“She wants the annulment too?” Logan asked, concern shining through his eyes.
“Of course she does! Who the fuck would ever want to stay married to me? Definitely not someone like her, who’s been raised on her daddy’s money and high society. That woman is everything I loathed growing up. I got shipped from foster home to foster home praying that I’d get placed with my sister in the next one. Hoping they wouldn’t mind feeding a teenage boy, let alone clothing me during a growth spurt. Don’t even get me started on trying to play hockey during those years.”
“Cannon,” Axel started, but I cut him off.
“Persephone hasn’t struggled for a single thing in her life. She’s been handed whatever she wanted the minute she wanted it. She has no idea what it’s like to come from my background or deal with my damage. You honestly think two people that different have any business sharing a last name?”
By the time I finished my tirade, the guys were all looking anywhere but at me. Or the doorway behind me.
My stomach hit the fucking floor.
“She’s standing right behind me, isn’t she?” I snapped.
They had the nerve to mutter and nod.
“Well, now that you’ve covered every reason I’ll never be what you want, do you think you have a couple of minutes to talk, husband?”
I turned around slowly, steeling myself for what I’d find.
Persephone stared me down despite my height advantage. She wore a different dress than the one she’d worn home on the plane a few hours ago. It was pink, like the color rising in her cheeks, and the simple sheath clung to every elegant line the woman had.
“If we must,” I agreed, then walked right past her, heading for the locker room.
How the fuck was I married to her? Of every fantasy I’d ever allowed myself to have, my ring on her finger had not been one of them.
“Can you please slow down?” she called after me. “Not all of us are six feet tall!”
“Six five,” I threw over my shoulder. “Wait here.” I slipped into the team locker room and grabbed my bag. She’d caught up to me by the time I exited. “Follow me.”
I led her down the hall a bit to the away locker room, then flipped the light switch and held the door open for her.
“Well, at least I’m getting two-word sentences,” she muttered as she passed under my arm. God, everything about the woman was petite except her curves. Those were fully fleshed out, as my brain liked to remind me every five fucking seconds since waking up in bed next to her.
“What can I do for you, wife?” Why the fuck did I say that? Just because I could? Because as soon as the annulment went through, she’d be free to have someone else call her that? A rage bubble rose in my throat at the thought.
“I just need to talk to you for a second.” Oh great, now she was pulling on her pearls, which was a definite sign that she was stressed.
“Okay.” I stripped off my shirt and threw it on the bench.
Her eyes widened, and her lips parted as her gaze skimmed my chest, no doubt horrified by the amount of ink I had going on there. Hadn’t she gotten an eyeful in that hotel room?
I kicked off my shoes, peeled off my socks, and tossed them in the same direction as my shirt. Then I dropped my athletic shorts, leaving me in nothing but my black boxer briefs.
The fact that I was semi-hard didn’t faze me. That was pretty much my constant state around Persephone, and I’d gotten used to it. Apparently, she hadn’t, though, because her eyes had graduated from wide to fucking huge.
“You’re not talking.” I grabbed my shower bag and walked right past her slackened jaw.
Of course, my ink shocked her. The guys she’d been with probably had their frat symbols inked on their arms, and that was it. Hell, if that.
“Right. Um. Sorry. It’s just that you’re naked.” Her voice pitched ridiculously high, and I grinned as I headed for the shower, knowing she couldn’t see it.
“Not yet, but soon, sweetheart.” I reached the showers and started to lower my boxer briefs.
“Oh my God! Right! I’ll just wait out here!”
I glanced over my shoulder to see her covering her eyes with her hand, backing away like she’d stumbled onto the set of a porn.
“You do that,” I called out before turning on the shower and getting to business. I took my time, careful not to give my already-eager cock too much attention as I washed. The last thing I needed was to sport a full hard on while trying to deal with whatever shit she wanted to talk about.
She’d probably faint right on the spot.
I finished my shower, then wrapped myself in a towel, tucking it in at the waist before walking back into the locker room.
She sat next to my gym bag and meticulously folded pile of laundry. God, the woman couldn’t even stand to have dirty clothes out of place, so how the hell had she ever thought marrying me was a good idea?
“You said you wanted to talk. So, talk.”
“Right. I did.” She stood like it would somehow put us on an even playing ground when I was a good foot or more taller than she was. I momentarily thought about lifting her to the bench so she wouldn’t have to crane her neck. “Look, about our marriage…”
“The one I already promised to get annulled first thing Monday?”
“Monday?” She looked stricken.
“Damn, Princess, I know people jump at your command, but we literally got married on a Friday. I can’t exactly ask my lawyer to file papers at a court that isn’t open until Monday. I’m sorry I can’t wave a magic wand and make the last forty-eight hours disappear, but I’m trying my hardest.”
“What? No. That’s not what I meant.” She shook her head, sending her hair moving in a ripple.
Fuck, she was beautiful. Fucking flawless.
“Then please tell me what you meant.”
Her gaze lingered on my abs before she dragged it up to meet mine. “It’s really hard to think when you’re not wearing any clothes,” she snapped.
