Marrying Mr. Wrong (Dirty Martini Running Club #3) - Claire Kingsley Page 0,26
into fists. “She’s the woman I married last night.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
I stood, grabbing my plate, and took it to the kitchen. “I don’t know how I can possibly be more clear. I got married. Her name is Sophie. We knew each other as kids.”
Althea followed me in. “Jesus fucking Christ, you’re serious?”
“Yeah, but I hardly think it calls for that level of alarm.”
“Is it legal? God, please tell me it wasn’t legal.”
“Come on. You know me. I don’t do anything halfway. Of course it was legal.”
“You’re telling me that you married some random girl in Vegas last night?”
“She’s not some random girl. I told you, she’s Sophie Abbott. I’ve known her for years.” I allowed myself a slight stretch of the truth with that one.
Her eyes flashed with anger. “How could you be so reckless?”
I chuckled as I refilled my water. “Well, to be fair, I was pretty drunk.”
She slammed her whiskey down on the counter. “You are un-fucking-believable. You go to Vegas for a goddamn business meeting and instead of blowing some money in a casino and anonymously fucking some girl who’s too young for you, you get married? Legally married?”
I scowled at her. She was making too big of a deal out of this. “At least I wasn’t doing lines of coke off a hooker’s ass. Marriage is wholesome, and Sophie is—” I cut myself off because I’d been about to say perfect.
“A quickie Vegas marriage followed by a messy divorce is not wholesome. That’s a fucking scandal.”
“Who said anything about a messy divorce?”
“You’re not going to stay married to her.”
“Of course not.”
“You don’t get it, do you? There’s no prenup. That one drunken mistake could cost you millions.”
I waved that off. “Sophie wouldn’t do that.”
“Any woman would do that. Why else did she marry you?”
Leaning against the counter, I hesitated for a second. Why had she married me? Because we were drunk? That was true. We had been drunk as fuck, but what had made a drunk Sophie Abbott think that marrying me was a good idea?
I didn’t know the answer to that, nor did I know how I could be so sure Sophie wasn’t a gold-digging opportunist. But somehow, I was sure of it. She wasn’t.
“Look, Sophie isn’t coming after my money. We’ll just get a quick annulment and it’ll be like it never happened.”
“It’s not that easy. You can’t just get a marriage annulled, even a Vegas marriage.”
“You’re the lawyer. I’m sure you can handle it.”
She practically spit fire at me. “Unless you want to claim that you coerced her—or she coerced you—I don’t think even I can spin this to make you qualify for an annulment.”
“So we’ll get a divorce. What’s the big deal? It’s just some paperwork.”
“A divorce isn’t just some paperwork. Trust me.”
I tipped my head in acknowledgment. She would know.
“And then there’s the fact that you don’t have a prenup.”
“I’m really looking forward to Sophie proving you wrong on this one. She’s not after my money. Worst case scenario, I’ll offer her a settlement. It’ll be fine.”
“I don’t know how you can be so cavalier about this. The biggest project of your career hangs in the balance and you don’t think a very public divorce after a drunken Vegas wedding is a problem.”
“No, I don’t think Sophie is a problem. The fact that we got married is inconvenient, I’ll give you that.”
“It’s a lot more than an inconvenience.”
I swallowed the rest of my water, giving myself a chance to think. Because I had an idea.
“If you’re so worried about my public image, I’ll just stay married to her for a while.”
Althea gaped at me. “What?”
This idea was quickly growing on me. “We’ll stay married. Once we break ground on Skyline and everyone is in too deep to back out over something as inconsequential as my personal life, we’ll file for divorce. Problem solved.”
“The longer you stay married to her, the more likely it is she’ll get half.”
She really needed to stop talking about Sophie like that. “That isn’t an issue. I’ll make a private arrangement with her and make it worth her while.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Serious as a heart attack.”
“You won’t be able to pull this off. People will find out.”
“The only thing people are going to find out is that Camden Cox married a cute sugar bug of a girl on a whirlwind trip to Vegas.”
The color drained from her face and she looked like she might be sick. “You’ve lost your mind.”