Married By Mistake (Billionaires of Europe Book 7)

by Holly Rayner

  The couple at the table next to us passes the songbook over, and I take it and flip through the pages. Very quickly, I find a great hair metal ballad we all used to love in college.

  I point it out to the rest of the group. “Someone sing this one with me.”

  “I’ll go!” Sandy shoots her hand into the air like she’s volunteering an answer in class or something. She’s always been the most eager of all of us to do karaoke, and because she’s the bride-to-be of the group, everyone is more than willing to let her go up as many times as she wants. I write down the song we want and give my piece of paper to the MC, who drops it in the fishbowl from which he’s drawing the names of the performers at random.

  The current singer finishes, and the MC reaches into the bowl. “Dani and Sandy! Come on down!”

  “Us already?” Sandy looks surprised.

  “I guess he just dropped our names on top and forgot to shake it up.” I grab her hand and pull her to her feet. “Let’s do this.”

  We step up to the mic and wait for the first few chords of the song, then begin belting out the soppy lyrics, gripping each other’s shoulders as if hanging on for dear life and hamming it up. I can hear our friends howling from out in the audience. I look out to make eye contact with them, thinking vaguely of winking and licking my lips lasciviously to take my performance to the next level…

  My gaze lands on Luciano.

  He’s sitting at the back of the room, both hands wrapped around a stein of beer, watching our performance as if he’s judging something important. He’s still dressed in what looks like an expensive suit, despite the fact that this is definitely not an expensive suit kind of event—most of the other men here are in jeans and T-shirts, and Luciano looks very out of place. He’s also older than most of the clientele—the karaoke crowd is around my age, some a bit younger. What is he doing here? Surely he hasn’t come here to sing, has he? I have the sudden urge to run over to the MC, grab his fishbowl, and root around until I find, or don’t find, a slip of paper with Luciano’s name on it.

  Sandy and I finish our song and step off the stage. I can tell she hasn’t noticed Luciano, because she doesn’t nudge me or anything, just races back to our table to collect congratulatory hugs from the rest of the girls. I follow at a slower pace, trying not to make eye contact with him. I don’t want him to know I’ve seen him, and I especially don’t want to get caught in the trap of looking him in the eye—a trap I have yet to be able to break without someone else stepping in.

  If I look directly at him, I could get stuck. There would be no pretending I hadn’t seen him, then. I wouldn’t be able to tear myself away.

  What is he doing here? I know he told me earlier that this casino was his favorite, but I really can’t imagine he comes here to participate in karaoke nights. It just doesn’t seem like Luciano. He’s got such a mature aura, and he’s so straight-laced. I can’t picture him dancing around on that stage to pop hits from the eighties. What would his song even be? It would have to be some kind of light jazz, like something a couple has their first dance to at a wedding. I can see him singing that kind of song, but nothing like that was in the songbook.

  All I can think is that he must be here looking for me again, and I feel a surge of frustration. Why is it that no matter where I go, no matter what I do, I can’t seem to get away from this man? I glance over my shoulder. He’s still there, but I can’t tell whether or not he’s looking at me. He’s definitely seen me. He couldn’t have missed me, not while I was up there singing with Sandy.

  Maybe it was a mistake to go up there. Maybe I should have kept a low profile.

  No. The hell with that. This is Sandy’s bachelorette weekend, for God’s sake, and we deserve to have a blast. Letting a man get in the way of that would fly in the face of everything a bachelorette weekend is supposed to be about. The girls and I are going to do what we want, and we’re going to have fun. Luciano can’t stop us.

  I glance over my shoulder at him again, and this time, I do catch his eye. He’s looking right at me. He’s definitely here to see me. Part of me still feels angry, but suddenly, a rush of excitement flares through me. He sought me out. Even though he said the things he said in the street before the magic show, he still wanted to see me.

