by Anne Marsh
And sure enough, eventually the wedding coordinator skidded to a verbal halt and eyed the two of them. “How can I help you today?”
Ashley inflated beside him like a puffer fish. He was tempted to check her for spines, but he wasn’t that stupid. She might have been staring at his dick earlier, but she hadn’t been happy about her view—or his completely involuntary, purely biological reaction to her proximity and their shared bed. Which was all it was. So what if Ashley’s morning grumpy was kind of adorable, and the way she’d glared up at him sleepily made him want to crawl right back in bed and find out if she enjoyed morning sex? It was Fantasy Island and he’d had a fantasy. Big deal.
Shoot. The wedding coordinator was staring at him, clearly waiting for an answer to her question. Normally this would be when Ashley took over, barking orders and “suggestions” that were actually more orders, just couched in slightly politer language. He slid her a sidelong glance and discovered her staring at Pink. She looked shell-shocked.
“Do you need more pictures? Do you want to re-create your special day? Vow renewals?” Pink looked expectantly between the two of them.
Ashley choked out a laugh and cut the woman off. “God. None of the above.”
Prayer probably would help right now, but he figured the wedding coordinator definitely required them to spell it out in plain ole English, because the woman clearly hadn’t gotten the memo about why he and Ashley were here. Explaining would be awkward as hell. Since Ashley looked like she was choking on her tongue, however, he guessed it was up to him.
“Ashley and I were here about three months ago. We helped a photographer friend out by posing for some wedding pictures and going through a fake ceremony.”
The wedding coordinator blinked. “I can assure you, there’s nothing fake about our weddings.”
Yeah. Hearing that three months ago would have been awesome.
“That’s precisely the problem,” Ashley snapped. “We did not intend to end up married. Let alone to each other.”
The wedding coordinator looked kind of like a rabbit facing down a snake. The poor woman knew she’d never win going up against Ashley when Ashley had that intent look on her face. Plus his “doting” bride also managed to make marriage to him sound as though she’d stepped in dog shit, so her unhappiness was abundantly clear.
“You got married...by accident?” The words clearly did not compute in Pinky’s universe.
“Exactly,” Ashley huffed. “We thought we were just posing for some pictures for a mutual acquaintance—not actually getting married. We didn’t mean a word of what we said, and we were expecting an actor instead of a legitimate minister.”
The ensuing silence stretched out a little too long. Yeah. Said out loud, the whole thing sounded shady to him, too. Levi took pity on the coordinator.
“How do we verify that we are, in fact, married?”
“And if we are, how do we end it?” Ashley added.
Her eagerness to get rid of him was damned unflattering, although it wasn’t as if he wanted to be married, either. Most married SEALs he knew were on rocky ground at home. Years of war damaged a man. The guy would drink too hard. Struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder. Or bounce between anger and emotional numbness.
Sleeping six hours or more a night didn’t happen anymore for most of them, himself included, and it didn’t help that talking to a spouse about what he’d seen or done on a mission was off-limits. Add in spending eight to nine months a year away from friends and family, and the military life took its toll. His avoidance of the married state was actually a kindness.
The wedding coordinator tapped a pink nail against the binder she clutched to her chest. “You both were in Belize for three days prior to the ceremony?”
That was easy to answer, as long as the woman didn’t need a detailed itinerary. Since he’d been on Fantasy Island on a covert op for Uncle Sam, he hadn’t exactly been cooling his heels, but he’d done the time. He nodded. “We both were.”
“Did you submit an application?”
Ashley perked up, clearly scenting an out. “Like fill out a form and sign stuff?”
The coordinator nodded. “That would have been typical, yes. It’s a prerequisite for getting a marriage license. We can call the minister and he can verify which names were on the license.”
It seemed unlikely, but maybe the guy had crossed off one set of names and penciled in another.
Ms. Pretty-in-Pink pressed on. “The Register General would have required proof of citizenship, copies of your passports, and someone to witness your signatures.”
Ashley looked even more hopeful. “We didn’t provide any of that.”
No, but the original couple—the one he and the SEAL team had arrested for being part of a major drug operation—likely had. More and more, though, he had his doubts that he and Ashley were actually married.
“Someone mailed me a marriage certificate with our names on it.” He produced the folded piece of paper and the coordinator scrutinized it. He could practically hear Pink’s brain working overtime, trying to explain the total paperwork snafu. He imagined it wouldn’t reflect well at all on Fantasy Island, if the resort went around accidentally marrying the wrong guests.
Ashley elbowed him. “Did you bring the original?”
Her confidence in him was stunning. Did she think he’d accidentally trip and send their certificate flying into the ocean—and that there would be no other copy in existence?
“I made a copy,” he said shortly. Why couldn’t she ever trust him to have her back?
The coordinator turned the paper over and studied the back. Which was plain white, creased, and possibly sported a leftover piece of Snicker’s Bar. Which of course Ashley noticed. She lived to give him crap.
“I can see you were super careful,” she drawled, flicking the chocolate residue off the paper.
