Preston clapped his hand over my mouth before I could say anything more. “We don’t have a marriage license, Lyric, breathe. It’s not legal. Okay? I’m a lawyer, trust me.”
The priest snorted. “You must not be a lawyer in Colorado, because that isn’t the law. First of all, young man, Catholic weddings are recognized as official, and as the parties had submitted the proper paperwork for this wedding, it’s all in order.”
I felt like I was going to cry. “I submitted the paperwork myself because Bree was too busy—she wanted this big fancy old church to impress her family—I had to jump through hoops to make it happen.”
Preston squeezed my shoulder reassuringly.
“Secondly,” the priest went on, “Colorado recognizes common law marriages, which means there’s no marriage certificate required if the two parties both state your intention to be married, which you just did.”
Now I felt like I was going to throw up.
The organist returned with a glass of water, handing it to me. I took it and tried to take sips, hoping I wouldn’t throw up all over this poor woman. “Can you please talk some sense into him?” I whispered.
The woman shook her head. “The best thing to do is to wait it out and apply for the marriage to be declared invalid.”
“What?”
“If you didn’t mean to be married, then you can convince a judge of the fact fairly easily.”
God, I really felt like I was going to throw up. I’m somehow married to my worst enemy, how did I mess this up? How did I make such a big mistake? I should’ve paid better attention, but I let myself get flustered. By the entire ordeal and by Preston… Preston, turning up like a bad penny, bringing me terrible luck.
I would’ve said this couldn’t possibly get worse, but I’d thought that earlier, and the universe sure had shown me. So now all I could think was… what awful thing was going to happen next?
5
Preston
I immediately made a call to one of my associates at my law firm. The firm was in Boston, not Colorado, but I could have some paralegals or younger associates do research and see what they could find for me. I wanted to get this taken care of.
“You know I hate to be the one to tell you this,” Charlotte, my associate, told me, “but the priest is right. However, a judge can grant that the marriage is invalid if it was under false pretenses, like a joke or a dare. But you’ve got to make sure you two don’t do anything to make you seem married. So, if you cohabitate or do other things jointly, a judge could decide not to grand the invalidity declaration. It’ll depend on the judge you get, how lenient they are. If that happens, you’d have no choice but to…”
“…get divorced.” I sighed. “Okay, thanks Charlotte. I appreciate. See if there’s anything else you guys can dig up.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
I hung up and put my phone away, resisting the urge to rub my forehead. This was a mess. I couldn’t believe I’d let this happen. I was a lawyer, I knew better than to sign something without looking at it, but I’d been completely distracted by Lyric and all of this wedding nonsense, I hadn’t even thought about it. People hand me things to sign all the time, usually my legal secretary, and I always knew what it was and trusted what she was handing me, so it was just automatic.
Damn it. If I hadn’t signed it, this whole thing would’ve been fine. Now we had to hope we had a lenient judge who would understand. How could these people even think Lyric and I were married for real? She hated me. It was obvious she didn’t want this. To trap her like this felt cruel.
Lyric finished her glass of water and got up. “I need to call the actual bride,” she said, directing her words pointedly at the priest. “And see if their flight got in.”
She handed the empty water glass back to the organist, thanking her, and went out into the main chapel. I sighed and looked over at the priest. He still looked a bit confused, but I doubted another attempt to bargain with him would help. Fuck. Lyric was going to kill me out of stress and honestly, I couldn’t blame her.
Although. My family would also kill me if they found out I’d gotten married without a prenuptial agreement. Honestly, I wish I didn’t have to do one of those things. It felt like you were saying you didn’t trust the person you married—and if you didn’t trust the person you married, why the fuck were you marrying them?
But I’d worked out enough divorce issues for people as a lawyer to know that no matter how happy your relationship was when you got married, there were unforeseen circumstances that could cause you to want to divorce and the last thing you wanted was to make the whole thing even messier by having no prenuptial agreement. And with the money I had from my family and my law firm… yeah, my family was fucking paranoid of someone taking advantage of me, charming me and then getting all my money.
Mom would absolutely kill me.
But it was fine. Lyric didn’t like me, but she’d never been a dishonorable person, I couldn’t see her pressing the issue, but of course my family wouldn’t see it that way and of course it didn’t change the fact that I was now vulnerable if she decided she wanted to be vengeful.
What a mess. I’d have my associates deal with this, though. Take care of this entire matter before we had to leave the state.
I walked out into the chapel to see what Lyric was doing. She was sitting down in one of the pews, in the phone, and her face was pinched, a furrow between her brows.
As I walked up to her, Lyric looked up at me. I raised my eyebrows, questioning.
Lyric sighed and tilted the phone away from her mouth, covering it with her hand. “Apparently their flight wasn’t delayed,” she whispered. “They had sex in the limo on the way to the airport so they missed the check in for their flight.”
“It was just a quickie—” Bree’s shrill voice came through the phone and I winced.
“Doesn’t sound like it was very quick,” Lyric replied. Her voice was perfectly calm, and so I was sure that Bree missed the joke, but I had to hide a smirk.
