Chapter Six
The inside of the lawyer’s office was meat-locker cold, with a modern black and white decor, and a fancy little coffee bar that I made a beeline for after talking to the pretty blonde receptionist.
Everything about the space said ‘expensive,’ and that was exactly what I wanted.
Because an expensive attorney knew how to get shit done and fast.
I took my caramel iced coffee to a seat and stared blankly at the TV on the wall for half an hour before I was called back into the office.
Carl Center was kind of what you’d expect from a successful Vegas strip lawyer who specializes in quick fixes to whoopsie marriages. He was tall with slicked-back dark brown hair with a little pepper at the temples, brown eyes, and a suit that was expensive but not tailored.
The cufflinks?
Loud.
The watch?
Expensive.
And he had two shirt buttons undone and a small bit of chest hair on display.
“Miss… or is it Mrs. now?”
I couldn’t help the growl that escaped me as I took his offered hand.
“I know that sound well,” he said, unfazed.
“I guess it’s Mrs. Valentine. I honestly have no idea what the paperwork said,” I admitted, ripping off my sunglasses and dropping into one of the barrel chairs.
“Rough night, huh?” he asked, taking in my face that likely looked even worse than before thanks to the stupid tears.
“One would assume, yes.”
“So,” Carl said, grabbing a notepad. “You were drunk.”
“The epic hangover I had suggests so, yes.”
“Do you remember drinking? Drugging?”
“I remember tequila. The first one. After that is mostly a blur. I get flashes.”
“Have you had a drug test?”
“A drug test?”
“Not remembering the night before…” he trailed off, flicking his wrist like the idea of being drugged was no big deal, just commonplace stuff.
“I don’t think I was drugged.”
“You sure?”
“I was drugged at a club once when I was younger. This doesn’t feel like that. And, for all of the faults I’m sure he has, I don’t think Harrison drugged me.”
“Men can be masters of disguise when it comes to their ugly nature.”
“Maybe. But he didn’t need to drug me to nail me,” I said. If he wanted to be blunt, I could do blunt. “We had sex earlier that night when we were both sober. There was no need to try to force me into it. And I’m relatively sure we didn’t hook up again after I was drunk.”
“Okay. But he did need to get you drunk to marry you.”
“Listen, I have no idea how we ended up at the chapel. I’ve never been a ‘I want to get married’ person. I guess we were just having a good time and our inhibitions were low. Well, mine were. I’m not sure Harrison was drunk.”
“Harrison…” Carl repeated, then his gaze snapped to mine. “Harrison Valentine?”
“Yep.” I popped the p, then took a sip of my coffee.
“Are you sure you want to annul this marriage?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“I’m assuming you didn’t consult a lawyer before the nuptials?”
“Not that I know of, no.”
“Then the chances of you signing a pre-nuptial are slim to none. You are a very wealthy woman today.”
“I was already a wealthy woman. A wealthy single woman. How I like it. I want a divorce, and I want it now.”
“Okay. I’m here to please,” Carl said, holding up a hand, his fancy pen held beneath his ring and forefinger. “What you are seeking is an annulment, not a divorce.”
“Because we didn’t consummate it?”
To that, a big smile stretched across Carl’s face. “No, hon. Those are antiquated rules. Sex has nothing to do with the validity of a marriage or what kind of dissolution you are seeking.”
“Okay. So, how does this work? How fast can this be done?”
“I can have the papers for you before you leave the office. If you can get Mr. Valentine to sign it today, I can likely get it in the filing process right away. But the rest is up to the system. On the very short end, it could be days. I would suspect weeks, though.”
Weeks.
My stomach knotted at that.
But weeks felt doable.
By the time I left the country for my next tournament, it would all be done.
If…
“Um, what if… on the off-chance Harrison isn’t as gung-ho to divorce as I am, what happens then?”
“Well, then, things get sticky,” Carl said, leaning back in his seat, his pen held between the pinched fingers of both hands.
