much to drink, and could have done more than kiss and frolic on the beach before falling asleep, wound together on a hammock.
When he’d woken up on the deck of his suite at almost noon the next day, partially cooked from sunburn, she’d been gone. Too bad, because he’d had plans for the lovely, prickly ballerina. And those plans hadn’t faded away. If anything, they occupied more and more of his thoughts and his dreams. He’d never craved like this, and it was getting irritating.
Flashes of her gorgeous olive skin, her huge brown eyes, and that fall of thick hair tantalized him whenever his mind wandered. He felt like a crazy person wanting a girl he’d randomly made out with at a wedding so much that it was fucking with his sleep. He must have been living like a monk a little too much these days. All of his dating hadn’t led to nearly enough sex; he needed connection for that he hadn’t found with anyone but Laura.
When Carla and Jonah got back from their honeymoon, he was going to have to get Carla to give him Laura’s number. Carla knew him well enough to know that his reputation didn’t fit anymore. He had to see her again.
There was a commotion outside of the editing room where he was working that pulled his attention away from his stupid, dick-torturing memories. When the door opened, he could barely believe his eyes.
A very angry Laura Delgado, face red and breathing jagged, standing there and looking ready to kill him.
“You fucking asshole!”
Funny, he remembered her sounding sarcastic, bored, and a little breathless once he’d finally gotten her to put her mouth to better uses, but the thread of rage in her voice was new—and sexy. He tried to comb his mind for anything he could have done since returning from Bali that would have warranted this entrance and came up blank.
“What did I do?” He stayed sitting, certain he shouldn’t make a move right now. His future ability to have children probably depended on it.
Her eyes narrowed into slits, and she slammed the door behind her. She wore a flimsy, cotton sundress, and he had to school himself not to give her the lazy once-over he was dying for. Somehow, he knew that flirting wasn’t going to get him out of trouble this time.
“You did it on purpose, didn’t you?” She walked toward him, her right hand forming a fist. The light shining from the screens cast part of her face in shadow, which served to make her look even more pissed off, like a cartoon villain. Was she actually going to punch him?
Confused, he held his hands up to cover his face. “I still don’t know what I did.”
She stopped about three feet away from him, and he was kind of glad. He was down for whatever sort of bedroom shit she’d like to do with him, but face-punching wasn’t his kink.
“Are you just playing dumb, or are you just as clueless as I was until this morning?”
“Option B.”
Her hand uncurled, and he finally breathed. She was still panting, and he wanted to offer her a seat, but she was a bit like a bomb about to go off right now, and he wasn’t sure of the right move.
“We’re married.”
His brain flickered on and off like the lights during a thunderstorm. She couldn’t possibly have said what he just thought she said. He looked at his left hand, wondering if a wedding band had suddenly appeared.
“When?”
She cocked her head and pursed her lips, regarding him as though he were an idiot. “When do you think, asshole?”
The “asshole” didn’t have quite the same sting as the first one, so he guessed he was winning there.
“In Bali?” His brain was a complete blank. Embarrassment crept in over his confusion. He hadn’t gotten blackout drunk since college. And, even then, it was once or twice. He even remembered making the stupid video, which was probably a big part of the reason Laura was so upset about being married to him. “I don’t remember.”
“Well, I don’t either.” She put her hands on her slim hips, still looking down at him.
“Do you want to sit down?” He gestured at the other editing chair, figuring she might need to take a seat. He’d have been on the floor in a very un-masculine dead faint had he been standing when she’d told him that they were married.
“No. I won’t be here long.”
“I think we have some things to talk about.” Like divorcing him. Fuck. No one in his family but him had ever been divorced. That’s not something Laughlins did. His parents would be devastated if he was the family’s first and second divorces. He could imagine his mother’s tutting over his failure right now. His brothers were all happily married and reproducing at an alarming rate—not him.
“I don’t need to sit down for you to agree to an annulment.”
Charlie shook his head, hoping to clear the cobwebs, but she must have taken it as a refusal to give her what she wanted.
“You’re going to say ‘no’ to me?”
“No. I’m just—I’m just confused. How the fuck did this happen?”
She leaned over and he got a whiff of her scent. Fresh. Citrusy. He remembered that scent from burying his face in her neck and kissing up and down her pretty throat. Just that got his dick half hard, and he suppressed the groan that would probably bring back the fist.
“You. Tell. Me.” Finally, she sat in the chair facing him. He looked at her face instead of her endless crossed legs. “I figure that you got me drunk and found the officiant because you knew that was the only way you’d have a shot.”
Hard-on defeated. Anger, ready at the go. “Are you fucking kidding me?” It was his turn to stand up. “I would never do that.”
“Well, one of the last things I remember was you telling me how much you wanted to get married, which I frankly thought was weird. And then, I told you that you were barking up the wrong tree.”
Charlie didn’t even remember that. He recalled walking over to Laura as she sat at the bar alone while everyone danced. He’d ordered them both drinks. Those fucking tropical drinks that had fucked his whole life up.
“The drinks—”
Laura moved her finger back and forth in his face. “Uh-uh. You’re not going to pretend that this wasn’t your plan all along.”
He wasn’t sure if the hair on his arms stood up because he was turned on or terrified of her. She was out of her damned mind, this one. “Why would I marry someone that I hardly know?” And someone who had made her clear disinterest in him plainly known as soon as he’d joined her at the bar. Charlie was an affable guy, a bit of a flirt, and they were two of the only single people at the wedding. He’d figured they’d have a drink and she could maybe make him look good on the dance floor.
She’d shut him down immediately, like before he could get a word out. Sort of like she’d shut down his explanation.
His shoulders collapsed, and he looked at the screen. He couldn’t take the Laura Delgado death glare any longer. He wondered if she deployed it in order to get the best roles as a principal dancer. If she frightened Charlie with a flash of her fathomless, almost-black eyes, then a ballet teacher wouldn’t be able to stand up to it.
He shook his head again, hoping to rattle a memory loose, some sort of clue as to how this had happened. “How did you find out?”
“My grandfather told me that he couldn’t file my taxes without my husband’s signature.”
“So there’s actual paperwork on this?”
“Apparently someone in the Balinese bureaucracy sent something to someone in the Dade County clerk’s office, so we’re all official.”
Fuck. “I’ll give you the annulment”
“Of