction to discovering we got married last night is not easing my anxiety over which of those two scenarios is most likely. God knows I would have done anything to get her to say yes.

On top of that, I’m fairly confident we didn’t consummate our marriage, which also makes me doubtful she was fully on board. Who gets married and doesn’t have sex to seal the deal? She’ll marry me, but she won’t sleep with me? Makes zero sense.