002
840 Words
The sharp, unwelcome glare of sunlight was the first thing Lena noticed when she woke up.
A pounding in her head. A dry throat. And the unfamiliar weight of silk sheets tangled around her body.
For one hazy second, she didn’t remember where she was.
Then she did.
And the memory hit like a train.
The club.
The man with the cold blue eyes.
His hands on her skin, his mouth at her throat.
The way he made her forget everything else.
Her pulse quickened.
Lena groaned and turned over and froze.
Damon Cross lay beside her, the top sheet slung low around his waist, revealing the sharp lines of his chest and stomach. His hair was tousled from sleep, his jaw shadowed with stubble, and those maddeningly perfect lips were parted as he exhaled slowly.
God, he looked even better in the daylight.
But that wasn’t the worst of it.
No , the worst was the document on the nightstand.
A white marriage certificate, their names scrawled across it in drunken ink.
Lena’s heart stuttered. She sat up too fast, clutching the sheet to her chest as nausea twisted in her stomach.
No, no, no…
She snatched the paper and scanned it again, as if hoping the words might blur or disappear altogether. But there it was. Plain as day.
Lena Marie Carter. Damon Alexander Cross.
The date.
The witness signature.
The Vegas chapel seal.
A strangled sound escaped her throat.
As if sensing her panic, Damon stirred. His lashes lifted, and those sharp blue eyes locked on her, still heavy with sleep.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then his gaze dropped to the certificate in her trembling hands.
His expression hardened, the casual indifference slipping into something sharper.
“Well,” he muttered, his voice rough from sleep, “that’s inconvenient.”
Lena gaped at him. “Inconvenient? I married a total stranger, and that’s all you have to say?”
He sat up, stretching, utterly unbothered. “Relax. We’ll get it annulled. People do stupid things in Vegas all the time. No need to make it dramatic.”
Lena’s blood boiled. She’d spent years holding her life together by a thread, sacrificing everything for Harper and one reckless night with a smug billionaire was not going to unravel her.
She flung the certificate at him, the paper fluttering against his chest.
“I don’t even know your last name!”
“Cross,” he said dryly, picking up the document. “Damon Cross.”
The name struck a faint chord in the back of her mind, though she couldn’t place why.
“Congratulations, Mrs. Cross,” he added with a crooked smirk, and something about his arrogance made her want to scream.
“Don’t,” she warned, grabbing her clothes from the floor.
Damon stood, entirely unselfconscious in his state of undress as he reached for his slacks. “Look, sweetheart. It was a night. A hell of a night, I’ll admit. But neither of us signed up for this. We get it annulled first thing.”
She yanked on her dress, trying not to think about how her skin still tingled from his touch, how the memory of his mouth on her body sent an unwelcome ache low in her stomach.
“Fine,” she snapped. “I’m calling a cab.”
But as she reached for her phone, Damon’s shifted expression made her hesitate.
“Problem is,” he murmured, scanning his own device, “it’s not that simple.”
Her stomach dropped. “What do you mean, it’s not that simple?”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, his gaze lifted to meet hers, unreadable now.
“I need to make a few calls,” he said finally. “Stay here.”
She laughed without humor. “Yeah, no. I have a life to get back to.”
But before she could storm out, his hand caught her wrist.
“Wait.”
There was no roughness in the grip but there was a command in his voice that made her freeze.
“I’m serious, Lena.”
His use of her name did strange things to her insides.
“This marriage… it complicates a few things for me. Just give me an hour.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why should I?”
“Because if you walk out that door without hearing what I have to say, you might regret it.” His voice was calm, but there was steel beneath it.
Lena’s jaw clenched. Every instinct screamed at her to leave. To put this insane mistake behind her and run back to Brooklyn. To Harper. To the normal, miserable mess she understood.
But something about Damon Cross , the way he looked at her, like he already knew how this would end made her hesitate.
And she hated herself for it.
“One hour,” she said, pulling her wrist free. “And then I’m gone.”
He smiled then. A slow, dark thing that promised nothing good.
“Deal.”
- Writer
