by Nikki Chase
He glances at his watch. “A drink? It’s 10 a.m.!”
“So? We’re in Vegas, dude. It’s allowed.”
I open a $3000 bottle of Grey Goose Magnum and pour him a generous measure. He looks at the proffered glass doubtfully, then downs it. A sigh escapes from his lips as he leans back into the couch.
“Now, as your boss, I’m ordering you to sit there, have a couple more drinks, and just chill the fuck out. I’ll deal with my marital affairs.”
Brock looks defeated. He knows how stubborn I can be, and he knows that it’ll be pointless to argue with me. He’s right—those traits are what’s allowed me to be so successful; my instincts rarely prove to be wrong.
And my instincts tell me that I want to find out more about the mysterious woman who is now my wife. Trouble is, she’s playing hard to get and not answering my calls.
I thought the honeymoon period was supposed to last longer than a single night.
As I’m mulling over how best to find her, my phone vibrates in my pocket. Not my personal cell—I switched that to silent as soon as I woke up because it was ringing off the hook non-stop. No, this is my work phone.
I turn it on and see an email sitting in my private inbox.
This is weird, because I specifically told Chris, the intern who’s doubling as my personal assistant, not to forward me any work emails while I’m off. The inbox should have remained empty until I returned to work after this Vegas trip.
Apparently, though, Chris thought this was either urgent or didn’t count as a “work email.” Maybe it’s time to hire a new personal assistant.
Intrigued, I open the email. Embarrassingly, my heart does a little flip as I see who it’s from.
Tessa Elliott.
I open the email with bated breath. It’s short, and only takes me a minute to read.
Hi,
We need to get this situation fixed. I’m sure you’re as eager as I am to make it all go away.
You don’t need to worry. I don’t want any of your money. I just want the marriage annulled, and to move on with my life. It was a silly, drunken mistake, and I’m sure you feel exactly the same.
If you can liaise with me, and let me know what steps we need to take to get this fixed, that would be great.
T
P.S. I don’t need to see you, we can just communicate via email. The last thing I want is to have to deal with crowds of tabloid press following me everywhere I go.
Liaise? Damn, this thing reads like a fucking business email, not something from my wife.
No way, I decide, can we just leave it like this. I had one of the best nights of my life last night, and I’m not about to just let that go without even trying to make it work.
I type up my response.
Some of the best decisions in my life have been made when I’m drunk. I’m not doing anything until we talk about this. In person.
I add my work cell number to the bottom of the email, and within seconds she calls me. I pick up with trembling fingers.
Damn, how did this girl get her hooks so deep into me after just one night?
“What do you want from me?” She sounds pissed.
We’re off to a good start, then.
“Nothing at all,” I reply. “If you truly want to ditch me, I won’t stand in your way. I just feel like . . . well, last night meant something to me. You mean something to me, and I won’t just destroy that without even trying. So, meet me, we can talk about things, and then decide what to do.”
“I’d really rather not.” She sighs deeply. “Look, Luke, I had a good time last night, I really did. I’m sure you’re a great guy. But we don’t even know each other. I’ve got a new job, I need to leave Vegas, and I just don’t have the time or energy to make this any more complicated than it needs to be. Help me out here, please?”
I mull it over, but I just can’t let her slip away this easily.
“Sorry,” I say, “but no deal. You know, they say communication is the most important thing in a marriage.”
It’s a bad joke, but I just can’t help myself. She just hangs up on me.
Great, real smooth, idiot.
Tessa
I feel like crap. And my surroundings aren’t helping.
I’m sitting in the waiting room of a lawyer’s office. It’s a poky little space, with a bored looking receptionist playing with her phone. A sad, dying little plant sits beside her desk.
Faded photographs hang on the walls of the lawyers with various “celebrity” clients (none of whom I recognize). It’s fair to say that this isn’t the most illustrious of lawyers, but he offers free initial consultations, and free is all I can afford right now.
I gulp as I imagine the army of lawyers that my husband likely has access to, and just hope he doesn’t have any need to use them.
I’ve got a headache, I feel bloated as all hell, and all the temple massaging in the world isn’t helping matters any. My period is due, so maybe it’s just a touch of PMS?
Before I have any more time to dwell on it, the door at the back of the room opens and the lawyer beckons me in.
He looks a little run down, and his cheap suit has certainly seen better days, but he has kind eyes and ushers me into his little office quietly and gently.
“So,” he says, “what can I help you with?”
I take a deep breath and fill him in on the situation, taking care to point out that it’s really out of character for me, and that I don’t usually marry strangers in a drunken stupor.
He smiles and holds up his hands. “Hey, there’s no judgement here. I’m just here to help you out and get this fixed for you.”
He looks over the papers I brought with me and thinks for a few moments.
“There’s some good news and some bad news. You can get the marriage annulled, assuming your husband is in agreement with regards to the circumstances. The bad news is, that because we’re not in the state where the marriage took place, you’ll need to have been resident here for thirty days before you can apply for that. It could have been done in Nevada, though.”
