Sweet Southern Betrayal

by Robin Covington

  Teague closed the door and scooped up her suitcase with one hand, his other at the small of Risa’s back, steering her over to an adjacent door, where he inserted his key and waved her up the stairs. On the second-floor landing he unlocked another door and ushered her into a large, light-filled apartment. It wasn’t huge, but it was modern, with high-end touches, and it was sterile. No personal photos on the tables or walls. Nothing stuck to the stainless steel fridge. Teague might live here, but had no intention on staying from what she could tell.

  The clang of his keys landing in a silver bowl on a side table jangled too loudly in the silence of the space and set her nerves a little more on edge.

  Teague walked over to the kitchen, opening the door to the fridge and peering inside. “Do you need anything? I’ve got water, beer, tea…”

  “Water would be great.” Risa laid her purse on the large granite-covered island and settled on a chair. She opened her bag, pulling out the documents Teague would want to see.

  “Okay, so why do you think we’re married?” Teague slid a bottle of water toward her, taking a long swallow from his beer before leaning on his elbows on the countertop. His face was grim, the tightness around his mouth matching the coldness in his eyes, but also betraying that he was within a couple seconds of losing his tightly wound control.

  “I got this in the mail yesterday.” She handed over their certificate of marriage, watching as he read the words she had memorized. Clark County, Nevada. Groom: William Teague Elliott IV. Bride: Larisa Ellen Clay. Location: Graceland Wedding Chapel.

  His review complete, Teague placed the certificate on the counter and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was at the “holy shit” part of this little adventure, and she gave him his space to freak the hell out. God knows she had.

  “But there were no photographs. No rings.” He looked up at her, still baffled and lost.

  “Oh no, there are pictures. Plenty of them.” She opened the larger envelope and slid the pictures out in a fan shape on the island so he could get an eyeful. “Apparently, we splurged on the ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ Elvis wedding package. It included photos and a DVD. Wait until you check out the ceremony. It’s a keeper.”

  Teague lifted each photo to get a better look. The look of horror on his face grew with each shot.

  “Oh fuck.” Teague slumped against the countertop, head hung down and shoulder muscles bunched tightly under his suit jacket. “This can’t be happening. My partnership…this is…” He slammed his fist down on the counter, knocking over his bottle of beer with a loud crash that echoed in the silent apartment. “Damn it!”

  Walking around the island, she approached him cautiously, unsure if he would allow her close enough to touch. But when she reached out a hand, he allowed her to tug him into a hug, squeezing him hard. It seemed it was the least she could do for Teague.

  She’d screwed him over so royally.

  “This is going to ruin everything,” he murmured against her hair with such bitter finality that she almost fell to her knees with the weight of her guilt at what she’d done.

  It was in that moment she decided she wouldn’t tell him about Big Tony. They’d take care of this little marriage problem and she’d disappear. She and Pepper had talked about starting over, and now seemed like a really good time to do it.

  “Hey, you okay?” Risa pulled back far enough to look at him. She cradled his face in her hands, stroking the stubbled line of his jaw. “You’re a lawyer, right? You can fix this. No problem.”

  She wasn’t sure if she was asking or telling, but suddenly she was desperate to hear something. It occurred to her that her sense of calm had been based on the belief that Teague could fix this quickly and without too much fuss. Now she wasn’t sure if that assumption had been a safe one to make. But she knew she had to be free to get away from Big Tony and disappear. He was her last hope.

  Teague stared down at her, only slightly hesitating before nodding and rallying enough to offer her a weak smile that did little to boost her confidence. He squeezed her in assurance. “Yes, I’ll take care of this. Don’t worry. But this needs to be our secret. My job—”

  Risa jumped and involuntarily moved closer when the door to the apartment opened quickly and three people walked into the space in a jumble of noise and laughter. A young woman with a cute pixie cut bounded into the room, dragging a tall, handsome man behind her. An older, smartly dressed woman followed more sedately behind them and closed the door.

