Married by Mistake. Abby Gaines
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There was only one way to deal with people like that. Get tough.
One look at Casey told him that wasn’t going to happen. In two seconds, Adam had moved around the table and slipped the phone from her grasp—easily done, since she wasn’t expecting it.
“Karen? I don’t know who you are, but you’re not helping Casey right now.” He crossed the room, aware of Casey’s startled expression. Karen sputtered on the other end of the phone.
“My wife and I—” damn, that sounded weird “—need some time alone.” He reached the huge vase filled with an elaborate display of flowers, delivered last night compliments of the Peabody management. Casey, following right behind, bumped into him. “So goodbye.”
With Karen still squawking, he dropped the phone—right into the vase.
Casey yelped. “Have you gone crazy?”
“You’re not prepared to turn that thing off, and it’s upsetting you. I’m dealing with the problem.” He dusted his hands together. “Doesn’t that feel better?”
“No! How could you…” She stopped. “Actually,” she said slowly, “it does.” She ventured a small smile.
From across the room they heard the sound of his phone.
“Allow me to deal with that.” Casey moved toward it.
“It’s okay.” He followed her. “I’ll take it.”
She’d picked it up already and was reading the display. “It’s Eloise.”
“My stepmother again.” He rolled his eyes. “Pass it here.”
“I said I’d deal with it,” Casey reminded him. She stepped back and moved around the other side of the sofa.
Adam wasn’t quite sure what happened next. But somehow, he went one way and she went the other, toward the open window.
“Casey, don’t—”
Too late.
She dropped the phone just as he reached her.
Adam looked so shocked, Casey wondered if she’d gone too far. She held her breath as he stuck his head out the window. When he turned back into the room, his face was grave. “You just killed an Elvis impersonator.”
Casey clapped a hand to her mouth. “No! I looked, there was no one—” Then she caught the grin he was trying to hide.
And they were laughing, clinging to each other in helpless hilarity that for a moment made the whole mess go away.
Adam looked into Casey’s eyes, where tears of merriment glistened. On automatic pilot, he wiped the corner of her eye with his thumb. And found himself robbed of all sensation except the pressing desire to feel her mouth beneath his.
CHAPTER FOUR
THAT TOUCH OF HIS THUMB seemed to wipe away Casey’s mirth. Her gray eyes widened and her teeth caught her bottom lip. After the tiniest of hesitations she swayed against him.
This time, there was no tentative overture on his part—and no audience to inhibit the eager parting of her lips to admit him.
Kissing her, Adam told himself as he claimed her mouth, was a reaction to the stress of the past twenty-four hours.
Then her tongue met his with a fervor that matched his own, she wound her arms around his neck and he gave up trying to justify his actions. Gave himself up to the sensual pleasure of kissing Casey, to the press of her body against his, to his own undeniable physical reaction. He cupped her firm derriere, pulling her closer. With a murmur of surprise, she arched into him.
If he didn’t stop now, they’d be in danger of complicating this disaster beyond repair.
Tearing his mouth from hers took a degree of willpower he didn’t ever recall needing with a woman. When at last they stood apart, Adam ran a hand through his hair as if that might erase the memory of her touch there. He made a conscious effort to slow his breathing. Casey’s cheeks were flushed, her lips still parted in what looked to him like invitation.
“Adam.” Breathlessness made her breasts rise and fall, her voice husky. “You have got to stop doing that.”
Okay, maybe not invitation.
She turned away, gazed with studied casualness at a framed photograph on the wall, a shot of downtown Memphis at night. “Not that it wasn’t nice,” she said. “But…you know.”
Yes, he knew it was a dumb idea to get distracted from fixing this catastrophe. But she’d enjoyed that kiss as much as he had, so he was damned if he was going to apologize.
At the sound of rustling, they turned to the door. A piece of paper had been slid underneath.
Adam picked it up and scanned it. “It’s a message from Sam. He’s at home and ready to take my call.” He’d instructed the hotel reception not to put any calls through to their suite. He reached for the phone on the sideboard next to the dining table and started dialing.
Casey took the opportunity to move as far away from him as she could. She plunked herself on the blue-and-gold-striped couch, grabbed up the room service menu from the coffee table and held it open so Adam couldn’t see her face. Her red face.
Good grief, she’d acted like a sex-starved wanton, wrapping herself around him that way. She’d be the first to admit that her sex life with Joe had been rather lackluster the past few years—and nonexistent for nearly a year—but that was no excuse to throw herself at the first man she met. Even if he was her husband.
From behind the menu, she listened shamelessly to Adam’s side of the conversation with Sam. Which didn’t tell her much; he was a man of few words. When he’d finished, he dropped the receiver back into its cradle. He muttered something under his breath that Casey didn’t quite hear, but it didn’t sound like, “Yippee, we got our annulment.”
“Is there a problem?” she asked.
He came to the couch, stood over her with his hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans, his eyebrows drawn together. “Getting an annulment will be difficult.”
Casey gulped. “How difficult?”
“They’re something of a rarity in Tennessee. There’s no statutory basis for annulment here. Each case has to be argued on common law principles.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning,” he said, “there’s no official annulment process. My lawyer will put a case together and argue it before a judge. If the judge agrees, we get our annulment.”
“And if the judge doesn’t agree?”
“We get a divorce.”
“But I don’t want to be divorced,” Casey protested.
“Right now, I’d rather be divorced than married,” he said, with a flat finality that prickled the back of her neck. He sat down on the couch opposite, saving her the strain of looking up at him. “Sam tells me he can make a good case for annulment. Nonconsummation of the marriage is a definite plus. Even stronger is the fact we didn’t know it was a real wedding. Still, some of those old judges take marriage pretty seriously.” Cynicism twisted his mouth. “Sam wants to make sure he gets a sympathetic judge, and that might take up to a month.”
“So we’ll be married for a month,” Casey said, “and then it’ll be as if it never happened.”
“Exactly.”
“Everything will be just the same as before.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Nothing will have changed. Nothing.”
“Yes,” Adam said impatiently. Didn’t she understand plain English?
“No,” she said.
Adam’s