Eli flinched at the word “marriage.”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Marlee said without even a squeak.
“And how long have you two known each other?” The judge continued with her questioning, jotting notes as she spoke.
“For forever,” Marlee answered with only a half stumble over the last word.
“Since we were teenagers, Your Honor,” Eli said without any issue.
“And how long had you been planning to get married?” she asked without moving her gaze from her notepad.
“About two years,” Marlee answered without thinking.
Crap.
Judge Milburn looked up, eyebrows raised.
Eli gaped at Marlee, his eyes wide.
Marlee swallowed the dryness in her throat. “May I clarify?”
“Please do.” Judge Milburn nodded.
“I mean I’ve been wedding planning for about eighteen months. But then we were here, and we had too much to drink, and this”—Marlee gestured between her and Eli, whacking his chest in the process—“just happened.”
“I see.” The judge made more notes. Marlee could practically feel the ink scratches on that notepad in her bones. “To clarify, you’ve known each other since you were teenagers?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Eli answered.
“Yes.” Marlee confirmed on a cough. Seriously, was there no water in the Las Vegas courthouse? It was the desert, for goodness sake.
“And you spent around eighteen months planning the wedding?”
“Not me. I didn’t plan a wedding.” Eli shook his head quickly.
“Mrs. Howard, you spent about eighteen months planning the wedding?” The judge glanced at Marlee over her bifocals.
“Ms. Medford, not Mrs. Howard,” Marlee corrected. It seemed like an important note to make in annulment proceedings. “And yes, but not for this wedding. Not here in Las Vegas. This one just—”
“Your Honor.” Eli kept his attention on the judge. “I think—”
The judge held up her hand and ticked her head to the side. There was now a dash of siracha in her cinnamon sugar demeanor. “Mr. Medford—”
“Mr. Howard,” Eli corrected.
The judge licked her top lip and gestured to Marlee. “I’d like to hear what else Ms. Medford was going to say about the marriage.”
Eli flinched again at the word.
“Nothing else. That was it.” Marlee wished the rolling chair would open up and swallow her whole. “But you might want to note on your pad to use a different word. Eli doesn’t care for that one.”
“Shit,” Eli said under his breath just loud enough for Marlee to catch.
“Which word?” Judge Milburn asked.
“‘Marriage.’ It makes him itchy.” Well, it did. He had hives creeping up past his collar line.
“Mar,” he nearly growled the word.
“Well, it bugs you. She should know so she’ll stop using it.” Marlee turned her attention back to the judge. “He prefers to call what happened ‘mistaked.’”
Eli ran both hands over his face, stopping at his mouth.
Marlee resisted the urge to do the same. This wasn’t happening. They just needed a do-over.
“Your Honor, may I start over?” Marlee asked.
“No, we’ve done that once. I think we’ve come too far this time.” The judge set her pen down with a great deal of intention. Apparently, she didn’t need to take any more notes.
“Why do you want this annulment, Ms. Medford?” the judge asked.
Marlee glanced at Eli. He was staring at the ceiling, his chest rising and falling too quickly.
“No need to consult with Mr. Howard,” the judge assured. “I just want to hear your reasons.”
Okay, well, Marlee could explain them. There were lots of reasons why the wedding shouldn’t have happened. She just needed to get herself together and be succinct, starting with—
“Because my parents are going to be so mad.” That was probably not where she should’ve started. And yet, the chair wasn’t swallowing her yet, so she just kept talking. “See…it’s just…they spent all the money on the other wedding, and then we got tattoos and I danced with a pole, and then Eli and I got so drunk, and then this happened, and we just need to make it so that it didn’t happen.” There it was, a reasonable version of all the whys.
The judge nodded and continued to make her notes. “The other wedding was to happen on what date?”
“Saturday.” Marlee paused, the flush of embarrassment from Scotty’s dismissal a fresh wound added to the current annulment proceedings.
“Mr. Howard, what is the reason you want this annulment?” Judge McJudgey was apparently done with questioning Marlee. Thank God.
