So why did she have the feeling she’d done something reckless?
Ruby brushed her hair out of her face. As she did, she felt the metal of a ring graze her skin. That was odd. She didn’t normally wear rings. Still half asleep, she brought her hand up before her face. Her left hand.
On her ring finger was a gold band.
Oh no.
Ruby sat bolt upright. Bad idea. A wave of nausea came over her, but this time it didn’t pass. She scrambled out of bed, her legs tangling in the sheets, and made a beeline for the nearby bathroom. She shut the door behind her and fell to her knees in front of the toilet, just in time for the contents of her stomach to come back up.
Once she was sure her stomach was empty, Ruby flushed the toilet and went over to the sink, her head still spinning. As she rinsed out her mouth, she heard a knock on the bathroom door.
“Ruby?”
She froze. She knew the voice from the night before. Yvonne. Ruby braced herself on the vanity countertop as dizziness overcame her again.
Yvonne called her name again. “Are you in there?”
“Yes,” Ruby croaked. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
Ruby listened to Yvonne’s footsteps recede from the door as the world righted itself again. What the hell had happened the night before? She recalled their conversation at the bar. Yvonne had told Ruby that she had an inheritance she couldn’t claim unless she was married. And now Ruby was in the bathroom of Yvonne’s suite, wearing a wedding ring.
No. No way.
Ruby took a few deep breaths. She needed to find out what was going on. She splashed some cold water on her face and looked at it in the mirror. She was a mess, her hair in disarray and her eyes puffy.
Why was she even thinking about how she looked? She had far bigger problems.
Ruby took another deep breath and opened the bathroom door to find Yvonne sitting on the edge of the bed. She looked just as mesmerizing as she had the night before. Once again, she was dressed in a black dress, a simpler one this time. Her dark hair was pulled back into a bun, her hazel eyes greener in the daylight. Her arms were crossed, and she studied Ruby with narrowed eyes, her expression inscrutable.
Ruby’s eyes flicked down to Yvonne’s left hand. Sure enough, she wore a gold wedding band that matched Ruby’s. Ruby’s stomach flipped. For a moment, she thought she was going to throw up again.
“Ruby.” Yvonne gestured to a chair in the corner. “Why don’t you have a seat?”
“I’ll stand.” She might have to run to the bathroom again.
Silence hung between them. Yvonne continued to study Ruby, her demeanor calm and inscrutable. Why wasn’t she freaking out about the situation like Ruby was?
Finally, Yvonne spoke. “You don’t remember last night, do you?”
Ruby shook her head. “Not a thing.”
“That makes two of us.”
Ruby frowned. If Yvonne didn’t remember anything, why was she so calm? She didn’t seem at all flustered by the fact that she was now married to a stranger. What was going on?
“The last thing I remember is pouring us both another round of scotch,” Yvonne said. “Then I woke up to find a ring on my finger and you in my bed. I found this on the table.” She held up a piece of paper. It was a marriage certificate with both their names on it. “Apparently, we thought this was a good solution to my inheritance issue.”
Fractured snippets of the night came back to Ruby. They’d left the hotel bar, to go god knew where. They’d drunk some more. Eventually, they’d ended up in a little ‘chapel’ standing before a celebrant dressed as Elvis. Ruby didn’t remember anything in between, like when and why they’d decided to get married.
Ruby shook her head. “We need to undo this.”
“If that’s what you want,” Yvonne said. “We can get an annulment on the basis that we were unable to consent to the marriage because of our inebriated states. We fill out some forms, and it will be like this never happened.”
Ruby breathed a sigh of relief.
“Of course, there’s another option.”
Ruby froze. “What do you mean?”
“We can take advantage of the situation. We can remain married. Come to some kind of agreement.”
“You want to stay married?”
“Only until I can get my inheritance. Of course, I’ll make it worth your while.”
Ruby shook her head. It was a crazy idea. Besides, Ruby knew better than to get into an arrangement with a client, especially after the last time she’d done so.
Nothing could possibly make this worthwhile. Right?
“How would you make it worth my while?” Ruby asked.
“It’s simple. Once I get the inheritance, you get a share of the money,” Yvonne said. “How does one million sound?”
Ruby’s eyes widened. “A million dollars?”
“Of course, there are additional perks to being my wife. I’m sure a woman like you is accustomed to luxury, but the luxury I can provide you with goes beyond the gaudy glitz of Vegas.” She waved her hand around the room. “You’ll have everything you could possibly want.”
Ruby twisted the ring around her finger absently. That did sound tempting.
“One of the conditions of the inheritance is that I need to stay married for a year in order to get the full amount. But once the year is up and the money is in my hands, you’ll get your share, and we can get a divorce and go our separate ways.”
A year. That was a long time. But one million dollars was so much money. There were so many things Ruby