  “Teague! Did you forget about dinner? Jerline said you had company. What—” The young woman stopped a few steps from the island, her expression a mixture of confusion, shock, but mostly avid curiosity. “Who’s this?”

  Risa stared back at this group of strangers, ready and willing to follow Teague’s lead.

  “Teague?” The older woman stepped forward, zeroing in on where their arms were still wrapped around each other and then down to the array of papers and photographs laid out before them on the counter. Her head whipped back up, eyes wide, but shrewdly assessing the situation.

  The man saw the photos at about the same time and he wasted no time stepping forward to scoop up one of the photographs. Teague dropped his forehead onto her shoulder, a deep pained groan of “oh fuck” escaping from his lips.

  Apparently the gig was up.

  Whoever these people were, they weren’t going to jump on the “let’s keep this a secret” bandwagon.

  “No fucking way.” The guy laughed, the lines around his baby blues crinkling at the corners. He let it loose, almost doubled over with the hilarity of the situation, holding the picture up when the two women crowded around him to get a better look.

  The younger woman gasped at the picture. “Teague, who is this woman?”

  “Fuck me,” Teague murmured, his grip tightening almost painfully around her waist as the stressful seconds ticked by. He finally lifted his head, answering clearly and with no hesitation.

  “She’s my wife.”

  Chapter Five

  This morning had been so normal.

  Just a few short hours ago he’d risen early and gotten in his seven-mile run before jumping in the shower and getting dressed for work. He’d eaten his usual breakfast at the Comfort and checked off the three weeks remaining on his time here in Elliott cleaning up the mess his father had left behind. At lunch, he’d spoken to Leland and played it cool when he’d informed Teague the firm’s partnership board was going to announce his partnership any day now.

  A firm that would not look favorably upon a partner showing up with a showgirl wife he’d married during a drunken spree in Las Vegas. Harrison & Duff cleaned up scandalous messes for other people, but they didn’t tolerate them among their ranks.

  This morning he’d been a single man and his life has been so much simpler.

  Taylor broke the awkward silence. “When did this happen?”

  Teague locked eyes with Risa and hugged her closer, hoping she heard the “play along” primal scream running through his head. He needed time to figure out how he was going to un-fuck this situation. He smiled down at his bride in what he hoped was eternal love, but he’d settle for fond affection with only a hint of nausea. “After your wedding.”

  “How? How did this happen?”

  He ignored her question because he hadn’t figured out the right answer to that particular question yet. Introductions were easier. He stepped back, gesturing to the woman at his side. “Everyone, this is Risa Clay.”

  “Oh baby, you mean Risa Clay Elliott,” Risa said, her smile big, bright, and full of sappy newlywed hearts and flowers. He could have kissed her for being such a good sport. “Why don’t you introduce me?”

  “Of course. This is my mother, Marian Elliott, my sister, Mary-Taylor Landon—”

  “Just call me Taylor,” his sister said with a big, goofy grin. She was enjoying the hell out of this and didn’t bother to disguise it. She, as usual, was going to be a problem.

  “And one of my olde
st friends and brother-in-law, Lucky Landon.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Lucky.” Risa cocked her head to the side, her silver eyes sparkling with mischief as she charmed them all. “All of you. I know this must come as quite a shock.”

  “Now that’s the understatement of the century,” Lucky said, laughing until Marian gave him the look that had turned bigger and badder men to stone.

  “Where are you from, my dear?” his mother asked, trying her best to remain the epitome of Southern gentility, but Teague could tell she wanted to kill him for letting her find out this way. His mother was a stickler for manners, and dumping an unknown daughter-in-law in her lap was the height of rudeness.

  “I live in Las Vegas, ma’am.”

  “And what do you do there?”

  “I’m a dancer on the strip.”

  Oh hell. It was amazing the incredible number of vivid, tawdry, and embarrassing images those six little words could conjure in the span of few seconds. In HD, no less.