Levis flexed his jaw. He’d brought her the damn certificate, hadn’t he? So maybe he hadn’t had the thing framed, but she had it, and that was what counted. She could save the pissy look on her face for someone else.
“Walk me through the key points again,” he said to Ms. Pink, ignoring Ashley. “And tell me what you need from us.”
The coordinator looked uneasily at Ashley, as though she sensed Levi’s bride was about to explode, but plunged into explanations. “Since you didn’t fill out the application forms or provide proof of citizenship and identity, it’s a question of whether you actually had a valid marriage license. If you did, the next question is whether or not your marriage was registered with the Registry Department. Since you received the certificate with your legal names on it, something happened somewhere, but I’m not sure it’s enough to have the two of you married. The problem is that the Registry Department isn’t open at the moment. Storm damage.”
Pink gave a flustered wave apparently intended to convey the impact of a tropical storm on a building full of unprotected filing cabinets.
“There must be backups,” Ashley said.
Having worked with her before, Levi recognized that what she really meant was any sane person would have backups and I refuse to accept that you don’t.
Pink opened her mouth. A little squeak came out. Apparently, she was used to dealing with happy couples who were actually eager to get married, and Ashley didn’t compute in her universe.
“Just find out,” Ashley said in a clipped tone. “Quickly.”
He had a feeling that quickly meant before my job interview and the corruption hearing.
“What happens if turns out the marriage is valid?”
The coordinator gave him a tight smile, clearly wondering if the next word out of his mouth was going to be lawsuit. “Then you could petition for an annulment.”
From the way the woman was drumming her pink manicure against the binder, he
was willing to bet that annulments were trickier than marriages.
“How long would that take?” Apparently Ashley had come to the same conclusion.
“Belize is a Catholic country.” The coordinator shrugged, not done raining on their parade. “You would need to petition the Church, and that is not a speedy process. It would be much quicker to seek a divorce.”
Levi got that the woman earned her living up-selling weddings, but she actually sounded cheerful as she pointed out all the obstacles.
“It’s not easy to get divorced here, either,” she continued. “But because the US recognizes foreign marriages, you don’t have to obtain the divorce in Belize. You could do so at home. I’ll get copies of the license and the application, and we can go from there.” She shrugged. “But I’ll be honest, I have no idea how your names ended up on the certificate.”
“So maybe we’re not married,” Ashley said hopefully as they stepped outside. The jungle heat already had her shirt clinging to her skin. He got that she preferred the single life to him, but she didn’t need to sound so cheerful about their situation.
“Maybe,” he grunted.
“And if not, we’ll get a divorce in Virginia.” She heaved a sigh of relief. “I’m not touching your assets, so it should be quick and painless—unless you want a piece of my condo?”
Levis scowled at her. “You know I’m not touching your stuff,” he said, resenting the implication that he’d take anything that belonged to her. Maybe he’d go touch base with the front desk, see if they could shed some light on where the marriage certificate had come from. He was pretty certain the envelope had been mailed by the resort.
“I can’t go to my job interview married,” she said.
“Why not?”
She gave him a look. “When I filled out the paperwork, I declared my marital status to be single. Committing perjury isn’t going to endear me to the interviewing committee. Either I lied about being married, or I was careless about something really important.” Sighing with frustration, she added, “At best, I look like an idiot. At worst, I look unethical and like I had something to conceal. Plus, most agents aren’t married. How many SEALs do you know who get married and stay married? I mean, did you ever think about getting married for real?”
“To you?”
Yeah. That had come out all wrong. Crossing her arms over her chest, she shot him another look, even less flattering than the first. “To anyone who would have you.”
* * *
LEVI DROVE HER NUTS. The man took nothing except the SEAL team seriously. Otherwise, life was one big, humorous game in the Levi-verse, and Ashley had no idea how she’d gotten swept up in his particular brand of crazy. Coming here with him had been stupid, except she hadn’t trusted him to follow through on their marital problems.
“I hadn’t thought much about it. I don’t have a problem with it. How about you—what?” He made a mock-hurt face when she smacked him in the shoulder. “You asked me a question. I was just tossing the conversational ball back to you. You can’t blame me for that.”
“I can blame you for whatever I want,” she informed him.
He sighed. “I’ve noticed that. And you still didn’t answer my question. Is there a Mr. Dixon—other than my fine self—on your horizon?”
She was all about her career—and so was he, if they were being honest with each other. And she knew he wasn’t asking because he had a genuine desire to hear her answer. He was more how can I piss Ashley off? than he was let me get to know my dear wife intimately and genuinely.
“My job isn’t to find The One. It’s to put the bad guys out of business. I don’t need a man in my life when I can protect myself, both physically and financially.”
“That works for you?” He sounded genuinely curious.
She shrugged. “I’m not worried about being labeled a bitch. I like to eat, I need to work, and any Mr. Right who feels intimidated or traumatized can take a long walk off a short pier.”
