She crinkles her nose. “I don’t think we should.”
Malachi finishes the last of the paperwork and slides it back to the woman behind the desk, then stands behind me and wraps his arms around my waist. “You should.”
Elle casts him a quick stink-eye, because he’s still not exactly her favorite person in the world after all of his bad behavior during our first marriage. “We’re already planning a wedding for next year.”
“You can still have your wedding if you get married here.” I nod at Colin, who’s wearing a smile that practically screams that he loves this idea. “Besides, think of the tax incentive you’ll get to take advantage of if you do it now.”
“Oh yeah,” Lili pipes up from a nearby bench where she’s sitting, long legs crossed and all huffy. “Taxes. That’s a great reason to get married.”
I tsk at her. “Don’t be like that, Lili. This is supposed to be fun.”
She casts a quick, yet blatantly sad glance at Colin, who doesn’t see it because he’s got his nose buried in Elle’s long, blonde hair. “Maybe for you guys.”
I offer her a warm, sympathetic smile because I know that for almost as long as I have loved Malachi, she has loved Colin. But Colin, being our unofficially-adoptive brother of sorts, never saw her as anything but a little sister. And then poor Lili basically had a front row seat for when Colin fell in love with Elle, and had a baby with her, and then proposed.
It’s rough. But she’s still young, and there’s always another chance for happiness.
I point at her with my bouquet. “All the shots for you when we’re done.”
She twirls her finger in the air and offers a sardonic, “Whoop-dee-doo.”
“Come on, sweetheart,” Colin nudges, his lips close to Elle’s ear. “When in Rome.”
“This is not Rome,” Elle retorts, then flips her hand at the lit-up Strip. “It’s not even pretend Venice. The Venetian is over there.”
“Come on,” I plead. “How often do you come to Vegas while you’re engaged?”
Elle sighs long and loudly, and then Colin tickles her ribs, causing her to flinch and giggle as she squirms away from him. She glowers at all of us before turning and saucily sauntering to the counter. “Fine.”
Colin claps his hands together. “Yes. Vegas honeymoon sex, here I come.”
Malachi chuckles against the side of my head. “Come, indeed.”
The two grooms-to-be share another laugh, and Lili scoffs.
“Gross.” She huffs loudly as she glances at her phone. “Where’s Joaquin anyway? He said he would meet us here.”
“I haven’t seen him since we were at breakfast, and he appeared to be pounding bloody marys before leaving the restaurant,” Malachi supplies with another laugh. “When in Rome is about right. I would not be surprised nor offended if he’s passed out in his room right now.”
“Well, I would, because if I have to endure this, he has to endure it with me,” Lili mumbles as she lifts her phone to her ear.
It seems like pure coincidence that a phone starts ringing from behind the small sanctuary’s door, but then Joaquin’s voice carries from the same direction.
“Hey, gimme a minute,” he clips with a hint of a slur in his words, “I’m in the middle of somethin’.”
I feel my eyes stretch wide just as Lili’s jaw opens in shock, and she drops the phone back in her tiny purse.
“There’s no way…” she says, pushing off the bench to march across the lobby, and I break away from Malachi to follow her to the sanctuary door.
But sure enough, when she throws the door open, there’s my baby brother, down at the altar, dressed in a black suit, sans tie, arms wrapped around the waist of an ebony-haired bombshell in a bright red dress.
“And by the power vested in me by the State of Nevada,” an Elvis impersonator is in the middle of saying, and Lili and I practically suck the oxygen out of the small chapel, “I pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss your bride.”
And then, with total drunken gusto, Joaquin dips the woman I’ve never seen before, and plants a long, deep kiss on her ruby red mouth.
“Joaquin!” I can’t help snapping at them while they’re still mid-smooch. “¿Estas loco?”
He flippantly waves his hand at me like he’s shooing me away and keeps kissing her while a pipe organ recording of the traditional wedding recessional blares from crackling speakers.
Lili clasps her hand over her mouth and snorts before exploding into laughter. “Papá te va a matar.”
Yes, Papá is definitely going to kill him.
To be continued in Shameless in Vegas, Shameless Love #3.
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SHAMELESS IN VEGAS PREVIEW
What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas when you wind up married to your sworn enemy.
* * *
To all the world, he is Joaquin Reyes, the playboy son of a billionaire media mogul.
To the cartel his family cut ties with, he is the man who murdered the leader of our North American operation.
He’s a menace to our empire, and he knows retribution is coming.
But he doesn’t expect it to show up in the form of me, the ebony-haired bombshell whom he wakes up married to after a wild night in Las Vegas.
I am Natalia Esposito.
La Viuda Negra.
The Black Widow of the cartel.
My job is to seduce men and kill them when they least expect it.
And poor, sexy, oblivious Joaquin, my soon-to-be late husband, doesn’t suspect a damn thing.
I have one job, and I’ve got him square in my lethal crosshairs.
He never expected to wind up married to an assassin, and I’ve never failed at taking out a target—but I never expected to catch feelings for a man I was ordered to murder.
I now have a choice:
Kill the man I wasn’t supposed to fall for, or face the wrath of the cartel.
'Til death do us part?
Exactly.
Because one of us is leaving this marriage in a body bag.
****
JOAQUIN
There’s a hand on my junk, and I don’t know who it belongs to.