All Chapters of Accidental Vows:The Billionaire's Perfect Mistake: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

13 Chapters

The Lipstick That Wasn't Mine

The rain hadn't let up since I had left the Whitman wedding venue, and somewhere between Brooklyn and the Upper East Side, the soggy paper bag in my passenger seat had started to leak teriyaki sauce onto Tristan's leather upholstery. I didn't care. I had been on my feet since five in the morning. The mother of the bride had cried twice, the father of the groom had tried to give an unscheduled toast, and a flower girl had thrown up on the cake table somewhere between the second course and the first dance. And still, I had pulled it off. I had smiled. I had fixed the cake. I had calmed the mother. I had gently steered the father away from the microphone with the practiced grace of a woman who had learned, somewhere along the way, that her job was to make miracles look like they'd been planned all along. So when my boss told me at eleven p.m. that I could finally go home, I didn't even pretend to clean up. I grabbed my coat, kicked off my heels into my tote bag, and ordered the most

Sin City

I made it back to my own apartment at one in the morning, and I sat on the edge of my bed in my still-damp clothes for a full twenty minutes before I moved.My studio in Astoria was four hundred and eighty square feet of secondhand furniture, mismatched mugs, and the constant rumble of the N train passing every twelve minutes. It smelled faintly of the lavender candles I burned to cover the smell of whatever the upstairs neighbor was always cooking. The radiator hissed. The window leaked when it rained.It was the most beautiful place I had ever seen in my life.It was mine.I peeled off my wet coat. My ruined silk blouse. The pencil skirt that had a teriyaki stain along the hem now. My bare feet were still streaked with city grime and rain. I should have showered. I should have eaten something. I should have called someone.Instead, I dragged my old roller suitcase out from under the bed, threw it open on the floor, and started shoving things into it at random.A sundress. Two pairs

The Stranger at the Bar

Las Vegas hit me like a slap.I stepped out of the airport into ninety-eight degrees of dry desert heat, and the breath punched out of my lungs in a way that almost felt good. Like the city was already telling me to wake up, sweetheart, you are not in New York anymore.The cab line was long. The driver who finally took me had a thick mustache and a thicker accent and asked me, three blocks into the ride, "You here alone, miss?""Yes," I said.He glanced at me in the rearview mirror with the soft, tired sympathy of a man who had picked up a hundred women like me from this airport over the years."You celebrating?"I almost laughed."Something like that," I said.He nodded once and let me have the rest of the ride in silence.---I had not booked a hotel.I realized this around the time we pulled onto the Strip, and panic rose briefly in my throat before I shoved it back down. I had a credit card I had been quietly building good standing on for two years. I had emergency savings I had n

The Man With Storm-Grey Eyes

Up close, he was worse.That was the only word for it. Worse. Because at a distance — at the safe, manageable distance of the other end of the bar — he had been a vague, beautiful threat. A silhouette. A pair of eyes catching gold light. Something I could pretend I was imagining.Sitting two feet away from me on a barstool, he was a fully detailed problem.His shirt was black, the top two buttons undone, and there was a sliver of skin at the base of his throat that I forced myself not to look at twice. His jaw could have cut glass. There was a small, faded scar through the arch of his right eyebrow that I wanted, irrationally, to ask about.His eyes had not left my face since he sat down."You're staring," I said."I am," he agreed."That's rude.""It is."He didn't look away.I picked up my whiskey. I set it down. I picked it up again. I had absolutely no idea what to do with my hands."You said you would have him fired by morning," I said. "That was a strange opener.""Was it workin

A Reckless Kind of Free

I took his hand.That was the moment. Not the chapel that came later, not the ring, not the slurred I do. It was this — a stranger's palm against mine in a hotel bar at midnight, warm and steady, his fingers closing around mine with the quiet certainty of a man who did not expect to be refused.I should have pulled back.I didn't."Where are we going?" I asked."You said surprise you.""I also said I was three whiskeys in.""Four." He glanced at the empty glass on the bar. "And a burger.""That's terrifyingly accurate.""I pay attention."He guided me off the barstool. My legs were less reliable than I'd been pretending. He steadied me at the elbow without making a thing of it — no comment, no smug little smile, just a hand under my arm until I was standing properly, and then a gentle release.I looked over my shoulder at Marla.She was already polishing a glass that didn't need polishing, watching us with the expression of a woman who had won a private bet with herself sometime aroun

