Chapter 4
Anya
“I am not your wife. Don’t you dare call me that.”
My ass was out of that bed before I clocked the decision to move. Parker watched me with undisguised interest, his eyes lingering on my bare legs as I snatched the underwear from the nightstand and yanked it on.
“Well, the marriage certificate we signed might say differently, but whatever makes you feel better.”
I snapped my fingers. “Stop looking at my legs.”
His eyes snapped up, lips curling unrepentantly.
My chest was one big life revelation from caving in, I couldn’t find my freaking suitcase, and my hands were shaking uncontrollably.
“Where are my clothes?” I groaned.
“From last night? In the bathroom.” Parker stretched his arms over his head, and dammit, it was like he had an attention magnet all over his chest and shoulders because the way those muscles shifted was probably illegal in seventeen states. “You wanted a shower before bed.”
Thank God there was a seat right behind me because my ass stumbled into it. I shoved my hands in my hair and tried to breathe, cataloging the impending signs of a panic attack.
Tingling hands? Check .
Tight throat? Check .
Spinning head? Check .
An elephant sitting on my chest? Fucking check .
Parker gracefully stood out of bed, and I exhaled sharply through my nose because, thank you, sweet baby Jesus in the manger, he was wearing black boxer briefs.
His ass, though. The tight black material did nothing to disguise the perfection there.
I snapped my eyes shut and tried not to stare at it. In general, I didn’t make a habit of objectifying men because Lord knows I fucking hated when men did it to me, but I could probably bounce several quarters off Parker Wilder’s ass.
His body, in no uncertain terms, was a work of art.
“I must not have showered,” I said, tearing my gaze away from the ass when he turned around. Why was he watching me like that? All calm and shit. “My hair is still curled,” I said when he gave me a curious look.
“No, you never made it because you almost fell over, and I didn’t really feel like watching you crack your head open on the tile on our first night of wedded bliss.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Out of the goodness of my heart, I gave you the jersey because as much as I try not to sleep with women who are blackout drunk, I’m also not a saint. Having a beautiful, naked wife in bed with me just might’ve tested my personal limits.”
I groaned again, elbows braced on my thighs while I dropped my head in my hands. “Stop saying that. There’s no way I would’ve married you.”
“You really don’t remember?”
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking, and there was a creepy-crawly sensation over my entire body. Something was inherently terrifying about having an entire night of my life when the whole thing was just gone. Wiped clean.
I managed a slight shake of my head, and the sound of Parker approaching had me rolling my lips between my teeth to keep the sob from escaping. With nowhere to go, it pressed against my throat, so uncomfortable and horrifyingly big that I could feel it climb through my cheekbones and push against the back of my eyes.
God, if this single drunk mistake made me cry while I was hungover, I’d be so pissed.
I’d shave my head before crying in front of Parker Wilder—a veritable stranger, for how well I knew him—over something like this. I’d shed enough tears the past few weeks, and I’d done a really great job of keeping those to myself. Only Vida got the sad Anya. Everyone else thought I was doing a killer job of rolling with every single fucking punch that came my way. Even when my stepmom, Isabel, sat me down and showed me the news articles about Max’s stunning display of infidelity, I managed to keep it all locked down.
She got the shock and the anger and the immediate vilifying. It was the only way I’d manage to keep my family in check.
If I broke down? They’d be homicidal.
Probably because moments like that in the Hennessy/Ward clan generally involved revenge planning of a violent nature, and the greatest concern would be keeping Max from getting murdered by half the women in our family simply because I didn’t want them to end up in jail.
It was in private where the heartbreak was allowed to slip down my cheeks. And it felt literal too. Like someone sliced straight through my actual heart, and every single day, I told myself it wasn’t my fault, that it wasn’t personal. An insecure man with a wandering penis was not my problem.
It felt like my problem, though, given I wasn’t that far away from walking down the freaking aisle. And heartbreak went hand in hand with just a bit of fragility, no matter how strong someone was.
Even without the hangover and the husband sharing a bed with me, my insides felt like glass. Just one more thing, one tiny thing, and I’d shatter.
Parker crouched in front of me. Even with my eyes closed, I knew this because I could smell him. I could smell the sexy forest smell just … right the hell in front of me.
