Last Name - Dr. Rebecca Sharp Page 0,61

what that woman deserved, but fate would have to be responsible for doling out the rest.

“James…” I murmured, when the slight amusement subsided. “I don’t know what to say…”

“Well, that’s okay because I’m not done yet.” My eyes snapped to his. “I have something else to tell you, Carrie.” What else could he possibly have to say? What else was left? “We don’t need an annulment.”

Oh. That.

I gulped, releasing a long exhale as I confessed, curling my fingers into the fabric of his shirt, “I don’t want one either, James. I want this. Us. It’s crazy and risky and the biggest adventure I never thought I’d find out here, but I want it all with you.” A small, shy smile tugged on my lips. “I love you.”

That breath-stealing smile of his exploded on his face, just as gorgeous and devastating as the first time I’d seen it—the first time he’d saved me.

“Gorgeous.” I shivered as his thumbs rubbed over my cheeks. “You have no idea how much I fucking want that, too. With you. And how badly I wanted to hear you say those things,” he told me and then winced. “But that wasn’t what I meant.”

My brow creased. “What?”

He hesitated for just a second, savoring one more moment with my confession that he seemed afraid would change. “I meant we don’t need an annulment because we aren’t married.”

We didn’t…

We weren’t…

His hands tightened because I began to sway back, the shock sending me reeling.

“We… aren’t?” I sputtered, dragging in air. “What? How? I have the—”

“Certificate?” He nodded. “Apparently, the certificate means nothing without a license.” My eyes widened as he explained more fully, “We never got a license. My investigator went looking for it for the lawyer. For weeks, he’s been going back and forth with the chapel. It turns out that the guy who officiated us that night made a mistake and ‘married’ us without realizing we didn’t have a legal license. Or he was looking at someone else’s license.” He cleared his throat. “I’m not too clear on the details of that part, but I’m positive that we never had a license and therefore, aren’t legally married.”

I stared at him. Shock. Surprise. Fear. The words all spun into a ball in my stomach, unsettling my entire body.

We weren’t married.

We never were.

It took a few moments. A few moments to process. A few moments to understand and accept. There was no denying how the completely unexpected news jarred me.

But there was no denying how, in spite of that, it changed nothing.

Nothing about our time together. Nothing about how I looked at him. Nothing about how I wanted to be with him.

And nothing about how I loved him.

“James…”

I stared up at the man I’d begun to fall in love with after one night together in Vegas, the man I thought I’d married and then who turned out to be my boss. The man who’d fallen in a lake with me, hiked to a waterfall and kissed me underneath it. The man who could pretend to be a bossy Frenchman just as naturally as it came for him to be Prince Charming.

And I realized the tie I’d thought had bound us all this time was never the silly piece of paper.

It was never about the paper or the name. It was about us.

“Carrie, I—”

I reached up and pressed my finger to his lips to silence him.

It was my turn to say something. It was my turn to make a point and eliminate the fear I saw swelling in his gaze, thinking this was all I needed to walk away and never look back.

“So, you’re saying I’m not Mrs. Arden?” I breathed out, my heart fluttering in my chest.

His jaw tightened and wanting flared in his gaze. “Not yet,” he promised with a low growl.

I shivered and swayed into him. “I still love you, Mr. Arden,” I told him. “I still want to spend forever on this adventure with you.”

His shoulders sagged with relief. His hand captured my wrist and dragged my palm to his mouth where he placed a long, hot kiss to the very center of it—right where all the lines of fortune led to. Right where all my lifelines led to him.

“Good,” he grunted and tugged me flush against him, his head dropping down closer and closer to mine as he whispered, “Because that’s all I want, Mrs. Almost-Arden.”

My eyes drifted shut just as his lips sealed over mine, the electric heat in the air grounding in the contact