Before Daylight. Andie J. Christopher

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      “Well, one of the last things I remember was you telling me how much you wanted to get married, which I frankly thought was weird. And then, I told you that you were barking up the wrong tree.”

      Charlie didn’t even remember that. He recalled walking over to Laura as she sat at the bar alone while everyone danced. He’d ordered them both drinks. Those fucking tropical drinks that had fucked his whole life up.

      “The drinks—”

      Laura moved her finger back and forth in his face. “Uh-uh. You’re not going to pretend that this wasn’t your plan all along.”

      He wasn’t sure if the hair on his arms stood up because he was turned on or terrified of her. She was out of her damned mind, this one. “Why would I marry someone that I hardly know?” And someone who had made her clear disinterest in him plainly known as soon as he’d joined her at the bar. Charlie was an affable guy, a bit of a flirt, and they were two of the only single people at the wedding. He’d figured they’d have a drink and she could maybe make him look good on the dance floor.

      She’d shut him down immediately, like before he could get a word out. Sort of like she’d shut down his explanation.

      His shoulders collapsed, and he looked at the screen. He couldn’t take the Laura Delgado death glare any longer. He wondered if she deployed it in order to get the best roles as a principal dancer. If she frightened Charlie with a flash of her fathomless, almost-black eyes, then a ballet teacher wouldn’t be able to stand up to it.

      He shook his head again, hoping to rattle a memory loose, some sort of clue as to how this had happened. “How did you find out?”

      “My grandfather told me that he couldn’t file my taxes without my husband’s signature.”

      “So there’s actual paperwork on this?”

      “Apparently someone in the Balinese bureaucracy sent something to someone in the Dade County clerk’s office, so we’re all official.”

      Fuck. “I’ll give you the annulment”

      “Of course you will.”

      Her scoffing tone got under his skin—like the idea of marrying him was the worst thing that could ever happen to her. “What if I hadn’t wanted the annulment?”

      “We didn’t consummate the marriage, so I don’t think that would be an option for you.”

      She had a point. They’d both been drunk, but by the time they’d made it to the hammock, he’d had the presence of mind to put a stop to her digging in his trousers for his dick. Even with a long-term partner, drunk sloppy sex was not his favorite. And, with a stranger, it was completely out of the question. When they had sex—and the way their sparks were flying off each other, they would have sex—he wanted her present and willing.

      Still, even though she was pissed at him and probably thinking of ways to detach his nads and serve them to him, he kind of wanted to consummate the fake marriage. Before she ended it. He wanted to kiss up and down her regal neck and unwind the tight bun so her hair would fall over and brush his chest. He wanted her to moan with pleasure like she had that night—their wedding night—when he’d rubbed her to a hard orgasm as a consolation prize for refusing to fuck her.

      But, what he needed to know was how and why this happened.

      And, he was sitting in the right room to do it. He hadn’t made it to the footage of the reception yet, where any incriminating video might be found. If there was any moment to skip to the good parts, that moment was now.

      Chapter 2

      He had no right to sit there looking so good and smelling so good. Not while she was panicking and furious with him. The smile he’d given her when she’d stormed into the room was knee-weakening. And resolve-deadening.

      “I was editing the wedding video while waiting for the Bali show to go through post-production. Maybe there’s a clue as to how the fuck this happened here.”

      Laura couldn’t stand how calm Charlie was about this whole thing. If she hadn’t menaced him quite thoroughly when she walked in, he probably would have shrugged a shoulder, opened a beer, and moved on. This didn’t even seem to register as a mild inconvenience for him. And, for some reason, that infuriated her.

      She wanted him to act like a dick so she wouldn’t feel guilty about yelling at him. He was being so accommodating and unruffled, despite the video he’d made about his ex-wife and her opinions about his sexual prowess five years ago. She’d watched it after Carla had told her about the television show, and her cousin had assured her that Charlie was not that guy. Jonah and Carla even let him babysit Layla, which spoke volumes about how much they trusted him. Carla barely let her own brother hold Layla—she’d told him that he needed at least five years free of stripper glitter before touching her. She’d been joking, but barely.

      Delivering the news that his second marriage was about to be even shorter than his first kind of felt like kicking a puppy.

      “Want to watch the tape and figure it out?”

      That would be helpful, but she had to get out of this room before spending too much time with him. He was cute and helpful, and the idea of spending time with him—of him wanting to spend time with her even though she was completely broken—terrified her.

      “I don’t give a fuck how this happened. I just want it fixed.” She had to stop being such a bitch. When she’d told him about the impromptu wedding, he’d looked just as shocked as she’d been when her grandfather had shared the news with her. This hadn’t been a plot, just a terrible error in judgment. Even though a part of her was dying to know how they’d gotten from small talk to matrimony in a period of hours—or even minutes.

      “Come on. You’re not the least bit curious as to how we came to this state of wedded bliss?” He smiled at her, and she had to purse her lips to keep from smiling back.

      She was curious, and needing to know when combined with his charm got the best of her. More than how they actually had ended up getting drunkenly married, she wanted to know how this had happened with her entire family around.

      Because she could understand why someone would want to marry Charlie Laughlin—just not her. Just looking at him explained his marriageability. He was at least 6’3” or maybe 6’4” and had almost black hair and these arresting blue eyes. Black Irish, Lola had said. He was lean, and he clearly worked out—not as much as her, but no one worked out as much as she did.

      But his fabulous looks weren’t what made him so attractive, so disarming. Sure, part of it was the dimple and the mischief in his eyes when he’d looked at her. But it was more than that. When Charlie Laughlin put his attention on her, it was overwhelming.

      When he’d looked up as she entered the dark editing room, she’d felt a punch of lust so powerful that it was even more maddening than the fact that she’d drunkenly married a very hot stranger.

      And though she’d assumed he was a smarmy douche when they’d met before the wedding, none of that had been borne out by his behavior. He’d been editing his best friend’s wedding video when she’d found him, not snorting lines of blow off various sex workers’ body parts.

      She could very СКАЧАТЬ