What I Did for Love

She threw down her roll and jumped up. “Oh, God…”

He stopped chewing. “Georgie…”

“Maybe nothing happened.” She pressed her fingers to her lips. “Maybe we were so out of it, we fell asleep.”

He shot out of the chair. “Are you telling me-”

“It’ll be okay. It has to be.” She started to pace. “What are the odds, right? I couldn’t possibly be pregnant.”

He’d started to look wild around the eyes. “You could be if you aren’t on the pill!”

“If it-If it happens, we’ll-I’ll-I’ll give it away. I know it’ll be hard to find a person desperate enough to take a baby with a forked tongue and a tail, but I’m sure I can find someone.”

The color returned to his cheeks. He sat back down and picked up his coffee cup. “A stellar performance.”

“Thanks.” Her small retaliation might have been juvenile, but it lifted her spirits enough so she could eat a strawberry. But a second berry was beyond her as she imagined the warm, solid weight of the baby she’d never hold.

Bram poured another coffee. Antagonism clawed away at her, the first time in forever that she’d had strong feelings toward anything except the collapse of her marriage.

Bram tossed down his napkin. “I’m going to get dressed.” His gaze drifted toward the open collar of her robe. “Unless you want to…”

“Not in this lifetime.”

He shrugged. “It seems a shame, that’s all. Now we’ll never know if we were any good together.”

“I was fabulous. You, on the other hand, were as selfish as ever.” A momentary stab of pain reminded her of the girl she’d been.

“I doubt that.” He pushed away from the table and headed into the bedroom. She studied the strawberries, trying to convince herself she could eat another one. A loud curse interrupted her thoughts.

Bram stormed back into the living room. His jeans were unzipped and his dress shirt hung open, the French cuffs flapping. She found it hard to relate those solid chest muscles with the bonier body of his youth.

He thrust a sheet of paper under her nose. She was used to his sneers and his mockery, but she couldn’t remember ever seeing him look genuinely upset. “I found this under my clothes,” he said.

“A note from your parole officer?”

“Go ahead and enjoy yourself while you can.”

She examined the paper, but what she saw made no sense. “Why would someone leave their marriage license here? It’s-” Her throat closed, and she started to choke. “No! This is a joke, right? Tell me this is one of your sick jokes.”

“Even I’m not this sick.”

His face was ashen. She jumped up out of the chair and snatched the paper from him. “We got-” She could barely say the word. “We got married?”

He winced.

“But why would we do that? I hate you!”

“Those cocktails we drank last night must have had enough happy pills in them to make both of us overcome our mutual loathing.”

She was starting to hyperventilate. “This can’t be. They changed the law in Vegas. I read about it. The marriage license bureau is closed at night so exactly this kind of thing can’t happen.”

His lips tightened into a sneer. “We’re celebrities. Apparently we found someone willing to bend the rules just for us.”

“But…Maybe it’s not legal. Maybe this is a-a joke certificate.”

“Run your fingers over the official seal of the state of Nevada and tell me that feels like a fucking joke.”

The raised bumps scraped her fingertips. She rounded on him. “This was your idea. I know it.”

“Mine? You’re the one who’s desperate for a husband.” His eyes narrowed, and he shoved his index finger in her face. “You used me.”

“I’m calling my lawyer.”

“Not before I call mine.”

They ran for the nearest phone, but his legs were longer, and he got there first. She made a dash for her purse and dug out her cell. He punched the buttons. “This should be the easiest annulment on record.”

The word “record” sent a chill through her. “Wait!” She dropped her cell, rushed to him, and grabbed the hotel room phone out of his hands.

“What are you doing?”

“Let me think for a minute.” She shoved the phone back on the cradle.

“You can think later.”

He started to reach for the phone again, but she jammed her hand over it. “The marriage-the annulment-will be a matter of public record.” She plowed her free hand through her tangled hair. “Within twenty-four hours, everyone will know. There’ll be a media circus complete with helicopters and car chases.”

“You’re used to it.”

Her fingers were icy, her stomach nauseated. “I’m not going through another scandal. If I even stumble on the sidewalk, somebody reports that I tried to kill myself. Imagine what they’ll do with this.”

“Not my problem. You brought it on yourself by marrying The Loser.”

“Will you stop calling him that?”

“He dumped you. What do you care?”

“Why do you hate him so much?”

“I don’t hate him for me,” he said caustically. “I hate him for you, since you don’t seem to be able to do it for yourself. The guy’s a mama’s boy.” Instead of pushing her away from the phone, he bent down and snatched up his shoe, then started looking around for his socks. “I’m going to find that bitch who drugged us.”

She followed him into the bedroom, still not quite believing that he wasn’t on the phone with his lawyer. “You can’t leave until we come up with a story.”

He found his socks and sat on the side of the bed to pull them on. “I have my story.” He yanked on the first sock. “You’re a desperate, pathetic woman. I married you out of pity, and-”

“You will not say that.”

He yanked on the other sock. “-and now that I’m sober, I realize I’m not cut out for a life of misery.”

“I’ll sue you. I swear.”

“Get a sense of humor, will you?” Displaying not even a trace of humor himself, he shoved his foot into one shoe and went back into the living room to get the other. “We’ll make a joke out of it. Say we had too many drinks and started watching Skip and Scooter reruns. We were swept away by nostalgia, and it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

That would be fine for him, but not for her. No one would believe her if she told the truth about the drugged drinks. For the rest of her life, she’d be branded as both a loser and a loony. She was trapped, and she couldn’t let her bitterest enemy see that she was at his mercy. She shoved her fists into the pockets of her robe. “We’re going to retrace our steps from last night. There have to be some clues about where we were. Do you remember anything?”

“Does ‘Give it to me, big boy’ count?”

“At least pretend to be decent.”

“I’m not that good an actor.”

“You know all kinds of shady characters. Surely you know someone who can make the record of our marriage disappear?”

She expected him to brush her off. Instead, his fingers stalled on a shirt button. “There’s this guy I met a couple of times. A former councilman. He loves hobnobbing with celebrities. It’s a long shot, but we can pay him a call.”

She didn’t have a better idea, so she agreed.

He dug into his pocket. “Apparently this belongs to you.” He opened his palm and held out a cheap metal ring with a plastic “diamond” solitaire. “You can’t say I don’t have taste.”