I sigh deeply. I wanted to get it all fixed before I left Vegas, but Luke being so stubborn meant that it hadn’t happened. He insisted on meeting for some reason, and I had not been up to that.
And besides, I had to leave quickly to start my new job. I figured Claire could help me out with anything that needed to be done in Nevada.
I don’t know what it is about me and marriage, but bad luck seems to follow me around when it comes to matters of the heart. I should just swear off men forever; that would make my life so much simpler.
I’ve been married before, to a beautiful man named Gio. It was around three years ago.
We met at a cocktail bar in town, and he’d caught my eye from across the room as soon as I saw him. He was funny, charming, self-confident and assertive. Oh, and gorgeous as all hell.
It had been a whirlwind romance, and I’d fallen for him harder and faster than anyone I’d ever met. We were married within months, and it was only then that the cracks started to show.
Gio told me that he worked for the ‘family business’, but was always reluctant to let me actually visit. Naively, I always assumed it was a restaurant or something like that, but then one day he showed up beaten black and blue. He tried to pass it off as a random act of violence from a stranger, but I didn’t buy it.
I’d done some research, and discovered that Gio’s family was one of the oldest and most notorious mob families in San Francisco.
I cursed myself for my stupidity, and confronted him about it. He came clean but told me not to worry, that he would always shield me from that side of his life, that he didn’t want me to have anything to do with it, and that’s why he’d hidden it from me in the first place.
I believed him, which was probably the most stupid thing of all. Within weeks he was dead—killed in a gunfight in some alley behind a club. He died instantly from a bullet to the head.
I was absolutely devas
tated.
Luckily, we never brought any children into our fucked-up life, although there had been a miscarriage early on in our marriage.
It felt like the end of the world at the time, but it had been the one thing that allowed me to make a clean break from Gio’s family and all the baggage that that entailed. Had we had a child together, I would never have been able to escape. As it was, I’d cut ties, moved away, and tried to move on.
It wasn’t easy, though. I’d loved Gio fiercely, loved him in the way someone might love a bird with a broken wing laying on the sidewalk. I’d wanted to protect him, to remove him from the dangerous life that he led, but in the end, it had been impossible.
So I ran, regrouped, and tried to get my life back on track. Landing this new job had been the culmination of all that effort. The final step, the final piece of the puzzle.
And, of course, I’ve now fucked it all up. Over a man. Again.
Tears are running down my face now, and the kindly lawyer offers me a tissue. I take it gratefully and try to clean myself up a little.
“I know how you feel, sweetheart, but this kind of thing happens all the time. You wouldn’t believe some of the crazy stories I hear. We can get this done in no time at all, once this waiting period is up. It’ll be like it never happened, and you’ll never even have to tell anyone. It’ll be a clean slate, and you can move on with your life, just leave it all to me.”
I thank him and gather my things to leave, promising to return once the waiting period is up and I actually have some money to pay him.
I take the bus home, things weighing heavily on my mind. As an afterthought, I get off a stop early and go into a pharmacy.
My period still hasn’t started, and it’s normally so regular. I tell myself that I can’t be pregnant, not after one night. I can’t be that unlucky, surely?
It’s probably just the stress of recent events throwing my body out of whack. I spend five of my last ten dollars on a pregnancy test.
So, I get home, pee on the stick . . . and it’s positive.
Shit. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
There’s another test in the box. I pace around my little apartment for a few minutes, as if that will somehow make any difference whatsoever, and try again.
Still positive.
I throw my head back and wail.
“Are you fucking serious right now? God, the universe, Yahweh, whoever the fuck is up there, can you just give me a goddamn break? Please?”
I remember what the lawyer said about a clean slate. So much for that now. I’ve got permanent marker on my slate now, in the form of a baby. A baby fathered by my husband, a man I don’t even know and can barely remember sleeping with.
I open the fridge and see a half-empty bottle of wine. I’m halfway through pouring a glass when I realize . . . I can’t drink. Grumbling, I tip the rest of the bottle down the sink.
I pace around for a few minutes more, my mind racing, and then pick up the phone. I should give Claire a call. She’s the only one with actual knowledge of the situation, the only one I can talk to.
A few rings, and she picks up.
“Hey, Tess, babe! How’s it going? Did you go see that lawyer yet? What did he say?”
I’m silent for a few moments, then I blurt it out. “I’m pregnant.”
“What?” A pause. An uncertain giggle. “You’re shitting me.”
I squeeze my temples, my tension headache not getting any better. “I can assure you that I am absolutely not shitting you. I’m the opposite of shitting you. Claire, what the hell am I going to do?”
She lets out a lengthy exhale. “Well, this is a bit of a pickle you’ve managed to get yourself into, isn’t it? Don’t you normally use protection when you’re banging someone you just met? I mean, I know he was technically your husband and all, but…”
“I mean, we both know I wasn’t making good decisions that night, so let’s just skip the whole protection lecture, okay? I heard enough of that in high school. At this point, let’s take it as an established fact that I was making terrible, awful decisions that night. And they’re coming back to bite me right in the ass.”
