Vows Written in whiskey

Chapterfour:Wifeofastranger

Chapter Four: Wife of a Stranger

"Are you going to answer that?" I asked.

Xander was still staring at the buzzing phone on the floor. For a second he didn't move. Then he crossed the room, picked it up, silenced it, and slid it into the pocket of a robe he pulled on.

"It can wait," he said, but his voice had changed. Something had shut behind his eyes.

"Who was it?"

"Nobody." He turned away. "Get dressed. I ordered clothes. They're in the bag by the door. I guessed your size. There is a flight home in three hours."

I found the bag. Inside were soft jeans and a plain cream top, both exactly my size, and a small pair of white sneakers. He had thought of everything, which somehow made it worse, because it meant this beautiful stranger who I had accidentally married was also thoughtful, and I did not have room in my life to like him.

"How much do I owe you for these?" I said.

He looked at me like I had spoken another language. "You are joking."

"I always pay my own way," I said. "Even when I've had a very strange morning."

Something in his face softened, just for a second. "Keep them," he said. "Please. Think of it as the world's worst wedding gift."

I didn't laugh. But it was close.

While I showered, I heard him on the phone in the next room, his voice low and hard.

"Franklin," he was saying. "Yes, I know what time it is. I need you to tell me something, and I need the truth. If a marriage is signed in this country, drunk, both parties, no witnesses we can trust... can it be undone quietly?"

A pause.

"How complicated." His voice dropped even lower. "Franklin, do not tell me that. You do not understand what happens if this gets out before... yes. Yes. Just start it. Whatever it takes. Call me back."

I turned off the water and stood dripping, my heart thudding.

Whatever it takes. What did that mean? And what was the thing that could not get out?

When I came out, dressed, hair wet, he was standing at the window again with his back to me, phone still in his hand.

"Everything okay?" I asked.

He turned, and the shut look was gone, replaced by an easy smile that I already knew was a mask.

"Everything's fine," he said. "Coffee?"

---

The flight home was a small private plane with cream leather seats and a bowl of fruit nobody touched. I sat by the window and watched the brown land roll away beneath us and tried not to think about how my whole life had changed in a night I could not even remember.

"You're a nervous flyer," Xander said.

"I'm a nervous everything, today," I said.

He was quiet a moment. Then, "For what it's worth, Khloe, I'm sorry. For all of it."

I looked at him. In the plane light, tired and rumpled, he didn't look like a rich man with a plane and a driver. He looked like a man carrying something heavy.

"Can I ask you something?" I said.

"You can ask."

"On the phone. You said if this gets out, something bad happens. What did you mean?"

His hand tightened on the armrest. For a second I thought he would tell me. Then he smiled that smooth, empty smile again.

"I just value my privacy," he said. "That's all."

I didn't believe him. But I was too tired to fight, so I turned back to the window and, somewhere over the mountains, I fell asleep.

I woke with my head on his shoulder and his jacket tucked over me like a blanket. He was very still, like he was afraid to wake me. I sat up quickly, cheeks burning, and he pretended he hadn't noticed at all.

---

Simon drove us into the city as the sun went down. When the car stopped outside my building, I felt strangely shy.

"Well," I said. "This is me."

"This is you." Xander pulled a small white card from his wallet and held it out. "My number is on there. My lawyer has already started the papers. Give it a few days, then we'll meet, you'll sign, and this is over. Clean."

I took the card. Under a silver logo it read: Nicholas Mitchell. Chief Executive Officer. Halcyon Group.

I frowned. "It says Nicholas. You told me your name was Xander."

"It is." He almost smiled. "Nicholas is the name in the papers, on the money, in the boardroom. Xander is my middle name. It's the name people use when they don't want anything from me." He looked at me a beat too long. "Which is a very short list."

Then I slid the ring off my finger and held it out to him.

"We really never met before that club," I said. "Right? You'd tell me if we had."

"I would remember meeting you," he said quietly. "Trust me."

Heat climbed up my neck. I turned to go, then stopped.

"Goodbye, Xander."

"Goodbye, wife," he said, and I could hear the grin in it.

"Don't," I warned.

"Wife," he said again, cheerfully.

I flipped him a rude gesture over my shoulder and marched into my building, and I could hear him laughing behind me all the way to the door.

---

Upstairs, Maya and Tina fell on me like I had come back from the dead.

"Where have you been?" Tina shrieked. "You vanished! Your phone was off for two days! We nearly called the police!"

"You told me to go with him," I said, dropping onto the couch.

"For a nightcap," Maya said, "not to disappear off the face of the earth. Where did he take you?"

"Sun City," I said.

They stared.

"You," Maya said slowly, "went to Sun City. With a stranger."

"That's not the worst part." I took a deep breath. "We got married."

Silence, thick and total. Tina's mouth opened and closed like a fish.

"You are lying," Maya whispered.

I held up my bare hand, then dug his card out of my pocket and handed it over. "I gave the ring back. But we're legally married. He's getting it annulled. His name is Xander. Well, Nicholas. Here's his card."

Maya took the card. She read it. And then her whole face changed, went white, then red, then back again.

"Tina," she said, in a strange high voice. "Tina, come and read this."

Tina snatched it, read it, and let out a scream so loud the neighbour banged the wall again.

"What?" I said. "What is wrong with you two?"

"Khloe." Maya sat down beside me and took both my hands, very gently, like she was telling me someone had died. "Do you know who this is?"

"A rich man with a plane," I said. "I gathered that much."

"This," Tina said, holding up the card like it was made of gold, "is Nicholas Mitchell. He runs Halcyon. He is one of the richest men in the country. His face is on magazines. There are whole websites about which woman he's dating."

The floor tilted under me.

"Halcyon," I repeated. "As in... the company where I start work on Monday. Halcyon."

They both went very still.

"Khloe," Maya said carefully, "the man who interviewed you. What was his name?"

I thought of the silver hair, the grey eyes, the steel gaze that read every thought in my head. Grey eyes, exactly like the ones I had been staring into all weekend.

"Mitchell," I whispered. "His name was Mr Mitchell."

The card slipped from Tina's fingers and landed face up on the floor, and none of us said a single word, and my phone lit up in my lap with a message from a number I didn't know, and my hands were shaking too hard to reach for it.