  I feel special, suddenly. Beautiful. And, more than ever, I’m aware of the chemistry, the magnetic pull that seems to exist between us. Suddenly, it seems inevitable that something will happen tonight, that we’ll see each other again, speak to each other again. Tonight feels enchanted, almost as if I’m on a carnival ride that’s propelling me forward.

  I get to my feet. I’ll go over to his table. He’s been the one to approach me every time we’ve spoken, so this time, I’ll go to him. I’ll apologize for having made negative assumptions about him. I’ll let him know that I realize I was wrong. And then, things will take off.

  “Where are you going?” Liz asks. Her voice sounds far away. The ground sways under me, rocking as badly as if we were on the deck of a boat. But we’re on land. It must be the alcohol, I realize. I must have had too much.

  “Be right back,” I tell my friends, and I carefully make my way toward Luciano’s table.

  But when I get there, he’s gone. Did I imagine him?

  No. There’s the back of a suit, disappearing around a corner, and I press on, determined, following him. I’m going to catch up to him and apologize for the bad blood between us, and then we’re going to have the best night ever.

  I don’t even realize how drunk I really am until I see the ground rushing up to meet me, my vision tunneling to black.

  Chapter 11

  Dani

  This is the worst hangover of my life.

  I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. Maybe I’m even still drunk. It’s hard to tell. I know it’s morning—even though I haven’t opened my eyes, I can tell the room is full of light. I open my mouth to ask the other girls to close the curtains, and all that comes out is a moan.

  “Dani?” a voice asks.

  It’s a male voice.

  My eyes fly open. I’m in a room I don’t recognize, and it’s definitely not the room I rented with the other girls. This one is much fancier and more spacious, with wooden posts that look antique, and the window takes up a whole wall. Near the corner of the room, I can see an open door leading to what looks like an ornate sitting room with a sunken floor area in the middle and a bar against the wall.

  What is this place? It’s much too fancy to be a hotel room, but it doesn’t seem like a private residence, either—it’s too sparse. The pictures on the walls are vaguely soothing hotel art, and there aren’t any photos or knickknacks around that would mark the place as belonging to anybody.

  I don’t want to move—I’m too dizzy, too seasick, and I definitely don’t want to throw up on what are probably very expensive sheets—but that voice speaks again.

  “Are you all right?”

  I need to know. I turn my head slowly, carefully.

  Luciano. Of course.

  I look down. I’m still fully dressed, in the same clothes I was wearing last night. Thank God. So that means that, as messed-up as this situation is, at least things didn’t go that far. I search backward in my memory, trying to piece together the night, trying to figure out how this could have happened. I remember seeing the magician, and then we went…we went back to the hotel for karaoke…did I sing?

  I start to bring my hands up to rub my face, hoping to jog my memory—

  My right hand is halted before I can move it more than a few inches, and I feel something cold and hard against my wrist.

  What the hell? I look down.

  Handcuffs. There’s a handcuff around my wrist.

  A sharp jolt of panic shoots up my spine, rendering me fully awake.

  “What is this?” I demand, but it comes out a whisper.

  Luciano raises his own arm. The other cuff is linked to his left wrist.

  “I don’t know,” he says quietly. “You don
’t remember anything?”

  “You don’t, either?”

  “Nothing. I just woke up. The last thing I remember is being in the casino bar.”

  “Oh, God, you were there?” I close my eyes. “I didn’t sing, did I?”

  “A couple of times.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “You were great,” he says. “You don’t have anything to be embarrassed about.”

  “Well, I blacked out and woke up handcuffed to a man I hardly know,” I snap. “It’s not exactly a banner moment.”

  I lean off the side of the bed and am greatly relieved to see my purse on the floor. I haul it up and go through it as best I can one-handed. Everything seems to be in place. If someone was here and handcuffed me to Luciano, they didn’t do it to rob me. I’m surprised to find that I don’t suspect Luciano himself of anything, but it just doesn’t make sense that he would be behind this. Why would he have put the handcuffs on us both?

  My fingers graze my cell phone and I pull it out. “Here,” I say, “I’ll call someone to help us.”