Why? Why did he smell so good first thing in the morning? He should smell like stale alcohol and bad decisions. He should smell like regret.
Alas, he did not, and when he heaved a dramatic sigh, I kept my eyes pinched shut.
“Anya,” he said so, so patiently that I thought about punching him in the face. “Look at me.”
I shook my head again, more firmly this time.
His big hands, his warm, big, calloused hands wrapped gently around my wrists and tugged mine away from my face.
“Come on,” he coaxed like I was a wild fucking animal. “Show me those pretty blue eyes.”
It probably wasn’t the way he’d intended it when he asked, but I narrowed my pretty blue eyes in a glare so fierce that he grinned. “There she is.”
“Explain,” I said through gritted teeth.
Up close, I could see the warm streaks of gold buried in the deep brown of Parker’s eyes. Everything about this man was golden. Shaggy hair in need of a haircut, the smooth tan skin that looked like he worked outside—shirtless—for a living. Of course his eyes had gold in them. It was like looking at someone crafted from the freaking sun.
What an asshole.
“Well, we drank a lot,” he said with so much patience that I had a brief, vivid fantasy of choking him out right where he sat. His eyes gleamed at whatever he saw in my face. “But I suppose you’re wondering about the other stuff, huh?”
I gave him a level look.
“You wanted money to help Vida.” A chord of recognition plucked at the back of my fuzzy mind, and he must have seen it in my face. “Your own money,” he clarified. “Not mine, not your family’s.”
My voice came out as a choked whisper. “The money from?—”
“From your mom’s trust,” he finished smoothly.
My chest sank because, oh God, I knew where this was going. Between sad shots, Vida and I had joked all night about a good old-fashioned marriage of convenience. She was on a huge historical romance kick, and those people got married for the tiniest little thing.
It wasn’t just inheritances. It was basically the answer to all their problems.
Got caught in bed? Married to a rake.
Didn’t want to be a spinster? Married to the penniless duke who needs your fortune.
Caught in a room alone with an eligible marquess because a piece of your jewelry fell behind a couch, and he was helping you retrieve it? Definitely married after that.
“Are you saying I proposed to you ?” I asked in dawning horror.
He tried to stem a smug smile. I could tell he tried. But oh, how he failed.
“It was actually my idea, but as soon as I said it out loud, you were … insistent.”
“Insistent?” I asked weakly.
“There might have been some begging involved.” His eyes traced my face, and after a quick inhale, Parker continued as if I wasn’t actively plotting his death. “You said they put in a couple of stipulations. Either wait until you’re thirty before you can access it, or…”
“Or if I’m married.”
Parker nodded slowly. Even though I’d said it so faintly, I wasn’t sure he’d heard me. “Don’t worry, you made sure I was aware that there was ironclad legal paperwork that says I can’t touch that money, but luckily for you, a prenup is the least of my worries.”
Holy shit, my chest was going to cave in. “So that’s it? I married you to get my inheritance, and you’re just … along for the freaking ride? You need a hobby, Wilder.”
“Undoubtedly.” The skin around his eyes crinkled as he smiled, and I mentally slapped the bejeezus out of myself for noticing. “There are benefits for me too. Don’t worry.”
“I’m not,” I snapped.
What a fucking liar I was. This whole thing was a giant storm cloud of worry, and I didn’t see it disappearing any time soon.
“You have a whole list of why you wanted to do this,” he continued, and I speared my hands into my hair and tugged, but the bite of pain did not wake me up from any possible nightmare.
“Did I?” I asked weakly.
He started ticking points off on his fingers. “Money, first and foremost, because you want to partner with Vida in this. Have a job that’s yours, that you believe in, and not just a paycheck or something your family built. Second, since you got fired, you and Vida will have the time to write the children’s book you’ve been toying with for the past year.” As he spoke, I started rubbing the side of my throat because I could still breathe, right? His eyes lingered on the action. “Want me to keep going?”
My head felt like it was on a string, floating a hundred feet above my shoulders, but I managed a tight nod.
“Third, you know your family is worried, and you hate that,” he said evenly, but his eyes were so bright, so intense, I couldn’t look away. “You and I have that in common. That’s what I get out of this.”
