“They say there’s nine shots of liquor, but I doubt it is true,” he said. “Maybe the drink started out that way, but for a group like ours they probably mixed it by the batch and those batches get watered down with ice and there are mixers. I doubt anyone got nine shots of liquor in their glass.”
Then what was wrong with me?
“Honestly, when we got our marriage license, my head was clear as glass,” he said. “I knew exactly what I was doing. You seemed like you were fine. Otherwise, I would have suggested we wait. I would not have tricked you into marrying me, Kate. You believe me, don’t you?”
She raised her head, hoping the change in position would quell some of the queasiness. It didn’t.
“Did you put something in my drink?” She had meant it as a joke, but the delivery fell flat, as evidenced by Aidan’s furrowed brow. He swung his feet over the side of the bed.
“Of course not. I would not do something like that. I would not drug you and drag you down the aisle. What kind of a guy do you think I am?”
“Aidan, that was supposed to be a joke. I’m sorry. It seemed funnier when it was in my head. Besides, if I remember anything it is that I was the one who proposed to you and dragged you down the aisle.”
He glanced at her over his shoulder. His expression was proof that even the steadfast Aidan Quindlin had his limits. He raked his hand through his hair and cleared his throat.
“For the record, I went willingly,” he said. “Are we still meeting Elle and Daniel for brunch?”
Ugh. That’s right.
They were supposed to meet her sister and brother-in-law, who also happened to be Aidan’s older brother, in the restaurant downstairs.
Gigi and Charles were off to Paris on their honeymoon. Her mother, Zelda, had ridden to the airport with Gigi and Charles so she could get back to work at the Forsyth Galloway Inn, the grand Victorian mansion that had been in the family for six generations and was now operated as a bed-and-breakfast. Her oldest sister, Jane, and her husband, Liam, had caught an early morning flight to New York to attend an event at Liam’s restaurant, La Bula.
Kate and Aidan, along with Elle and Daniel, were flying out later that evening.
Her perfect sister Elle was the last person Kate wanted to see right now. Kate and Aidan had too much to sort out, before they faced others. What were they supposed to say to them—or to anyone, for that matter—“Good morning, we’re married”?
She focused on Aidan’s broad, tanned back. It looked so good she couldn’t help but reach out and touch him, but as soon as she did, he flinched, and the sickening waves of nausea crested even higher. She put her hand over her mouth. “Ugh—” Uttering the sound was a mistake that sent her running into the bathroom.
“Are you okay?” Aidan asked through the closed bathroom door. His question was met with the sound of running water. He pushed open the door. The site of Kate hunched over the sink made his heart ache. She had wrapped herself in the cotton hotel bathrobe, which swallowed her slight body.
She was splashing water on her face. He walked to her and gathered her long, curly red hair in his hands, smoothing it away from her face, half expecting her to ask him to leave. Kate’s fiery passion was one of the things that had always drawn Aidan to her from the first moment he had set eyes on her in Mrs. Wallace’s high school AP chemistry class ten years ago.
Back then, it had been a rough go—a love-hate relationship. They had dated briefly, until Kate had fallen in with the cool crowd. Aidan had been called a lot of things in his life, but cool was not one of them. But they seemed to have a pattern of getting together and drifting apart again when she started to feel too claustrophobic. They had lost touch when Aidan went away to college and was married to someone else for a brief period of time.
They had found their way back to each other after his marriage failed and he ended up in the intensive care unit after crashing his Harley.
The accident had left him in a coma. When he had awakened, Kate’s beautiful face was the first thing he had seen. At that moment, all the uncertainty and indiscretions of their youth had fallen away. The chemistry that reunited them seemed even stronger. This time, things felt a little more permanent.
Until she had claimed to not remember marrying him.
But like it or not, Kate was his wife. They were married. He glanced down at the slim ivory column of her neck, wanting to kiss her there, but he resisted.
He hated that she wasn’t feeling well. Protectiveness swelled inside him. After she felt more like herself, she would realize they had been heading toward this since the day they met.
The only reason he hasn’t proposed already was that her two older sisters had recently tied the knot. Then her grandmother had announced her plans for a quick wedding to her longtime love, which was why they were in Vegas this week.
Kate used to say that she never wanted to get married, because her father had abandoned the family when Kate and her sisters were young, and she didn’t want to end up heartbroken like her mother.
He knew Kate well enough to know that while her father might have made her hard on the outside, she was a big softie on the inside. He was willing to bet that after she was feeling more like herself and things had a chance to sink in, she would