“Because the wedding was a mistake.” Eli pulled at his tie and it went totally to the side.
“You’re all crooked,” Marlee whispered, reaching to adjust his tie again.
His Adam’s apple bobbed as she made the fix.
“Sorry,” Marlee mumbled, abruptly stopping her attempt at straightening. She threaded her fingers together and vowed to not say another word.
“Mr. Howard, do you care for Ms. Medford?” the judge asked.
“Of course, I do,” he said.
He did? That was so sweet. “You do?” Marlee asked. “Really?”
The glance he tossed her way had a touch of the look drunken Eli had melted her with on their wedding night.
“Yeah, Mar. I think we covered that on our wedding night.” He caught himself when the words left his mouth.
Marlee shifted her gaze to the judge. “He just means—”
“I know what he means, Ms. Medford.” McJudgey pursed her mouth into a very unflattering line. “Mr. Howard, are you and Ms. Medford both over the age of eighteen?”
“Yes.” He was fisting his hands so hard his knuckles were turning white.
“And you’re not related by blood?” the judge asked.
“No, Your Honor.” The hives were creeping up to his jawline. He’d probably need one of Marlee’s emergency Benadryl soon.
“Ms. Medford, do you concur with Mr. Howard’s statements?” McJudgey asked.
Marlee squirmed under the direct questioning. What? Oh, right. Not related. And not under eighteen. “Yes…Your Honor.”
“And did you both, at the time of the marriage, understand what was happening?” She glanced between them.
“Yes.” Eli slumped against his chair.
The judge glanced to Marlee. “Ms. Medford?”
“Yes.” Marlee tried to sound confident, but all the Barbizon training in the world hadn’t prepared her for this moment.
“Did anyone force either of you to enter into this union?” McJudgey picked up the pen and started scribbling some notes once more.
“No,” Eli said first.
“No,” Marlee echoed. A dare probably didn’t count as forcing. However, it was worth a try. “Actually…”
“Yes, Ms. Medford?”
“Does a dare count as forcing someone to get married?” The no-cleavage blouse was starting to get really warm.
Eli wasn’t breathing. Marlee reached for her inhaler, but he took a thin breath before she even got the first button of her blouse undone in order to reach for the inhaler tucked in her bra.
“What would the consequence of the dare have been had you not done it?” McJudgey asked, glaring at Eli as though he’d been the one to issue the dare.
“No consequences. My sister and Marlee’s friends dared us. All in good fun.”
“They were my bridal party.” Marlee heard herself say. Shut up. Shut up. Technically, the dare was issued so much earlier in the night that it really didn’t count. “We just wanted the pictures,” Marlee whispered.
“So there were no consequences to this dare?” McJudgey continued with the questioning.
“No, Your Honor,” Eli spoke clearly, not even looking Marlee’s way.
Marlee was wrecking this. No more talking, just yes and no. “No.”
> “Neither of you are married to anyone else?”
Close, but, “No,” Marlee answered.
“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. The Denver Post had 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 the Denver Post reporter sent to cover that story 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 the Post did 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.
“So.” Marlee unlocked her driver’s side door.
“Do you want my number?” Eli asked. “In case you need anything?”
“I have it.” Marlee held up her hot-pink, rhinestoned case.
“That’s my work number. I don’t usually answer it outside of business hours. You’ll need my personal line.” He shifted on his sneakered feet.
“Sure.” Marlee fidgeted with the power button, finally pressing it so the phone turned on.
It immediately started pinging and pinging and pinging with unread message after unread message. She flinched at each one as if she were Eli and every ping was a recording of the word marriage instead of piiiiing.
She didn’t look at the screen. That would be step five in her plan.
Instead, she handed her phone to him so he could add the number. “I’ll be at the Four Seasons. And you have my number.”
First things first, take her time checking in, getting settled, and hanging up her clothes in the closet.
Eli tapped his information into her contacts.
“All set.” He gave her phone back.
“Okay.” She stared at it. Two hundred and seventy-five new text messages flashed back at her.