I saw it. Every time they looked at me, I saw their worry. And it was on display constantly, given that I’d moved back home and was picking up shifts at my parents' gym to make some money. My family’s worry might look different from Parker’s because they came from different places. But a thread of awareness slipped almost unnoticed through my mind, taking root somewhere deep.
Maybe Parker was made of glass too, no matter how stunning his armor might be.
“Anything else?”
Lord, I tried to ask it flippantly because that had to be it, but there was a spark buried in his eyes that a pit bloomed in my stomach and only grew the longer it took him to answer.
“One more,” he said in a dangerous rumble that I felt dead center in my chest.
I licked my lips. “What else is there?”
Parker reached forward and gently picked up my hand, toying with the tips of my fingers like he had all the time in the world. My spine tingled like someone dragged an exposed wire straight up to the back of my neck. A memory plucked at the back of my mind, and when he brought my hand up to his mouth and lightly dragged my fingers over his firm lips, I had a sudden, vivid memory of him doing that when he first joined us at our table.
It made me breathless then too.
“We get to make Max Bridges absolutely miserable,” he said. “He’ll hate this, won’t he? You and me, a passionate, whirlwind marriage that shows him exactly how much he fucked up by not taking care of you the way he should have.”
The hammering of my heart drowned out all my racing thoughts except one.
Good .
It was petty. It was brutal. And it held a visceral edge that reminded me of landing a good punch. Inside, the glass trembled but held.
I was up off the chair in the next breath. “I need clean clothes. Where’s my suitcase?”
“By the door,” he answered, easing up off the floor to watch me pace.
“You need clothes on too,” I snapped. “Don’t you have pants? Or a shirt?”
Like he had all the time in the fucking world, Parker scratched at his abs, and damn, damn, damn him, my eyes darted down to the insane squares of muscle stacked on top of each other. His obliques shifted with his unhurried movements, and I tried not to stare at the thin line of golden brown hair that disappeared into those black boxer briefs. And I swear on all that’s holy, I tried even harder than that to ignore the impressive bulge underneath.
My lips rolled together when he let out a quiet chuckle, but the man took pity on me and snagged a pair of gray joggers out of his duffel bag and slipped them up over his long legs.
Yeah, because gray sweatpants made him look so much less obnoxiously attractive.
“Better?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes so hard I almost snapped my retina.
“Is that a no?” he called to my retreating back while I walked briskly to the front door of his suite to grab my suitcase.
I heaved it onto the coffee table and unzipped it, tearing out a pair of cotton shorts. His jersey hung so far down on my legs that the shorts weren’t even visible.
“Keep your back turned,” I told him.
Parker quirked an eyebrow but did as I asked, turning in a slow half circle with his hands raised.
I yanked off the jersey and fished through my clothes until I found a bralette. Once that was on, I slipped on the first T-shirt I could get my hands on.
“Okay. I’m good.”
Parker turned, arms crossed over his chest, which honestly didn’t help anything because of what it did to his biceps. God, my blood pressure would never survive this man. Who just … walked around looking like that?
“Just as a reminder, I’ve seen everything, considering I’m the one who covered you last night after you stripped your clothes off and tried to ravage me.”
“I did no such thing,” I gasped. “I was … I was drunk off my ass. And lonely. And…”
“And your fiancé, who somehow managed to keep you around for four years, was shit in bed and didn’t know how to get you off.” He arched an eyebrow. “I know.”
My jaw unhinged as cold pricklies of the worst kind of embarrassment climbed up my skin. “I … I told you that?”
He nodded. “I learned a lot about you last night, Anya Hennessy.”
Then he set his big hands on his slim hips, his entire upper body on display again. There was a flash of ink on the side of his ribs, the outline of three black birds, and my skin felt tight as I tried not to study it.
“Please put a shirt on,” I begged.
His grin was quick and lethal, and with shaky legs, I sat on the couch behind me. It was a pretty blue velvet, and I decided that studying the material was far safer than watching Parker clothe himself.
I’d spent four years dating someone who also played football, but I can promise you, Max Bridges never looked like that in his entire life. He was a defensive lineman, so his body had always been on the stockier side. Warm. Comforting.
Until it wasn’t comforting because he couldn’t keep his manwhore penis zipped.