  “Who are you going to call?” Luciano asks.

  “I don’t know, the fire department?”

  “Don’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “We’re not in an emergency situation.”

  I hold up my arm, causing his to lift, too, and shake it at him. “What do you call this?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m sure the key is around here somewhere. Let’s just try to find it, okay?”

  “Are these your handcuffs?” I ask, but he shakes his head.

  “They weren’t mine yesterday, at least. I don’t know what happened last night.

  I glance down at my phone. It’s packed with missed calls and messages. I’ve got several texts from each of the girls, first asking if that was my “Latin Lover Boy” they saw me running after, then asking where I had gone and when I would be back, and finally switching to urgent concern. “CALL ME RIGHT NOW,” says the last one, from Sandy.

  I turn to Luciano. “I should call my friends and tell them I’m alive,” I say.

  He nods. “Go ahead, I’ll…I’ll try to think of where the key might be, I guess.”

  The phone rings before I can dial. Sandy.

  I accept the call, shift the phone to my left hand, and raise it to my ear.

  “Sandy?”

  “Dani! Oh my God, you guys, it’s her. Shut up. Shut up! Dani, are you okay? Where are you?”

  “I’m, um…” I look around. I have no idea how to even begin to explain this, nor am I sure I want to. It’s so embarrassing. I haven’t been that drunk since college. Aside from which, if they find out I’m here with Luciano, it’s going to feed the gossip that’s been going on all weekend, and I’m really dreading that. But the last thing in the world I want is for my friends to be worried. “I’m okay,” I tell her, finally accepting the fact that I’m going to have to come clean. “I’m with Luciano. I think we’re at his place.”

  Luciano raises his eyebrows and shakes his head, as if to communicate that he has no idea whose room this is, actually. Great.

  “Oh, Dani, I am so, so sorry,” Sandy wails. “This is all my fault.”

  “What? What’s your fault?”

  “Those weren’t headache pills!” she cries. “I didn’t realize until I checked my bag just now, but when you asked me for painkillers, I gave you some of the prescription pills for my back pain. They’re super strong, and they’re definitely not supposed to be mixed with alcohol!”

  “Oh,” I say numbly. “Well. That explains a lot.”

  “But you’re okay? You’re safe? Do you want us to call the police? Or anybody? What happened last night? Should we come and get you?”

  “No, no,” I say quickly. “I’m perfectly fine. Please don’t worry. I don’t remember much of last night, but it doesn’t seem like anything…too dramatic…happened. I think we just came here and fell asleep.”

  “Oh,” Sandy says, sounding much lighter with relief. “Thank God. Oh, Dani. I was so worried.”

  “I’m okay. I promise.”

  “Are you coming back now? We have to get out of the room pretty soon. Liz is making us all get packed so we won’t miss our checkout time, and then we’re going to brunch.”

  “I might not make it to brunch,” I say ruefully. “I…this is really embarrassing, and I don’t have a good explanation, but at some point last night, Luciano and I somehow got handcuffed together, and we haven’t found the key yet.”

  “I thought you said nothing dramatic happened!” Sandy cries.

  “Nothing did,” I insist. “The key’s got to be around here somewhere. Just go on to brunch, okay? I’ll go back to the hotel and pick up my things later. Sorry if I don’t get to see you all before you head to the airport.”

  Luciano nudges me and begins pointing around the room. I follow where he’s looking. There are plenty of drawers where the key to the cuffs might be stashed, and I see what he’s trying to say—that’s probably the best place to start looking.

  Suddenly, I’m very aware of the fact that he’s been sitting next to me this whole time I’ve been on the phone with Sandy, able to hear every word I’ve said. He’s heard me assuring my friends that nothing happened between us. I don’t know why that makes me feel so strange and awkward, exactly. Maybe because that’s not usually a conversation you have right in front of a guy. I feel like I’m insisting I wouldn’t sleep with him, like I think I’m too good for him or something. I hope I’m not coming off that way.