She swallowed the dry feeling in her throat.
Time to face life. Whatever that meant, now that Scotty wasn’t part of it.
This was it. Yes, the weekend had sucked donkey balls, but she hadn’t been alone during any of it. Her friends had seen to that.
Eli pulled open her door for her, and she slipped onto the seat. “Eli, I’m really sorry.”
“This whole thing isn’t your fault.” He started to close the door but paused. “I’m sorry, too.”
She fussed with the edge of her shirt. “And about the thing that happened after we got married—”
“You don’t need to go there.” He squeezed her shoulder—the bare part exposed by the peekaboo sleeve. “It happened. It was great. Now, we move forward.”
“It was great, wasn’t it?” Her gaze cemented on his.
He nodded, not letting go of her shoulder. “And it must never happen again.”
“Agreed.” Yes, they’d been drunk. But they weren’t quite at the sign-the-wrong-name-on-the-license drunk. Deep down, she knew they both had understood what was happening.
And that was the part that made the hair on her arms stand tall.
It had been great. He had been great.
“Now, let’s never speak of it again,” he said, continuing to hold her gaze.
“Agreed.” A smile toyed with the corners of her mouth.
The thing she’d never fully realized about Eli before was that he had this way of giving his full attention when he was talking to someone. Not that he talked often, but when he did, he gave his full focus. Scotty was always doing ten different things. With Eli? When he talked to her? He made it clear she was the only thing that mattered.
He had to know that he mattered to her, too.
She slid from the seat and hugged him like a lifeline.
He hugged her back.
A totally platonic move, but it was quite possibly one of the most intimate moments of her life.
“Okay.” She sighed heavily.
“Okay.” He trailed a fingertip over her cheek.
She climbed back into her car. He waited while she backed out of the parking space. She gave a little wave and then moved onward to the exit. Lothario barked from his spot on the passenger seat.
“Me, too,” she whispered. “I’m going to miss him, too.”
And she would. He had played a huge role in the healing that needed to take place post-S
cotty. Now, she was on her own. Her life was hers to figure out. She turned on the stereo and let Adele’s soul music fill the air along I-70 toward downtown.
If her life was a movie, this would be where the montage of her getting herself together would start. A blank canvas scared the hell out of her. But a blank canvas was hope. Was anything she wanted it to be. She was ready for this, for what came next.
She pulled up to the valet stand. Adele’s music continued to play in her head even as she stepped from the car, even as she pushed through the rotating doors, even as she sauntered to check-in.
“Marlee Medford, here to check in.” She passed over her American Express.
“Welcome to the Four Seasons, Ms. Medford.” The desk clerk clicked away on the registration computer.
He frowned.
More clicking.
An abundance of frowning.
Pressure began to form at Marlee’s temples. He continued frowning. Frowning and clicking.
“It seems that your card has been declined.” The desk clerk slid her American Express back to her side of the counter. He had no poker face, the confusion as clear as the lines on his forehead. “I’m sorry.”
“No, that’s not possible.” Marlee pushed it back toward him. “Could you please try again?”
“Of course.” He did his clicking thing as he glanced at the card, then at the screen, then back at the card.
“I’m so sorry.” The desk clerk pushed it back to her. “Perhaps a different form of payment?”
Marlee pulled her emergency backup Visa from her bra. This couldn’t be happening. Her cards were all tied into her trust. Her stomach clenched around a volleyball-sized knot of realization. Her trust was managed by her parents—terms set down when her grandmother passed away when Marlee was eight. She didn’t get control until she turned thirty-five, and that was still years away.
Her grandmother had wanted Marlee to be old enough to really understand money management before she got control. Marlee had always thought that wasn’t a big deal. Until now.
Her mouth went dry.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Medford.” The desk clerk handed that plastic card back as well. “Would you care to use our house phone to call the credit card company?”
Take It Off the Menu: A sizzling, accidentally married rom com! (Mile High Matched, Book 3) (A Mile High Matched Novel) Page 7