When Parker’s chest was covered and it felt safe enough to stop fondling the couch, I watched him with wary eyes as he took a seat in the chair to my right. Once settled, he watched me with all this patience and understanding and … and only the slightest of dark circles still under his eyes.
My brow furrowed. I’d noticed those dark circles last night, hadn’t I? Noticed how tired he looked.
“Did you get any sleep?” I asked.
His eyes were guarded when he answered. “More than I usually do.” Then his mouth hooked up in a crooked grin. “Maybe you’re my good luck charm.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and settled back into the couch while he laughed softly. “You learned a lot about me last night.” I dropped my hand back into my lap. “I feel like I’m at a disadvantage.”
My thumb pressed against the simple gold band, and Parker stared at it for a few seconds before he sucked in a sharp breath through his nose.
“You already know me.”
I gave him a look. “No, I don’t. How am I supposed to trust your version of events? Last I remember, you were taking sad shots right along with me, buddy.”
He held up a finger and walked around to the table near the entrance to the suite, then picked up an envelope. “Vida knows you very well. She said you’d need convincing.”
I snatched the paper from his hand, blood leeching from my face when I saw her messy, drunk handwriting. Mrs. Parker Wilder Hennessy or whatever you’re calling yourself this morning.
“She knows?”
He quirked an eyebrow. “She was our witness.”
With trembling hands, I ripped open the envelope.
Yes, you wanted to do this. Enthusiastically. Yes, I think he’s the hottest specimen I’ve ever seen, and if you don’t enjoy those marital perks, I’ll disown you. And yes, I think you’re fucking crazy for offering to do this. But I love you.
Bonus! Max will lose his mind when he finds out.
In the bottom corner of the letter, I’d clearly decided to add my own version of proof for my future, hungover self. In messy lines and circles, I’d drawn a rough sketch of a bride tossing a bouquet over her shoulder. Not my best work, probably because I was drunk as shit, but on her face was a wide, happy smile. It was meant to be me, judging by the jean shorts and the flip-flops.
It was like someone packed sand in my throat when I tried to swallow.
I married someone. I married someone who I really didn’t know all that well, and who, in all the ways that mattered, was a stranger. I knew of him. I’d met him. My cousin Emmett was one of his best friends, but the total sum of my time conversing with Parker Wilder throughout my life was less than an hour. The conversation I remembered, at least.
God, that conversation at Emmett’s wedding.
He was … he was a tease . Always trying to keep me off-balance. An audacious flirt. So confident that it was almost impossible to take him seriously.
And I’d married him. Walked down an aisle without a single family member present.
My head snapped up, eyes meeting his. “Holy shit, my family. They are going to freak out.”
“I know.” His gaze was heavy on my face. “You told me.”
I settled a hand on my chest and tried to breathe through the blossoming panic building underneath my skin. “I did?”
He leaned forward. “Telling them is the first thing we agreed to do today. You didn’t want them to hear about it online. And I’ll help.”
The panic ebbed briefly. “What does that help look like?”
There was a soft knock on the door, and Parker held up a hand. I sank my head into my hands while he answered the door. A deferential worker wheeled in a large cart, and the smell of bacon, pancakes, and, oh thank you Lord, coffee had me standing almost immediately.
Parker signed the room service slip and thanked the woman who’d delivered it. Her eyes bugged out when he handed her some bills. Apparently, my husband was a generous man. She was blushing at the sight of him, and honestly, I couldn’t even blame her.
It was stupid. He was so hot it was stupid .
When he was first drafted with Emmett in Ft. Lauderdale, he was strong but wiry. Over the past four years, and especially since he transferred to Portland to play with the Voyagers, the man had spent significant time in the gym. And God, the dedication it took to add the kind of weight he’d added in nothing but pure muscle? Let’s just say it was a little bit more than my hungover brain could handle.
He gestured for me to help myself, and I gratefully took one of the mugs of coffee, snagging two packets of sugar and stirring it in before folding a couple of pieces of bacon into a pancake and sitting back down.
He did the same, and the silence in the room for those few minutes helped me gather my bearings.