Bree replied with something, I couldn’t quite make it out, and Lyric plastered a smile on her face. “Of course, I’ll have the bridal party meet you at the hotel. But…”
Bree interrupted her and Lyric rolled her eyes.
“We have the rehearsal dinner,” Lyric reminded Bree in that patient voice known to waitstaff and customer service workers everywhere. “Everyone is going to be there, it’s all booked, we have the menu you picked out—and you can’t start the bachelor and bachelorette parties too early anyway, the things you planned won’t be ready until a certain time—”
Bree once again interrupted her.
I sat down on the pew next to Lyric, trying to hear what Bree was saying. I wanted to put my hand on Lyric—on her shoulder or knee—just to let her know that I was supporting her—but I was pretty sure she’d just shake me off and glare at me. I held in the urge.
“Who even cares about the rehearsal dinner?” Bree said. “We want to party!”
I could hear Chad whooping in the background. For fuck’s sake.
“I don’t feel like a stuffy old dinner,” Bree insisted. “Tell my bridesmaids to get over here and Chad wants his groomsmen. Including that prissy cousin of his.”
Lyric looked at me. I looked over my shoulder, like I thought she was looking at someone else.
Lyric clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing.
“Are you listening to me?” Bree snapped.
Lyric visibly held in a sigh. “Yes, of course. I’ll pass the word along and take care of the dinner. Thank you, Bree.”
She hung up the phone and looked at me. “They’ve been like this the entire time.”
“I’m not surprised. I hate to tell you this but…”
Lyric held up a hand. “Whatever you’re going to tell me, it can wait until after this is taken care of.”
I was going to tell her that I was pretty sure this wedding would end up not happening, or at least not happening how everyo
ne thought it would. If Chad and Bree ended up eloping to Las Vegas or something, yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised in the fucking least.
But Lyric probably didn’t want to hear that right now and she had to go and deal with telling everyone about the change in plans, so… I kept it to myself.
I watched as Lyric went over to the people who were all assembled at the back of the church, including my aunt and uncle and my parents.
“I’m so sorry, folks,” Lyric said, a sympathetic smile on her face, “but the rehearsal dinner isn’t going forward. The bride and groom are tired after their flight delay and would like to rest up instead before their bachelor and bachelorette parties. They’ve landed now and they’re going right to the hotel to take a quick nap, and if their bridesmaids and groomsmen could head over to meet them, they’d really appreciate it.”
Wow. Lyric really was good at her job. She didn’t sound like she was lying at all. She’d taken this selfish behavior and made it sympathetic and understandable.
Not that Bree and Chad, in my opinion, deserved Lyric doing this, but that was Lyric’s job as their wedding planner so I was sure she’d done this for even worse people over the course of her career.
The wedding party had been chomping at the bit to have some fun already, so they seemed happy with this change of plans—a couple of the guys whooped, and some of the women were making eyes at them, so I was pretty damn sure we’d have some typical wedding party hookups before this was all over.
The family of the bride and my own family looked pretty upset. “We paid for this dinner,” my aunt pointed out.
That was the tradition—the bride’s family paid for the wedding, so the groom’s family paid for the rehearsal dinner. As some kind of gesture or something. I had a feeling it was one of those antiquated hold ups from back when you had a dowry for your daughter and all that shit.
“I know you did,” Lyric said quickly, smiling. “And there’s nothing stopping you all from having the dinner if you’d like. In fact the bride encouraged it. They want you to have a good time, don’t let their travel problems keep you all from enjoying yourselves.”
That was the biggest damn lie I’d ever heard about Chad, but I walked up to join Lyric. “I spoke to Chad and he told me that you all should go on to the rehearsal dinner. It’s not like the wedding dinner tomorrow anyway, it doesn’t matter who sits where and there aren’t any speeches. Just relax and enjoy the delicious food.”
Rehearsal dinners were traditionally more relaxed so that wasn’t a big lie. Chad better fucking thank me for making him actually look considerate for once.
“It’ll be great to unwind after such a stressful event,” Lyric said, smiling at them. “Don’t worry about anything else, you just enjoy the dinner then rest up and show up looking lovely for the wedding tomorrow! I’ll have the hotel set up wake up calls for everyone so you don’t have to worry.”
“You’re an angel,” Bree’s mother declared, smiling at Lyric.
“An excellent idea,” my father agreed. It wasn’t easy to impress my dad, and I felt a bit of unexpected warmth that Lyric had managed it. “Shall we?”
Everyone headed out. The wedding party was already talking about getting plastered, and I wanted to smack my face. Could they not even try to be a bit classy? I thought I could even see someone producing a flask of alcohol.
Ugh. I hated this fucking thing.
Lyric, to my surprise, didn’t try to get a taxi or use a ridesharing app (although I actually wasn’t sure they had those in Vail—ridesharing apps tended to be mostly in large metropolitan cities like Los Angeles or Boston). She watched the church get locked up, her coat wrapped around her and a large folder tucked under her arm, and just stood in the cold.
“You waiting on someone?” I asked.
Lyric shook her head. “I’m waiting for the driver to drop Bree and Chad off at the resort and then come and get me. Normally they’d be here and I’d ride back with them to go over any last-minute things with the bride and groom but…” She gestured helplessly.
