The kiss.
The special moment of watching other couples making that commitment to each other, of feeling so hopeful and excited at the promise of a future with the woman next to him. Of thinking it could be forever.
The moment she brazenly asked him if he wanted to get up there before God, their new friends, and everyone else who had crowded into the church, and make whatever was happening between them the real deal.
Forever.
God help him, in that moment, he was a goner. He’d said yes.
And then the long night of discovering each other, finalizing their newfound marital bliss. Of her under him, on top of him, of her giving herself to him in every way that he’d been so humbled and proud and filled with such affection he’d lost his breath.
Still did.
Only, the future that had seemed so possible for them both, so attainable last night, somehow in the light of day and without the powerful influence of alcohol seemed like a silly fairy tale. Women like Payton didn’t end up with guys like him.
They ended up with guys like Brad.
And as soon as Payton woke up and remembered everything, she was going to realize that. Realize the mistake she’d made in asking him to be her husband. Maybe she’d even been teasing him, not expecting he’d say yes. Then again, she was drunk and vulnerable. And he should have said no.
Any decent guy, no matter how much his head was clouded with his emotions for the woman, would have said no.
Meaning when he walked into that room, she just might try to kill him.
He took the stairs up, balancing their coffee in his hands along with some aspirin from the front desk, trying to think of what he was going to say.
Then he was at their door and there was no putting off the inevitable.
With the coffees stacked and balanced between his chin and his left hand, he slid the key in and pushed the door open.
She was awake.
And standing naked in the middle of the room, a puddle of water spreading around her feet.
Her eyes lifted from the paper in her hands to meet his, wide and shocked. It was safe to assume she had figured out some of the events of last night.
“Please tell me that this is a trick? That this document doesn’t say what I think it says.”
This was going to take some time. And as much as he enjoyed staring at her lovely naked body—a body he’d become quite familiar with over the past few hours—he was going to need to be thinking clearly. He headed to the bathroom and turned off the water she’d left running before grabbing a towel.
She barely acknowledged his overture, as he tucked it around her. A naked Payton made it hard for him to concentrate. Period.
“I have coffee. Why don’t you have a seat, and we’ll try and figure this out.”
“What’s there to figure out?” Her voice was a couple of octaves higher than usual. “Not only did I spend a drunken night in a hotel room in Mexico with a man I barely know, but I decided to pile on the craziness and marry that man too. I’d say with my track record over the past few days, I might be certifiable. How on earth could you let this happen?”
He sighed and took both coffees and sat down on the bed. He raised one up in her direction. “I seem to recall I wasn’t the one who actually proposed.”
At that, her eyes shifted to the side and she paused, almost like she was replaying a movie in her head. Realization seemed to hit her and she met his gaze again. “But you didn’t have to accept,” she practically screeched.
He took a sip of his coffee. He couldn’t even respond to that. Mostly because he had been asking himself the same thing.
“My mother is going to kill me.”
She began pacing the floor in front of him, one hand on the towel—barely keeping it around her, giving him an enticing reveal of her backside mid-step—the other hand waving the paper about.
“The one thing she’s made clear to me since I could remember is that she’s been planning the minute details of my wedding since I was born and that under no circumstance was I ever to even consider the possibility of elopement or she’d skin me from head to toe. And I did it. Not only did I go out and marry some guy I barely even know in a Mexican church with the proof in a language I can’t even read, but I did it practically on the eve of my marriage to another man.”
“After last night, I wouldn’t exactly say you barely know me,” he couldn’t help adding.
But she didn’t appear to hear him as she stopped and her hand went to her mouth. “I haven’t even officially broken off my engagement with my fiancé. Haven’t canceled the caterers or flowers or church—even though I told my planner to do it I knew that there was no chance she would have the guts to do it without getting my mother’s approval and that she would never get—”
“Payton,” he said a little louder this time, figuring her monologue had gone on long enough.
But she paid him no mind, only resumed the pacing again. “My father will be horrified, having to face Dick Eastman, the man he’d been ecstatic to call family…”
And that was when Cruz heard the other shoe drop.
He hadn’t even begun to consider the consequences to himself for this little indiscretion. Cruz would guess that hearing the news that the man he’d asked to watch over his future daughter-in-law had gone and married that very woman would probably not sit well with the man. Not when Dick Eastman was under the impression she was still going to marry his son. If Dick found out, Cruz could kiss their business agreement good-bye as well as the hopes he’d had for the company.
This time his voice was firm but sharp as he broke into whatever ruminating Payton was still doing. “You need to calm down and think about this rationally.” She stopped and turned to him, suddenly hearing him for the first time. “This mistake…we can fix it. I’ll call my assistant and have her track down an attorney who specializes in foreign marriages and divorces. We can get this taken care of, quietly. No one but us will ever have to know.”
She blinked a few times and nodded. “A mistake. Right. That’s what this is, and I’m sure once we explain everything to whoever we need to, a judge, a city clerk, we can get this annulled or dissolved or whatever. My mother doesn’t have to find out.” At that last bit, she exhaled loudly and plopped herself down on the bed next to him. “Can I have that coffee now?”
He handed the other cup to her and dug into his pockets for the condiments that he tossed on the covers. “I didn’t know how you took it so I brought everything.”
She glanced down at the stuff and sorted through it, grabbing a sweetener. “Your own wife and you’re not sure how I take my coffee,” she muttered.
He smiled. Sounded like she’d started to regain her sense of humor. “Yeah, well there are a few other things I’ve learned that you like over the past few hours. Let’s just call it even.”
More silence followed and he hazarded a glance in her direction, finding her cheeks were pink as she likely was remembering a thing or two about what took place on this very bed. Something he fortunately was able to remember in detail. It would have been a shame for those memories to be hazy.
His back pocket began buzzing, and he pulled his cell phone out and stared at it for a minute. “It’s Kate.”
Payton’s stare fixated on the screen too. “I can’t talk. Not just yet.”
Well someone was going to need to speak with them. Assure everyone they were still safe and on their way. He took in a breath. “Hello, Kate? And how is the blushing bride-to-be?”
He looked up and met Payton’s gaze. His bride’s gaze, technically, as Payton was that.
His bride.
She seemed to pick up on it, too, as her eyes bulged even wider. Her hands went to her mouth and he barely heard her whisper, “What am I going to tell Kate?”
“I’m managing,” Kate was saying, unaware of her best friend’s new dilemma, “but your brother is getting a little anxious. I told him that there’s nothing on this earth that could keep either of you from being here and that you’re probably on the road now.”