Despite a stretch of impulsive behavior in my childhood years, I was not prone to wild action in adulthood. Quite the opposite. I thought everything through. There was an argument to be made that my entire relationship with Max was because he seemed so sensible and safe. The irony was enough for me to choke on. Instead of jumping in with both feet to help Vida with her nonprofit, I took the sensible and safe route, working at a larger organization where I could absorb knowledge. All I learned was that you could get a master’s degree in nonprofit management, be a great worker, and still get your ass fired within two years.
Sensible.
Safe.
And right now, it all felt like utter bullshit.
Some of those decisions were a grasp for control after losing my mom at a young age, but mostly, it was wanting to keep all my ducks in a row so that I was one less thing for my dad to worry about.
My dad.
The pang in my chest was almost unbearable when I thought about him—big and strong and the most supportive father in the entire world. When I thought how sad he’d be that I’d done this. That I’d married someone and he wasn’t there to walk me down the aisle the first time I said vows. My eyes burned, but I took a few deep breaths and willed that shit back.
“Do you need more food?” he asked, tearing off a piece of pancake and dunking it into a cup of syrup.
I shook my head. “When did you order this?”
He watched me rip apart my own pancake and eat it dry. “Last night. We, uh, chartered a flight back to Seattle so you can tell your family. But also, you need to pack some stuff for the next couple of weeks.”
“Oh,” I said weakly. “Sure. Right. Because … because we got married, so I naturally said I’d move in with you.”
He held up his hands. “You can go back to Washington every week for a few days if you need to.”
I quirked an eyebrow. “And that helps you with your family how?”
“My mom is planning on me visiting in a couple of weeks. Training camp doesn’t start until the end of next month, so it’s a good time for me to go. We do the family visit. You make an appearance on the first day of training camp. Maybe the first preseason game or the season opener. I don’t expect you to live with me full-time or anything.”
How modern of us to be willing to split our time up like that.
I set a hand on my chest, my palm clocking the wild flutters. “I suppose it’s inevitable that this will go public.” A sad, quiet laugh escaped. “I don’t even know what I looked like at my own wedding.”
Parker fished out his phone and scrolled, pausing whenever he found what he was looking for and then leaning forward to hand it to me. “Vida took this. Said to show it to you first thing.”
My heart raced, a wild drumming under my skin as I took the phone from him. On the screen was a picture of me and Parker at the chapel. I was still in my cutoffs and my T-shirt, but someone had slapped a veil over my head.
His arm was wrapped around my waist, anchoring me to his side, and we both grinned happily at the camera, flashing our ring fingers.
A shaking hand covered my mouth because it was the only way I could hold in the string of expletives that threatened to come out. Instead of chucking the phone across the room like I wanted to, I handed it back.
“When do we need to leave for this flight?” I asked calmly.
I mean, I sounded calm. My face probably even looked it too. But the violent churning of freak-out building underneath my skin was terrifying. If Parker got even the slightest hint of it, he’d run for cover.
He glanced at the clock on the wall. “About an hour. So you have time to shower if you want.”
I rubbed my forehead. “And how long did I say I’d live with you?”
For the first time, he looked nervous. Shifty gaze. Large swallow that made his Adam’s apple bob in his throat. My gaze narrowed, waiting for whatever he was going to say next.
“We hadn’t really discussed that yet,” he admitted, eyeing me carefully. “I’m mostly focused on the visit home. Get the pack of sisters off my fucking back. But they’ll buy it.”
“Naturally.” A panicky bubble of laughter threatened to spill up my throat. “Because why wouldn’t your family think we’re actually, really married?”
This time, his face melted into a devastating smile, deep brackets on either side of his mouth that inexplicably made me want to press my thumbs in those grooves. “Trust me, if you knew half the shit my siblings had pulled over the years? This is nothing. They want me to be happy so bad, they’ll believe anything. This morning was the hard part,” he said smoothly. “Convincing my wife that she wasn’t drugged and coerced.” I rolled my eyes slightly, but my cheeks felt warm. “It should be easy enough talking to your family, and it’ll be smooth sailing from there.”
I stared at him for a few long seconds, then burst out laughing.
His brow furrowed when I bent at the waist and tried to stem the sounds that fell from my mouth.
“Oh, Parker,” I said between helpless giggles. “That’s not going to be the easy part. If you make it out of my parents’ house alive, then we’ll talk.”