“I’m sorry they’re being such pains in the ass.” It was starting to snow again. “Listen, you can’t stay out here in the cold. Let me give you a ride back to the resort, I’ve rented a car.”
I hated being beholden to taxis and other people while I was out traveling, so when I was going to be in a place where I’d actually have to move around—instead of just going from my room to the hotel conference center when I was at legal conferences—I always rented a car so that I could get around on my own.
Lyric shook her head again. “I’ve got to head out to the reception venue to make sur everything got set up properly by the caterer, and the decorating crew, and I have to check in with—”
“Okay, okay, I get it. You couldn’t be everywhere at once.” I paused. “Let me give you a ride to the venue then, okay? You can’t wait around in this now, you’re going to freeze.”
Lyric got that furrow between her brow again, looking around like she was hoping the car would pull up in front of her and she wouldn’t have to go with me after all. Then she checked her watch. “Okay, fine. You can drive me to the venue.”
It was a small victory, but I was going to take it.
We got into my car and I opened the passenger door for her, closing it after her and jacking the heat up right away so that she wouldn’t be cold. Lyric opened up her jacket, showing off the white dress that she was wearing underneath.
“…your dress didn’t help,” I pointed out, chuckling.
Lyric sighed. “I got a stain on the other one and I thought it would look nice with the snow. Besides, it’s a wedding, people pay attention to the person in white because you’re thinking, oh, that’s the bride, so I figured it would help make people notice me and pay attention to me during this rehearsal. I had no idea it would… ugh.”
“If only you’d been wearing jeans and a wifebeater like that one groomsman.”
Lyric laughed. “Oh, if only.”
“So.” I pulled out onto the street, driving carefully because of the snow. “Wedding planner?”
“You sound surprised.”
I shrugged. “It suits you. You’ve always been organized. Building your own business was kind of your fate. I just didn’t expect that… specific thing.”
Lyric sighed. “I don’t know. I just like organizing parties. I had to work on that a lot, with Mom, always wanting some party or other so she could perform.”
Lyric’s mother was a musician who had put having a career before being a mother. She was always performing, having parties hosting other musicians so that she could get more connections, finding other parties she could perform at, and so on.
“And y’know…” Lyric cleared her throat. She was obviously awkward with me, her shoulders stiff, but she kept talking. “It’s nice, to be able to help someone have this beautiful, happy day. My mom never did that, and I’m not saying that I’ve got parental issues and I built a whole damn career out of it, but I did use to wonder growing up—what it would’ve been like if she’d committed to my dad.”
I nodded. Tenor had talked to me a lot about the situation with his mom growing up and the frustration. He was so protective of Lyric for that reason. He’d had to kind of raise her instead of their mom, and without a dad around.
“You turned out okay, last I checked,” I teased.
Lyric snorted. “Well. Anyway. I’m a wedding planner. And I like it. You have to be organized and good with people, and I’m both, and you have to be driven to build your own business and I’ve got that.”
“You’re confident, too,” I pointed out. She had never let anything get in the way of getting what she’d wanted, including me that fateful night at the party.
“You’d know what that’s like,” Lyric replied. “You get your name on a law firm yet?”
“Not yet, but I’ll be there soon,” I told her. “I just made senior partner.”
It was a big deal to make that before the age of thirty, an
d I’d worked hard for every damn bit of it.
Lyric gave me the first genuine smile she’d shown me since we’d reunited. “Congratulations. I always knew you’d go far.”
“Thanks. I’m lucky I liked the career my family wanted me to go into.” I couldn’t even imagine the fit my parents would’ve pitched if I’d wanted to be an actor or a chef or something.
Lyric nodded. “Yeah, your parents are…” She trailed off.
“You can say it, they’re annoying as hell.”
She laughed. “Yeah. I’m glad they’re not my parents. Not that my mom’s the best, either.”
“Choose your player—the helicopter parents who decide everything for you, or the parent who doesn’t care and ignores you.”
“The perfect recipe to become a well-adjusted, mature adult.”
We both chuckled over the dark humor, and I could feel the tension in the car easing. Maybe I could move forward with her after all. Maybe I could get her to like me after all and I hadn’t lost out on my chance.
“Oh no,” Lyric said quietly.
And that was when I realized it had started snowing even harder. Shit.
6
Lyric
We could barely make it to the reception venue. Preston was smart and had gotten a car that could withstand the weather and the snow, but it was difficult, and we had to drive slowly just in case. It was almost impossible to see through the thick snowfall.
Bree and Chad had picked this large mansion in the foothills of the mountains, a stunning location that had all the luxury they’d wanted. It looked like the kind of place you would expect a murder mystery to be held in the 1940s, with huge, gorgeous rooms, a ballroom, a full library, lovely bedrooms including a master suite—all of it. It was tasteful, and something that I had to work hard to secure and book for this weekend. Understandably, a lot of people wanted to rent a place like this for Valentine’s Day. It had been a real victory for me to book this.
Accidentally Married to Brother's Best Friend Page 4