He nodded, as if her revelation was perfectly understandable—or just background noise. Was he even listening to her? Instead of responding, he made framing motions with his hands, and once again she had no idea what he was thinking. With the exception of the sexual innuendoes that he tossed out on a regular basis—and she understood those just fine, unfortunately—the man’s thought processes were a mystery. Maybe he didn’t think at all. Possibly he acted on impulse, led by his dick and his seemingly unquenchable need to screw the greater part of the female population and...he made another one of those stupid hand gestures. It wasn’t American Sign Language, nor was it remotely intelligible.
“What?” She gestured impatiently toward his hands. Would it kill him to use his words? “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m trying to imagine you in one of those big white dresses.”
Well, he could imagine away because hell would freeze over first. “I’d never be that kind of bride.”
Now he grinned and she didn’t need any words to know what he was thinking. For crying out loud, did the man think about anything besides sex?
“Stop it.” She punched him in the stomach, which felt like slamming her hand into a brick wall. A sexy, cut wall wearing a wicked grin.
The grin got wider. “You got mind-reading skills now?”
Yeah. That wasn’t a denial.
“You might as well tell me.” She didn’t manage to hold back her sigh, but that had to be better than cursing the man out, right? And Levi, being Levi, didn’t hesitate to fill her in.
“I’m imagining peeling one of those dresses off you. Or getting underneath it. We could play honeymoon.”
Yeah. Like that was happening. A traitorous thrill shot through her at the thought.
“One-way ticket off the island,” she reminded him. “You lose, you pay.”
He flicked her a quick salute. “Yes, sir.”
After that he was blessedly silent until they arrived back at their villa. She wondered if he was going to follow her all over the island like a lonely puppy, or if he could be convinced to go do his own thing, whatever that was.
“Go away,” she told him. “I’ve got work to do.”
The corruption hearing alone required hours of research and careful planning. If she just showed up and answered questions blindly, the panel would skewer her.
He smiled agreeably, but slapped a palm on the door when she tried to shut it in his face. Again. “You’re holding my clothes hostage,” he pointed out. “Lock me out and I’ll be forced to go naked.”
“In that case, please do come in.” She gestured toward the room with a flourish. “And spare the female population.”
He laughed, but moved past her. He confused the hell out of her. The meaner she was to him, the more he seemed to like it. Maybe he had some sexual wire or other crossed in his head. Good lord. For all she knew, the man was a closet sub in the market for a new dominatrix to rock his world.
She chewed on that while he rummaged in his duffel bag, coming up with shorts and a T-shirt instead of whips and leatherwear. Nope. Levi was the most take-charge man she knew, and in no universe could she imagine him taking orders from anyone other than his commanding officer...and even then, she had a feeling orders might be optional. Or more a suggestion.
“Dropping my pants now,” he announced cheerfully. “Look. Don’t look. It’s up to you.”
For the love of God. Grabbing her laptop, she dropped down into a chair and flipped the lid open. When he dragged his zipper open, she did not look. Or peek. Or even think about what Levi might be doing. She kept her eyes dutifully glued on her laptop screen. The hearing transcripts ought to be a total passion killer.
“Chicken,” he drawled, as if a simple one-word insult would be enough to make her turn around. So he was hot. She didn’t need to look to know it. Instead
of ogling her captive SEAL, she needed to use her downtime to her advantage. She had that hearing about the Central American incident to prep for. Plus, in addition to formulating possible answers, she needed to check in on work. Just in case anyone missed her.
“I’m going running,” he announced, completely unnecessarily in her opinion.
“Go.” She waved a hand toward the door.
She’d never been fired, never failed to get a promotion or win. This suddenly married business, however, was like running down the mat toward the vault and realizing as your foot came down that someone had tossed a banana peel on the mat. And it was silly and stupid and inconsequential...but your heel was sliding anyhow, and there was every chance you’d slam into the vault instead of hurtling over it.
For the next couple of hours, she kept her head down, immersed in her work. Levi had left shortly after she’d ignored his striptease, presumably to get a run in. Whatever. He could run back to the Belizean mainland for all she cared, as long as it kept him out of her hair and her life.
Given her last-minute request for vacation time, she’d agreed to work remotely when needed. Since she was offshore, it was also an excellent time to take another go at finding security flaws in her latest software assignment. She had some new ideas on how to hack through the firewall, and now was a great opportunity to test her theories. The covert ops work had been different and a chance to push herself, but coding was where she excelled.
And the icing on her work cake was that since she needed to go straight from Fantasy Island to the hearing about the Central American contretemps, she’d planned on using the downtime to prep for her upcoming job interview. She’d researched the position and drawn up a list of questions, but she wasn’t a mind reader.
She’d already passed the medical requirements before, so she didn’t anticipate a problem there. And even though she’d made the candidate list sent to the Career Board, the job simulation worried her. Because the truth was, if they did another background check, she didn’t know how her maybe-marriage to Levi would read. She hadn’t disclosed it on her application since she hadn’t known about it but...