“I think just fine. I’d even go as far to say that I do my best work without my clothes.”
She seethed. “Cannon, please! I’m trying to talk about something serious, and I can’t very well do that when you’re standing there all...” She stepped forward, her gaze locked on my stomach, and she reached forward, almost absent-minded.
“Don’t.” I stepped out of her reach, and her eyes flew to mine, wide and embarrassed. “Standing here all what?” I dared her. “Inked? Scary? Scandalous?”
“Gorgeous!” she snapped, then blinked. “Scary? You’re not scary. You’re distracting the shit out of me, but you’re not scary.”
Gorgeous? I took in the flush of her cheeks and the rapid rise and fall of her breasts against that modest neckline. Huh. Maybe I wasn’t the only one fighting an attraction here.
“Turn around,” I ordered.
“What?”
“Turn around unless you want an eyeful.”
Our eyes locked as the room filled with a potent electricity. Fuck me, but one tug of this towel, and a simple tug of her panties to the side, and I could be so deep inside this woman that she’d be ruined for every man who came after me.
The thought had its appeal.
She broke the connection, turning her back on me, and I went about getting dressed.
“I don’t think we can get this annulled.”
I paused momentarily, then jerked my boxer briefs up and reached for my shorts. “Why? It’s not like we had sex.”
“You don’t know that,” she said primly.
I pulled on my shorts and shirt. “It’s safe to turn around now.”
She did, and I felt an odd sense of satisfaction that she looked disappointed when she saw I had my shirt on.
“I do know that we didn’t have sex,” I reiterated, sitting to get my socks and shoes on.
“You can’t possibly know that!” She repeated.
“No condoms in the trash can. Trust me, even drunk, there’s no way I’d fo
rget to use one.”
“Well, maybe you did this time. I mean, we both did things completely out of character, right?” She ran her tongue across her lips, and I quelled the urge to pull her toward me and suck it into my mouth.
My gaze narrowed. What the hell was she getting at?
“Are you sore?” I bent to tie my shoes, and by the time I looked up, she still hadn’t answered me. “Well, are you? Because if we’d had sex, trust me, you’d still feel it. You’re fucking tiny, and I’m not.”
“Well, no.” She looked away. “But that doesn’t mean anything, either.”
It what? My gaze narrowed. “Okay, then how about this. It wouldn’t matter if I was drugged out of my goddamned mind. If I ever got my hands on your body, I’d remember. We didn’t have sex. Trust me. What the hell is this really about, Persephone?”
She swallowed and took a deep breath. “I need us to stay married.”
My jaw dropped. “I’m sorry?”
“My mom is really sick. She’s dying. She has a super rare blood type, and her kidneys are failing. We’ve tried for the last five years to find her a match and can’t. The doctors are giving her months, Cannon. That’s it. Just months.” She took a seat beside me on the bench.
“God, I’m sorry.” Losing my mother had been the worst moment of my life. I wouldn’t wish that shit on my worst enemy. Persephone was a lot of things, but she wasn’t even close to being an enemy.
“Thank you. I guess it just goes to show you that money can’t buy everything, right?” She forced a smile. “I thought she was going to lose it when the press got ahold of our wedding pictures.”
“Fucking chapel,” I muttered.
“We should definitely report them to the Better Business Bureau,” she said with a nod.
The corners of my mouth lifted.
“Anyway, instead of being angry at me, she was thrilled.” Her voice shook a little.
“Thrilled?” I examined her profile, but there wasn’t any hint that she was lying.
“She was so happy. She said she just wanted to see me happy. To see me find love. And then she mentioned the dozen or so times my older sister has been married and annulled within a month, and I felt so…slimy.”
“Slimy,” I repeated because I didn’t have any other words.
“Right.” She turned slightly and looked up at me.
Fuuuuuuck, those eyes hit me right in the heart. I threw up every defense I’d managed to construct in my twenty-seven years, and those baby blues sliced right through them like butter.
“Cannon, I know you hate me and hate how I was raised and pretty much everything I stand for, but would you consider staying married to me? At least until…” She drifted off.
At least until my mother dies. I heard her unspoken words loud and clear.
“Persephone, I’m the last person your family would ever want you married to, even for a few months. Look at me.”
She didn’t flinch. “I am looking at you, Cannon. My mother has seen your pictures. She knows you’re an NHL star. She knows, and she’s still so happy for me, and the idea of taking that happiness away from her when she’s already lost so much…” She shook her head.
It would only be for a few months. Holy shit, was I actually considering this? “There are a thousand reasons this is a shit idea.”
Her eyes flared with hope. “But one really good reason that it’s not. And I wouldn’t ask much of you, I promise. Well, there’s one thing.” She cringed.
“There’s something bigger than asking me to stay married to you when we both know we’re completely wrong for each other?”
“Mom wants to plan a wedding.”