  Teague scrambled to clear this misunderstanding up before his mother’s sharp inhale sucked the oxygen out of the room and killed them all. Risa had the same idea and they stumbled over each other to set the record straight.

  “No. I’m a performer in a real show.”

  “She’s not a stripper.”

  “I have costumes. We sing and dance—”

  “All of her clothes stay on,” Teague said in a rush, relieved to see the color return to his mother’s face. This situation was going to be hard enough to navigate without letting that rumor get around.

  “So, you two met in Vegas?” Taylor asked.

  Teague met Risa’s gaze as he lifted her hand to brush a kiss across her soft skin. She looked back, her eyes searching his gaze for their next move. He didn’t want them to know he’d married her when he was drunk out of his mind—the fewer people who knew, the better. He might be able to get out of this with some dignity in the end.

  This was all about damage control. He did this every fucking day for other people.

  “I met her through work. About a year ago.”

  Lucky’s eyebrows shot up and he opened his mouth to say something, but Teague gave him a look that thankfully shut him up. Of course he recognized Risa from the photo on Beck’s phone, but no one else had to know that fact. Ever.

  “Oh, do you own a business, Risa? What kind?” Taylor said.

  “I do.” Risa looked at him helplessly, her alarmed expression causing his stomach to lurch down into his toes. He wasn’t going to like where this went, he just knew it.

  “What kind?”

  Risa’s voice was firm, no hint of an apology or embarrassment when she finally answered. “I sell sensual marital aids and exclusive nightwear for couples.”

  “What?” His mother wrinkled her nose in incomprehension.

  “It sounds like she sells sex toys and lingerie,” Lucky said, a shit-eating grin plastered on his face.

  “Well, that’s one way to describe it.” Risa made eye contact with all of them. “It’s very tasteful. My company is called Behind Closed Doors and I help people keep the romance alive.”

  Teague resisted the urge to look for the hidden camera. Someone had to be fucking with him, because this kind of stuff just didn’t happen in real life. How the hell did he manage to find and marry the Vegas showgirl who also happened to peddle vibrators and crotchless underwear? This was not how he usually ran his life. He had plans. Everything was under control and ahead of schedule. He couldn’t have done this much damage in one night. Could he?

  “That sounds wonderful. Such a nice way to help people, ” his mother said, her smile a little too bright and forced to be real. But, God bless her, she was trying. “Taylor, you’re practically still on your honeymoon, maybe you could find some things for you and—”

  “Okay!” Teague was not going to listen to his mom discuss sex toys with his sister. He needed to get rid of them so he could talk to Risa and figure out how to become single again without anyone in DC finding out. “Speaking of honeymoons, Risa and I haven’t seen each other in a while so…”

  He pulled Risa close to his side and nodded toward the door.

  “Oh, of course.” His mother turned quickly, the relief of getting an escape making her almost break into a run. At the door, she recollected her manners and stopped short, turning to offer a smile to her daughter-in-law. “Risa, dear, we’ll have lunch when you’re settled. Welcome to the family.”

  And with a nod of her head and a swift shooing gesture to Lucky and Taylor, she ushered them out the door in a clamor of shoes on the stairs down to the street. The apartment was startlingly silent in their wake, the only sound the ticking of the grandfather clock whose time told him that it had only been a half hour since his life had fallen apart.

  “Your family seems nice,” Risa said, breaking away from him to walk to the fridge where she opened the door and emerged with a beer in hand. She could drink the whole damn case and he wouldn’t blame her. He was torn between wanting to get wasted and forget this all happened, and bashing his head against the wall.

  “Not that I have a whole lot of family experience to compare it to, but they didn’t freak completely out when they got the news.”

  Teague loosened his tie, stripping it off with a vicious tug and ignoring the distinct sound of the silk ripping under his abuse. Normally, his suits and ties were like a second skin and he was as comfortable in them as he was in a pair of sweats, but today the length of expensive Italian silk felt like a goddamn noose around his neck.

