How absurd. Who didn’t want to love their husband?
“Women who get drunk and hitched in Vegas, you idiot.”
Right. That was how we started. I needed to remember that. Carefully folding the dress, I draped it over the bathroom counter, over my clothes when another thought hit me.
I’d woken up in Joey’s bed, upstairs, down the hall in his mansion dressed in a T-shirt that wasn’t mine and my underwear.
My clothes were all down here, in the bag, on the floor.
Holy shit. Had I run naked through his house? Had he seen me?
As the visual of that registered, another maniacal laugh burst free.
Screw Joey hearing me. I was absolutely losing my mind. How freaking horrifying.
Way to go, Gabby. Show your husband your side of ridiculous crazy the night you’re hitched.
Oh God. What was I going to do?
I shoved my fingers to my temples, tried to massage away the pounding in my brain and sat down on the toilet. Elbows to my knees, I groaned. There was no good way to fix this. If we hurried off to a courthouse and got an annulment and Joey made the news for reasons other than their win last night, he could end up in trouble.
If I told Garrett what really happened, he could end up in prison. Hell, I could be a widow before I ever consummated my wedding vows.
I was twenty-three years old. I didn’t want to be divorced, not even if the story would someday make me laugh. And Joey was just recently divorced. Did he want another marriage ending?
Shit.
As the thoughts raced, I closed my eyes, tried to tally up the pros and cons of Joey’s idea when another flash was brought to the forefront.
“Do you know what hurts the most?”
I threaded my arm through Joey’s as we stood at the fence. In front of us, to the tune of “Luck Be a Lady,” the Bellagio fountains danced and performed for the crowds.
“What?”
“I loved her,” he said and his voice was so guttural my chest squeezed tight. “I would have done anything for her. Bent over backwards to make sure she was happy. Hell, had she come to me, told me what she was thinking… I might have… hell, if that’s what was missing for her to be truly happy, I might have even given her that…”
His voice trailed off, jaw so tight, I wanted to run my finger along his jaw, but the pained look in his eyes held me back.
“Would you have? Really?”
He stared at the lights, the fountains bursting to the music and shook his head. “No. I loved her, but I wouldn’t have been okay with sharing her either.”
My hand flinched on his arm. The love he had for his wife was so obvious I could feel it radiating off of him.
“Do you love her? Still?”
He turned, looked down at me with his onyx eyes and licked his lips, swallowed so slowly I was mesmerized by the dip of his Adam’s apple. “Not anymore. Not like that. I miss coming home to someone. Miss being with someone, but Lenora and I, we were always so different. When I look back objectively, there were core things, values we differed on that would have torn us apart eventually.” He paused, rolled his lips together and I stared at him, that unwanted pulse at my core started to throb as I gazed at his lips.
His mouth was perfect. And that dimple in his cheek, right at the edge of his scruff when he quirked even the smallest smile threatened to undo me. Dimples should be outlawed. I’d curse God for creating that spot in a man’s cheek that made a woman’s knees wobble if I wasn’t so afraid of him spiting me. At least he wasn’t wearing his hat backward. That one-two punch might have knocked me off my feet. There’d be no way I could stand a chance resisting this man, even as he talked about his failed marriage.
He was the kind of man my dad would have loved. My chest tightened and I turned back to the fountains so he couldn’t see the pain in my eyes, the loneliness in them. In all my life, I’d never been anyone’s first choice, not like Joey was just describing, and sometimes… sometimes it hurt.
“You’ll find someone, someday. You’re too good of a man to not have everything you want in life.” As I said it, my voice shook. I meant it with everything in me.
My reward was his smile. A genuine one that lit up his face and wiped away his pain. “Yeah? You think?”
“Of course I do.”
He glanced back to the fountains, the look on his face changing to one of contemplation, and when he turned back to me, my knees went weak at the look on his face. Dark eyes that held so much, lips ticked up at the corners. “My parents have had an incredible marriage for forty years. I want what they have more than I’ve ever wanted anything, including hockey. If I ever get married again, I’ll do my damnedest to make sure we can have that kind of life together.”
A sob bubbled in my throat. I’d had a long string of boyfriends over the years. Some who just didn’t work out, some that ended ugly. Some like Kurt that ended in humiliating and self-confidence-killing ways. But all I’d wanted as a girl, was to find the kind of guy who I could love like my mom still loved my dad, even though he died so many years ago. I wanted what Joey’s parents had too, and I had no doubt the next time Joey fell in love, he’d do more than bend over backwards to give his wife everything she wanted, he’d kill to make it happen.
“I think whoever falls in love and marries you next will be the luckiest woman in the world.”
And it was me.
He’d married me, and he wanted to stay that way.
Perhaps, in my inebriated state, I’d been right.
The girl who married Joey Taylor would end up being the luckiest woman alive. So outside the ridiculousness of this entire fiasco and the absurdity of us staying married when we didn’t remember doing it, what did I really have to lose?
Outside my heart, anyway.
6
Joey
I paced laps around my living room furniture shortly after Gabby disappeared into the bathroom. She’d asked for a minute, but she’d been in there long enough to remodel the damn thing. As the door opened, I spun from my view of my backyard and faced her.
Her skin held no more color than it had earlier, and in her hand was her phone. A silky white dress was draped over her arm. Along with the clothes of mine I’d given her, she wore an embarrassed little grin and her eyes crinkled at the edges.
She was dressed, though, in jeans and Garrett’s jersey, the clothes she’d been wearing last night. Which meant…
“So, I found my stuff, which means I think last night I stripped down in the bathroom?” As she asked, her brows rose and a hint of pink appeared on her cheeks.
That was an image in itself. Add on her naked, streaking through my home and I brought my fist to my mouth to cover my laugh.
“It’s not funny,” she pouted. “Please tell me you don’t remember it?”
“No recollection of it, I promise.” But hell if I wasn’t a little bit disappointed by that. I doubted we’d had sex last night. Both of us had woken up slightly clothed, but it wasn’t until she draped the dress in her arm over the back of my love seat with such tender care, I actually remembered anything.
“What’s your favorite cut?”
I twisted my head and grinned at Gabby. Her eyes were bright, slightly glazed from that last hurricane drink, but she was no less stunning. She laughed and shook her head, pointed to something other than the four-carat round diamond ring I’d had the store assistant remove from its glass case.