I looked over at her sitting in the passenger seat. She was staring out the window. I wondered what was going on in her head. The furrow of her brow suggested it wasn’t good.
“You know, this isn’t my first fake wedding,” I said.
She turned her head to me. “What? You fake married before?”
I laughed. “No. I mean I’ve been to another fake wedding. When I was in the military we were sent to bust up a weapons and drug deal between two bigwigs in the cartel in South America. They’d set up the meet as a wedding, though it was completely fake.”
“The military does that sort of thing?”
“Protect America from threats. The cartel is a threat. Anyway, we went in disguised as caterers.” I smiled, letting her know this wasn’t a heavy deep and real war story. Not that some serious shit hadn’t gone down, but in the end, all turned out well.
“Do you speak Spanish?” she asked, turning toward me. I was glad to see her re-engage with me and show interest in my story.
“Si, Senora.”
“You nearly flunked high school Spanish,” she said, smirking at me.
“You learn a language quick when your life depends on it. Plus, the military has special schools. High school teaches it all wrong.”
“So, what did you do at the fake wedding?”
“Well, we broke up the deal, taking down two significant players in the fight against weapons and drug trafficking.”
“You got your man.”
“Men. And my leader got the fake bride.” I grinned.
She cocked her head. “She was in on it?”
“No. She thought they were auditioning for a movie. My leader helped her through her disappointment.” I waggled my brows so she’d understand what I was saying.
“Oh. I see. Did that happen a lot?” she quirked a brow at me and I realized perhaps that part of the story should have stayed hidden.
“Sometimes. Always consensual.”
Her smile faltered a little. I wished I could tell her I’d been faithful to our love all those years, but I wasn’t about to start lying. The only thing that I’d been faithful to was how I felt about her. The other women, they were simply to assuage the loneliness or get my rocks off.
Then again, she hadn’t been faithful to our love either. She’d hooked up with someone far sooner than I had. I wanted to ask her about the man who gave her Alyssa, but the few times I’d broached the subject, she’d closed down on me.
“Sinclair.”
She looked at me.
“I never forgot you. Or stopped caring for you.”
She gave me a wan smile.
“Often, nearly always, actually, I imagined you.” I wasn’t sure if I should have been telling her this. What did it say about me that when I was with other women, Sinclair was on my mind? Would she see that as a good thing or bad?
I didn’t have time to find out as we pulled up to the hotel.
“Wow, Wyatt, you went all out,” she said as she took in the fanciest hotel I could find in the city. Lincoln was a great town, but it wasn’t New York. Still, the hotel offered a lot of great amenities a newlywed couple would want. “You didn’t have to.”
I shrugged. “I figured we’d live it up before we had to get down in the crap of dealing with Stark.”
She shook her head as she looked into the wide lobby area with its gray and chrome décor. “A new car, fancy hotel… Did you inherit money?”
I laughed. “No. Uncle Sam provides a lot for its soldiers so I was able to save some.” I put my hand on her lower back as I led her through the lobby to the front desk. We checked in and because I’d booked a suite, a bellboy took us up to the room.
I tipped the young man and ushered him out as I watched Sinclair take in the room, her eyes wide. No one had done this for her, I realized. No one had ever treated her to something special. Including me back when she was mine. I hoped I had many more opportunities to make her feel special.
“There’s just two of us. What are we going to do with all this space?” she asked.
“Whatever we want. Play tag. Do yoga.”
She laughed.
“There are two beds,” I said, wanting her to know I wasn’t expecting any traditional honeymoon activities. I noted a bottle of champagne on the table, compliments of the hotel. “How about some champagne?”
“Maybe we should save it for after dinner.”
“Dinner will still be there. We can order room service if you don’t want to go out.” I popped the cork on the bottle and poured us each a flute. “Cheers.”
She clinked her glass against mine. She took a sip and her nose scrunched up. “Bubbles.”
She was adorable and a wave of emotion flowed through me. I wanted to tell her about it. About all that was pumping in my heart. I wanted to kiss her and taste Sinclair mixed with champagne. Instead, I took a long sip of my drink.
“You seem to have thought of everything, but forgotten this is all fake.”
Inside, my heart felt squashed in my chest. It was followed by annoyance. “You can tell yourself that all you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m married to the most beautiful woman in the world.”
She gasped, clearly not expecting that.
“I intend to make the most of the night, even if we end up sleeping in separate beds.” I refilled her glass. “By the way, not consummating a marriage isn’t grounds for an annulment. I checked.”
She looked up at me.
“So, if you do want to have sex, you don’t have worry about not being able to get an annulment.”
She swallowed and looked down. I noted a pink tinge coming to her cheeks. Was it the champagne or the talk about sex?
“How do we get an annulment?”
God dammit! That’s the thing she focuses on. The annulment, not
