Chapter 4
THE MORNING AFTER
HARPER
I wake up to the feeling that someone has taken my brain, marinated it overnight in tequila, and then tried to emulsify it with a broken blender.
Head throbbing with the steady insistence of a dull knife on a cutting board, I swallow and notice instantly that my tongue tastes like I licked the floor of a fuzzy carpet.
And my limbs are heavy, dragged down by some invisible force, my left hand distinctly more weighty than it was yesterday.
I crack one eye open.
Sunlight pours through a wall of windows—unapologetic desert sunlight spilling across the room in warm gold and sharp angles. It glints off gleaming glass and polished marble as I lift my hand and take in the whiter-than-white mattress I’m lying on.
But this is not my bed.
Or my room. Or…my life.
I push up onto my elbows and let my head fall back against the pillows as the room sways.
Maybe I'm dead.
That's it. That has to be it.
We all died on the plane to Vegas. Carbon monoxide leak.
Or maybe I inhaled too much Cheetos dust from the passenger sitting beside me and this is what the afterlife looks like—Egyptian cotton sheets, a wall of windows, and a view of the Las Vegas Strip that costs more per night than I made in a month working at La Lumière.
Heaven for people who appreciate high thread counts.
"Okay," I whisper to absolutely no one. "We're dead. Wow, that was…fast. At least the accommodations are nice."
Deep breath. Try again.
I scan the room properly this time, taking in the glass desk with a closed laptop on the other end of the room, the sleek leather chair, the shiny soulless but expensive furniture.
I recognize this place from a prior trip to Vegas.
The Bellagio. A penthouse suite, from the looks of it.
Oh no.
My phone buzzes beside me, and I reach for it slowly, and that's when I see it. The thing weighing heavily on my left hand.
A ring. A full, unapologetic, almost-as-big-as-my-fist diamond set in platinum and expensive enough that I instinctively want to insure my hand.
My body freezes, but my mind doesn’t, immediately noticing that my phone is buzzing yet again, dragging my attention away from the small geological formation now attached to my finger.
MARGOT: Harper where are you??
My oldest sister’s texts hit my screen back to back.
MARGOT: Amelia is spiraling
MARGOT: She thinks you've been abducted
AMELIA: Did you sleep with the male stripper
AMELIA: If yes, iconic
MARGOT: AMELIA STOP
I stare at the messages, my brain attempting to boot up like an old laptop running on fumes.
It runs itself back to the party where I arrived in Vegas.
To Amelia’s bachelorette party. To all the drinks we drank. To Vic from the plane. And, most of all, to tequila. God. So much tequila.
An arcade. There was definitely an arcade.
I try to sit up again and immediately flop back down, clutching my head.
"Okay," I whisper. "We're going to approach this like a recipe."
Because when your life is falling apart, structure helps.
Harper's Morning-After Checklist:
- Location: Bellagio penthouse (concerning)
- Outfit: Sparkly teal dress, post-apocalyptic edition
- Face: One false eyelash clinging to my cheek like it's fighting for survival
- Feet: Still in stilettos (for some God-forsaken reason)
- Left hand: Carrying the GDP of a small nation
I stare at the ceiling, and my phone buzzes again.
MARGOT: Harp answer
MARGOT: If you're alive send literally anything
I type with one eye open.
ME:
MARGOT: WHAT DOES THAT MEAN
MARGOT: WHERE ARE YOU
AMELIA: it means she's alive and suffering
AMELIA: classic
I huff out a weak laugh that immediately turns into a wince, gaze drifting back to the ring, to the weight of it, to the implication of it.
And that's when I hear the sound of a nearby shower turn off, and every muscle in my body goes on high alert.
Okay, so I’m definitely not dead after all.
Because the afterlife wouldn't include the sound of running water and the sudden, visceral awareness that I am not alone in this hotel suite.
The bathroom door opens in a cloud of steam.
And out walks an angel.
At least, that's what my tequila-soaked brain registers first.
Because the man emerging from the bathroom in nothing but a white hotel towel is objectively, undeniably, categorically ethereal-looking.
His dark hair is still damp, pushed back from his forehead in a way that makes his face look sharper—harder. Water tracks down his chest in distracting lines, over a body that appears to have been engineered by a team of very ambitious Italian sculptors.
Broad shoulders. Lean waist. The sort of torso that can only exist thanks to a personal trainer, a private chef, and an allergy to carbohydrates.
My eyes dip lower before I can stop them—following the water as it runs down the center of his torso, over the ridges of his abs, collecting in the hollow of his navel before disappearing beneath the terry cloth.