  He didn’t even bother to check the anger and frustration in his voice this time. He was moving beyond shock and right into pissed-off and violent.

  “Oh, don’t kid yourself, this was round one. Once my mother and sister have had time to digest this news, they’ll be back for the full interrogation. I’ll be lucky if my mother doesn’t kill me for doing this to her after the year she’s had.”

  Risa flinched at his rant so he took a deep breath and nodded as she slid an icy cold beer across the countertop in his direction. “And I don’t want to even think about the ball-busting Lucky is going lay on me.”

  “Will they keep it a secret?”

  “Fuck no.” He shot her a look of sympathy; he couldn’t even accurately describe just how much shit they were both going to get for this move. He was the least likely of their crew to do something like this and they would milk it for every ounce of embarrassing opportunity. ”I apologize in advance for my best friends’ being jackasses.”

  “Thanks for the warning.”

  “The problem is with the fine residents of my hometown. Jerline and the Parkers already know there’s a new woman in town and it will start the cycle of gossip. People aren’t mean-spirited, but this town is too small to keep anything like this a secret for long. I only wish we’d had more time to get our story straight before my family walked in.”

  “So the whole secrecy thing was blown within minutes of me being here.” Her lush mouth twisted down into a pretty little pout, evoking fuzzy images of long, slow kisses and deep sighs that had haunted him for the past two weeks. Another thing not in his carefully laid plans.

  “Pretty much. But it’s more important for me to keep this marriage away from my real life in DC. That is what cannot happen.” He slid onto a barstool and motioned for her to sit down next to him as he snagged his laptop from where it rested on the island. Waking it up, he typed his query into the search engine and let it pull up the information he needed. “I’m only here long enough to wrap up my father’s law practice.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. When did he pass away?”

  “He didn’t. He’s shacked up in Costa Rica with his twenty-five-year-old paralegal while I clean up the mess he left behind.” Teague clicked on the link to the Clark County clerk’s office and the information about getting a marriage annulled. He would do what he did best—figure out how to fix this mess. The work would help quell his urge to pick up the damn laptop and throw it t
hrough a window.

  He kept typing and clicking until he noticed Risa was quiet beside him. He glanced over, confused by the expression on her face. “What’s that look for?”

  “So, he just walked away from his wife and family after all these years? Your poor mother.”

  “Who?”

  “Your dad.”

  “Oh.” She was still thinking about that? “I think her pride was hurt more than her feelings.”

  “That’s a callous thing to say about your own mother. This must have been devastating for her.”

  Teague sighed, turning to fully face her while he explained the sad reality of his parents’ marriage. “Look, we were like one of those perfect families on TV. We performed well for the live audience and made them feel bad they didn’t have lives as wonderful as ours. But we were all actors playing a role and my father got tired of pretending.”

  “So they never loved each other?”

  The wistful pain in her voice pierced his hard shell of cynicism when it came to marriage. He recalled her earlier comment about having no experience with real families and now felt as if he was bursting her bubble.

  “Maybe. They had a plan, a course of action, that would make him a player in politics and she would be the society queen. This affair wasn’t his first, but he’d never broken the pact before. I honestly think my mother is more pissed about him busting the image than breaking his vow.”

  “Well, that’s still sad.” Her chin jutted out in that stubborn tilt he was surprised to recognize and chagrined to discover made him want to kiss her. He had officially lost his mind. Pushing down that colossally bad idea, he turned back to the computer.

  “My firm would tank my partnership and decline to back me for own political goals if I turned up with a wife I married in Vegas while drunk off my ass.”

  “And if they knew she was a showgirl who sells sex toys on the side?” She kept her voice bright, but Teague didn’t miss the edge of defensive vulnerability in her tone. Hell, he’d just insulted her and it wasn’t his goal to make her feel bad. It wasn’t her fault he’d lost his mind.