  Although, at the same time, why shouldn’t I come off that way? I wouldn’t sleep with him! I barely know him!

  “Sandy, I’ve got to go,” I tell her. “We need to solve this key mystery.”

  “And you’re sure you’re all right?” She still sounds anxious.

  “I’m fine,” I say, trying to sound reassuring. “I’ll have my phone on me, okay? You can call me again in an hour if you haven’t heard from me.”

  “Okay,” she says. “I’ll pack your stuff and take it down to the front desk for you, so you can get it there.”

  “Thanks, Sandy. You’re the best.”

  “Thank you, Dani. For such a great bachelorette weekend. I’m so sorry again about the pills. That was so careless of me, and you can’t imagine how terrible I feel—”

  “Please stop beating yourself up,” I say. “It was an accident, and nothing bad happened. Go get some brunch and have a safe trip home, all right? I’ll see you in a week for the wedding. Give Ian and the girls my love.”

  “I will.”

  I hang up and turn to Luciano. “Okay,” I say. “What exactly happened here?”

  “I told you,” he says, “I have no idea. The last thing I remember is being at the bar and watching the karaoke. I wouldn’t ordinarily have gone there on a karaoke night, despite the fact that it’s my favorite bar in the city. But…well, these were special circumstances.”

  “What special circumstances?”

  “I wanted to see you again,” he admits. “I felt badly about the way we left things. I shouldn’t have shouted at you outside the theater like that.”

  “No,” I agree. “You shouldn’t have. But you also shouldn’t be following me all over the city.”

  “I just wanted to apologize, that’s all,” he says. “I promise.”

  “Well, what happened between wanting to apologize and getting into these handcuffs?” I demand. “That’s the part that doesn’t add up. I don’t know about you, but I would never agree to be handcuffed to a strange man. I would never agree to be handcuffed to any man!”

  I rattle my wrist in the cuff. It’s heavy against my arm and feels like real steel, not some cheap plastic toy.

  “I hate the way this feels. I want it off.”

  “I’m not loving it either,” Luciano says. “What do you remember from last night?”

  “I remember seeing you before the magic show. The show itself was okay. Then…oh, there was the limo. We drove aro
und the city, and that’s when Sandy gave me those pills—”

  “Pills?” Luciano is giving me a skeptical look. “What kind of pills?”

  “Stop that. It was for back pain, and she didn’t mean to give it to me. I asked for a headache cure. She accidentally gave me something stronger. That’s why I blacked out. What’s your excuse?”

  “Okay, let’s not do this,” Luciano says. “We should figure out how we’re going to get out of this situation. I don’t know about you, but I have things to do today, and they don’t involve sitting in this bed in handcuffs.”

  “For once, we agree. Check the bedside table.”

  He leans over to check, and at the same time, I reach and pull my own table’s drawer open. There’s no key inside, but I do see something else that makes me gasp.

  “My earrings!”

  Luciano turns back. “What?”

  I pull them out. I’d know these earrings anywhere. They’re sapphires, and I inherited them from my grandmother. They’re my absolute favorites. I was wearing them last night for our evening out, which means I was wearing them when we went to the bar for karaoke. I must have taken them off when Luciano and I arrived here for the night.

  I reach up and put a hand to my earlobe. “My ears aren’t sore.”

  “What does that mean?” he asks.

  “It means I took these earrings off at least a few hours ago.” I pass them to him. “Feel how heavy they are? My ears always hurt for a few hours after I wear them. That means we’ve been here that long, at least.”

  “Well,” he says. “That’s something, anyway.”

  I nod. I have to admit that I was curious, especially on learning that this wasn’t his room. I’d worried that we might have just stumbled in here and collapsed on the bed, and that at any minute, someone else would show up demanding their room back. But the longer we’ve been here, the less likely that seems. I don’t know where we are or how we got here, but it seems that, for now, at least, we’re safe enough.