There's a thin trail of dark hair below his navel that the towel barely conceals, his thighs muscular where they emerge from the towel.
And he stops dead when he sees me fully upright in his bed.
His eyes, a bluish storm-gray, flick over me in one smooth sweep, his gaze hooking and stopping on the diamond on my left hand.
His jaw tightens in a way that's both threatening and devastatingly attractive.
Right away, I realize that I know that jaw, those eyes.
"Vic?" I croak.
Vic from the plane. Vic from the club. Vic from the "hottest person in Vegas" scavenger-hunt photo that Amelia had immediately upgraded to "possibly the hottest person in this half of the country."
Which at the time I'd called dramatic.
In case I really am dead, I would like to formally retract that statement.
"You're awake," he rumbles, voice rough from sleep and I can barely move.
"I—" My voice comes out like I swallowed sandpaper. "What are you doing here?"
One dark brow lifts, letting me know that he finds the question mildly amusing and deeply stupid. "This is my suite."
I stare at him, then around the room, then back at him.
The polished black suitcase by the closet. The watch on the nightstand. The laptop on the desk. The severe, elegant order of everything.
His suite. His bed. His very expensive, very intimidating, very minimal rich-man lair.
"Oh," I say faintly. Then, because my brain enjoys humiliation, "Oh no."
He moves past the foot of the bed toward the closet, completely unbothered by his near-nudity, and pulls out a crisp white shirt.
I should not be watching the muscles in his back shift as he moves. Or the way his spine creates this perfect line down to where the towel sits on his hips.
And I definitely should not be wondering what's under that towel.
He turns back to face me, and something in his expression makes my stomach drop.
Probably because he’s wearing look of a man who's already made several calculations and doesn't like the sum.
"Do you remember anything from last night?" he asks, his tone sounding more like this is a business meeting and not a conversation with a woman who apparently spent the night in his bed.
"I—" I try to think. The restaurant. More bars. Amelia doing karaoke. Someone suggesting we go to an arcade. Neon lights. A pixelated Elvis?
Wait.
"Did we—"
He starts buttoning his shirt—slowly, methodically—and I'm genuinely mourning the loss of the view while simultaneously terrified of whatever he's about to say.
"Did we what?" His voice is measured—even.
"Get married," I hear myself say just as Vic’s long elegant fingers freeze on the third button of his shirt.
He blinks. “So you know?”
My heart thunders beneath my ribs. I hold up my left hand, including the diamond that’s spraying a shower of white reflections across the walls.
"I'm wearing a wedding ring the size of a Buick, you just walked out of the shower in your suite where I apparently spent the night, and I'm pretty sure—" I swallow hard. "I'm pretty sure we got married."
The silence that follows could be used to age cheese.
When Vic does speak again, his sharp jaw is tightened, its sharp edge rigid enough to cause a paper cut.
"Harper Josephine Beaumont," he half-grunts. "Age thirty-seven. Former sous chef at La Lumière in Manhattan. Currently unemployed. Applied to StreamEats six weeks ago for the Weeknight Wins host position."
My blood turns to ice. "How do you—"
"Congratulations, by the way. You got the job. The offer letter went out two weeks ago. You start Monday."
"I—what—"
"So yes, Harper." He finishes buttoning his shirt, jaw still pulsing. "We did get married. At the Game Over Chapel of Eternal Love. By a pixelated officiant. At approximately 2:47 AM."
I'm going to be sick.
"And before you ask how I know all of this—" He picks up his phone from the desk and turns it toward me. "—I had my assistant pull your file while you were sleeping. Background check. Employment records. Social media.”
On the screen is my employee file. My resume. My LinkedIn photo. Everything.
"You—You had me investigated?"
"Due diligence." His gray eyes are cold as winter. "I woke up married to a woman I met on a plane twelve hours ago. A woman who, conveniently, is about to start working at my company. So yes, I did my homework."
“Your—“ I start and stop, my brain attempting to put pieces of this puzzle together.
Did he just say HIS company?
As in StreamEats belongs to…him?
Indignation rises to the surface of my skin, my neck growing hot.
“I’m s-sorry, but you own StreamEats?” I ask.
“Yes, as I’m sure you’re already aware.”
My mouth turns into the Sahara. “And you think I what—Planned this? You think I—what? Orchestrated some elaborate scheme to get drunk and marry you for a job?"
"I think the timeline is interesting."
"INTERESTING?"
I throw off the covers and stand, which is a mistake because I'm still in my dress and stilettos and I'm about eight inches shorter than him, but I'm too furious to care.
"I didn't even know who you were until thirty seconds ago!"