I Do, I Do, I Definitely Do

"Marry me," he said.I laughed.I don't think I have ever laughed harder in my life. It came out of me in a wave — loud, ugly, completely unhinged. The jazz singer faltered for a beat. The couples on the dance floor turned to look. Damien did not move. Damien did not smile. Damien stood with his hand still at the small of my back and watched me come undone with the patience of a man waiting for a very slow train."Oh my God," I gasped, when I could breathe. "Oh my God, you almost had me. That was good. That was Damien, that was —""I'm not joking."I stopped laughing.The breeze picked up the hem of my dress. The singer found her note again. Somewhere far below us a car horn wailed, very small and very far away."You're not joking," I repeated."No.""You want to marry me.""Yes.""You don't know my last name.""I don't need to.""Damien." I pulled back from him by half a step. His hand fell from my back, slowly, like he was reluctant to let go. "Damien. We have known each other for f

The Morning After Hell

The first thing I noticed was the ceiling.I have spent enough mornings in enough strange beds, okay, not that many; I have spent enough mornings in Tristan's bed, and one or two in college dorms I would prefer to forget to know what an unfamiliar ceiling feels like. It always takes a half-second to register. A small, animal moment of where am I, whose pillow is this, what year is it.This ceiling was different.This ceiling was high.It was easily fourteen feet above me. White. Smooth. Crossed by a single, delicate, art-deco molding that looked like it had been hand-poured by an Italian craftsman in 1928. Suspended from the center of it was a chandelier the size of a small car.I blinked at it for a long, slow, uncomprehending moment.Chandeliers, my brain noted, very faintly, are not normally a feature of mid-tier Las Vegas hotel rooms.Then everything else hit me at once.The pounding in my temples. The dryness of my mouth. The soft weight of Egyptian cotton across my legs. The fai

Damien Blackwood

I sat on the cold marble floor of a bathroom that probably cost more than my entire college tuition, and I tried to remember how breathing worked. My head throbbed. My mouth tasted like regret and cheap champagne. Somewhere a vent hummed. Outside the window, Las Vegas breathed in and out, bright and fake and unforgiving.Someone crouched beside me. I did not look up. I heard the soft click of a heated towel rack. The sound of water running slow and quiet in the sink. Then a cool damp cloth was pressed gently into my palm.He did not touch my face. He did not push my hair back. He did not say a single word. He just held the cloth there, steady, unhurried, until my shaking fingers closed around it, until I was steady enough to lift it to my own forehead.I sat there for a long time. The cloth seeped cold into my skin. I did not cry. Not yet. I just breathed. In. Out. In. Out. Trying to remember who I was. Trying to remember what I had done.When I finally looked up he was still there. C

The Proposition

He let me put on real clothes first.That, somehow, was the part that made me believe he was serious. A man who was going to propose a business arrangement to his hungover accidental wife on a marble bathroom floor in a Las Vegas penthouse could have done it right there. Could have pressed his advantage while I was still in his oversized shirt with mascara streaks down my cheeks and a ring on my finger I had not chosen.He didn't.He stood up. He held out his hand to help me off the floor and when I refused it, he didn't push. He just nodded, once, like he had expected that, and stepped back to give me space."There's a robe on the back of the door," he said. "Your bag is in the closet. Take whatever time you need. I'll be in the dining room when you're ready.""My bag," I said slowly. "How is my bag here.""I had it sent over from your hotel this morning.""You what?""You mentioned the name of the hotel last night. I had concierge collect your things. You were still asleep."I stare

Welcome Home, Mrs. Blackwood

I cried on a bench in Las Vegas for fourteen minutes.I know this because Avery timed it."Okay," she said gently, when the worst of the heaving was over. "Okay, babe. Breathe with me. In for four. Out for six. There you go."I did what she said. I breathed. I wiped my nose with the back of my wrist because I had no tissues. A tourist in a giant inflatable cowboy hat walked past and politely pretended not to see me."Avery.""I'm here.""Avery, I have to tell you something.""Mm-hmm.""You are going to think I am insane.""Cass." Her voice was very calm. "You are calling me from Las Vegas at eleven in the morning sobbing on a bench. We are well past the point where I am going to think you are insane. Just say the thing."I said the thing.All of it.The bar. Marla. The rooftop. The chapel. Elvis. The penthouse. The chandelier. The ring I could not get off my finger. The man who had carried me to the bathroom and held my hair back and then sat me down at a marble dining table six feet

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