“Fuck that—”
“She said she can’t die knowing that I was married by a singing Elvis and she wasn’t even there to see me, or have my dad give me away. And it would be a really small affair, and it wouldn’t hurt anyone because we’re already married, right?” She pressed her lips in a thin line and flat-out begged. “Please, Cannon? Please?”
Those eyes. They were my fucking kryptonite.
But marry her again? This time for real? Just to turn around and annul it months later? Months of living with her? Struggling to keep my hands off her?
“Persephone, I don’t know. I really respect what you’re trying to do for your mom. You have no idea how much I respect you for it but do you really want her last months on this earth—her last months with you—to be consumed by a lie?”
She stood slowly and turned to face me. “I want her last months on this earth to be consumed by happiness, and if I have to lie to give her that, then I hope she’ll forgive me when I eventually join her. I hate having to ask you to lie. I’ve honestly never known you to even tell a lie. But I can’t give that kind of happiness to my mother without your help. I know it’s unfair of me to ask, but there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her.”
She raised her chin and stilled, waiting for my verdict.
“I need some time to think. Can you give me that?” I asked her.
Hope flared in her eyes again, and she nodded enthusiastically. “Absolutely. I can give you that.” She gifted me with a smile that would have knocked me on my ass if I hadn’t been sitting down. “I’ll talk to you later.”
She was almost out the door when I called her name.
“Persephone.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t hate you,” I assured her gently. Her posture softened. “I might hate everything your wealth stands for, but I don’t hate you. There’s a difference.” I needed her to know that. Why? Who the hell knew.
“Thank you. And don’t stress about the wedding thing. Really. I’ll even buy your tux. You know, a real one. Not like the tux and T-shirt you wore to the Vegas wedding.”
My eyes widened, and she waved her goodbye and ran.
Smart woman.
I headed home to Reaper Village, where the team all had houses in the same suburban neighborhood, and called the only woman I trusted.
My sister answered and filled me in on life with my nephew before dropping the bomb that she’d already seen the gossip sites.
“I figured you’d tell me when you wanted to.”
She was seriously the best. I caught her up on everything, from waking up in Vegas to Persephone’s plea in the locker room.
“What do I do?” I asked as I pulled into my driveway.
“You’re asking me for advice on marriage?” She laughed. “God, I think mine lasted, what? Six months?”
“I’m serious, Lillian. I need advice, and you’re the only one who really knows me well enough to give it.”
She sighed. “Okay. All I can say is to follow your heart. And honestly, what would you give to go back and make Mom that blissfully happy during her last months?”
“Anything,” I replied. “I would give anything.”
I guess I had my answer.
4
Persephone
I paced the length of my foyer, my cream pumps keeping time with the ancient grandfather clock that decorated the space. The second hand ticked louder than it had when it was originally constructed, or so I’d been told, but I’d become accustomed to the steady click of it. And right now, that second hand felt like it counted down my very life’s breath.
Because Cannon Price would be here any minute.
My heart raced despite my efforts to calm it. Gerald—head of security and currently on gate duty tonight—had phoned down moments ago informing me Mr. Price would like to see me. Lord, bless Gerald. He’d been like a second father to me growing up, and he was just as protective.
I’d barely been able to manage a full sentence when Cannon had called me the hour prior, saying he wanted to talk. And rattling off my address had never been harder.
“You honestly think two people that different have any business sharing a last name?”
Cannon’s words echoed in my head, stinging just as much now as they had the first time I’d heard them. Of all the things I’d expect
ed walking to the weight room in search of him, those cold words were the last. Cannon was many things—grumpy, guarded, and infuriatingly teasing—but he’d never been outright icy toward me.
And yet, when I’d told him about my mother, something in him had melted toward our predicament. That softness I sometimes caught in his hard, dark gaze had surfaced.
“I don’t hate you.”
The memory sent a warm chill over my skin.
The breath in my lungs halted as two strong thuds sounded against my front door. I swore even the grandfather clock paused as my fingers reached for the knob. This moment would either make or break me, and it was all in Cannon’s hands.
After a deep breath, I straightened my spine and slowly opened the door.
Cannon wore a black pair of Reaper athletic pants, and a tight black T-shirt covered his incredibly muscled chest and torso. Those damn arms were on display, though, enough to make heat sizzle in my blood. The whorls of ink created patterns and pictures—a story I desperately wanted to understand.
“You live with your parents?” Cannon tucked his hands into his pockets, leaning against the doorframe like he’d be content to speak to me about our future on the porch.
I shook my head, pointing behind him and to the east. “No,” I said. “They live on the eastward portion of the estate.”
Cannon arched a brow, his jet-black hair falling slightly over his forehead as he waited. Silent, yet with the churning ferocity of a storm building over the ocean. Damn this man, why did he make me feel so small? I’d never had that problem my entire life, despite being short.
“Would you please come in?” I motioned behind me. “I have a pitcher of ice tea in the study.”
He snorted, likely at my southern manners, but elected to come all the way into my home. The heat from his body seemed charged as he passed me, like running my fingers over staticky fabric.
Cannon (Carolina Reapers Book 5) Page 4