“Okay. Don’t freak out,” she says slowly. I get the feeling she’s trying to calm herself down instead of me. “Let’s run through your options. The marriage annulment is already in progress, right?”
I tell her what the lawyer said, and how I just need to wait a couple more weeks for the residency requirements here in Colorado before I can start the process.
“Okay. That’s good,” she says. “So that’s going to be dealt with. So now it’s just the baby.”
Just the baby. Claire’s talking as if it’s a detail barely worth mentioning. Oh, it’s not a big deal at all, ha-ha, it’s just the baby.
She pauses for a moment, and I know what she’s going to say.
“Have you thought about . . .” She trails off, not wanting to say the actual words.
“I can’t,” I say firmly. “No way. Not after last time, with Gio. I just can’t. Getting rid of the baby is absolutely not an option.”
“Are you sure, babe?” Claire’s voice is kind.
“Yeah.”
“You’ve only just found out, right? Maybe take a few days to think on it and make sure that’s what you want. If you really want to cut ties with Luke Alder forever . . .” Claire falls silent mid-sentence like she often does when a random thought strikes her. “What if he wants to be a part of the kid’s life?”
I consider her words. It’s not like the same thought hasn’t crossed my mind. “He doesn’t need to know about the baby. I can take care of it by myself and still have that clean break.”
Claire’s silent. I know she doesn’t agree with me, but she doesn’t want to upset me. Which is great. I don’t need a fight with my best friend on top of all my other problems.
“Look, Tess,” she eventually says, in her serious voice. “You really need to take some time to consider your options here. Don’t go rushing into anything rash, and don’t make up your mind without thinking things through.”
She’s right. I have time. Even if I disagree with what she thinks I should do, her reminder eases my anxiety somewhat.
“You know I’m always here for you, no matter what.” Claire doesn’t miss a beat before adding, “I can get Daddy to book you another flight out here if you need?”
“That’s really sweet of you,” I say, a smile playing on my lips because that was just a very Claire thing to say. Some things haven’t changed, even if I feel like my whole world has turned upside down.
“I know.”
“But I’m still planning on starting my new job next week. I can’t let this get in the way. I’ll just have to somehow deal with all of . . .” I can hear the fear and uncertainty in my own words, and my voice trails off.
“Listen, Tess,” she says, “I know it all seems so overwhelming at the moment, but you’ve got this. You’re strong, intelligent, and the most stubborn bitch I’ve ever met. I mean that in the nicest possible way.” She breaks off to giggle.
“Thanks . . . I think.” I laugh.
“Anyway,” she continues, “you can do this. Believe in yourself!”
“Okay, okay. Enough with the pep talk. You’re starting to sound like a motivational speaker.” Despite my protest, I’m smiling. Claire always manages to find a way to cheer me up. And now, somehow, it feels like I might be able to manage this after all. “I’ll sleep on it, and decide what to do tomorrow.”
We say our goodbyes, and I curl up on the couch with some tea. I switch the TV on, but I can’t concentrate.
Maybe this baby is what I need. Maybe it’s the universe’s way of telling me that it’s time to get my shit together. If I can’t do that for me, maybe I can do it for my baby.
Luke
I’m trying to concentrate, but it’s like pulling teeth. From an alligator.
I stare off into the distance, images of that night in Vegas still playing through my mind.
It’s been two weeks. Two weeks of the same handful of questions swirling in my brain. Questions I can’t answer.
What’s Tessa doing? Where is she now? Why was she so adamant that we never see each other again?
From what I can tell, she had just as good of a time as I did. Sure, maybe we went a little too far with the wedding, but I have far more to lose than she does, and I’m not the one freaking out.
I sigh and stare out of the window. The views are amazing from up here. Not surprising, really. InFini’s headquartered in the tallest building in downtown Colorado.
My father built Alder Investments from nothing—a small one-man operation in a rented office across the street. But now look at it. One of the biggest corporations in the country with multi-billion dollar revenues and it’s still growing, acquiring household names like InFini.
And it’s mine now. Dad decided to retire earlier this year, handing over the reins of the company to me, along with all of the power, women and influence that come with it.
I’d been looking forward to the day, sure that I was ready for the responsibility. Having spent years in Dad’s shadow, being the “Adler heir,” the crushing weight of expectation had almost been too much to bear at times.
But I’ve worked my ass off, and definitely taken nothing for granted. I’ve developed the skillset to take this role on, I’ve got the leaderships skills, and I’ve got the charisma to lead and deal with challengers and new acquisitions.
During my time as a manager in the corporation, I’d enjoyed the cutthroat nature of the business, the need to excel to beat out the competition. I’d thought that once Dad retired and handed the business over to me, that I’d be able to hone those skills further, to take the business to new heights in new markets.
But that dream is fast turning out to be nowhere near the reality.