“How so?”
“If Mr. Valentine doesn’t want to divorce you for financial reasons—we must assume he has spoken to his own attorney about this situation already—we can be clear in the paperwork that you want to cut ties with no division of assets.”
“Okay. Can we go ahead and do that right away, so we don’t waste time drafting up new paperwork?”
“Of course.”
“Okay, good. But what if it isn’t about the money? I mean, it probably is. But what if it isn’t?”
“If it isn’t about the money and Mr. Valentine simply doesn’t want to divorce you, that is when things get complicated.”
“Complicated how?”
“What you will be seeking in that situation is a contested annulment.”
“And that is different because…”
“First of all, it involves court. And typically a lot more time.”
“Why?”
“Because an annulment basically means that the marriage shouldn’t have been valid in the first place based on, in this case, lack of consent due to drunkenness.
But if Mr. Valentine says it was valid and you did consent, it is up to a judge to decide who is correct.
And, well, our court system can be slow.
Especially if either of you have any appointments that might get in the way of court dates. ”
“Great,” I said with a deep sigh.
“Look, let’s put this into perspective. There is no situation in which the courts will force you to stay married to someone you don’t want to be married to. That’s not how things work. It will just be more frustrating and lengthy. But in the end, you will be a single woman again.
“That said, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. There is a very high probability that Mr. Valentine will happily sign the annulment once he knows you’re not after his money.”
“I think he already knows that,” I mumbled, looking down at my ring.
“Come again?”
“See this?” I asked, holding up my hand.
A little whistle escaped Carl. “That’s quite a ring.”
“I gave it back to him this morning,” I told him. “He gave it back to me again when we ran into each other at a restaurant.”
Carl sucked in a deep breath, likely coming to the same conclusion I did. That if he was worried about the money, why would he leave me with an expensive ring?
“Well, let’s just hope that’s a payoff,” Carl said, shrugging and pulling his chair forward. “I’m just going to have a few questions for the paperwork, and we can get it printed out and out the door with you.”
“Thank God,” I said, sighing.
“Now, for the issue of payment…”
I reached into my chip bag and dropped a handful on the surface of his desk.
And, hey, I will say this for Carl Center: he wasn’t a crook. He grabbed the handful he needed and passed the rest back to me.
I answered my questions, refilled my coffee while I waited, then had a folder in my hand when I made my way out of his office.
I didn’t know if it was the food, the caffeine, or the paperwork itself, but I was feeling a lot more human when I made my way back to our hotel.
“Hi!” I greeted the same man I’d talked to about my phone earlier. “So, I lost my keycard to my room,” I told him, rattling off my room number and my name. “What?” I asked, dread filling my system at the confused look on his face.
“It looks like you checked out, Miss… Mrs. Valentine.”
“Clearly, I didn’t. Everything I brought with me to Vegas is still in that room.” Including a hell of a lot of money in chips. “What did you do with all my things if you checked me out?”
At this time of day, that meant someone would have already cleaned that room so they could turn it over.
“Right. There is a note here. You requested to have your things packed up and moved to—”
I didn’t wait for him to finish that sentence.
That son of a bitch.
I mean, what the hell was his problem?
And how was he one step ahead of me all damn day?
Because he wasn’t hungover.
Had he even been drunk?
I did remember him having a drink in his hand, our glasses clinking together, and the scent of whiskey came back to me in a wave so strong it made me nauseated all over again.
He had been drinking.
Just not as much as me.
So he was refreshed enough to get me clothes for the day, get ahead of me to the fast food place, get to the chapel around the same time as me, and empty my room while I went to the lawyer.
A grumble escaped me as I made my way into the elevator, trying to ignore the memory that rushed back to me. Of Harrison following me into the elevator, of the wall at my back, him pressed tightly against me, his lips on mine, sparking a million little fires.
The chime of the doors stopping at the penthouse had me jolting.
I rolled my shoulders and charged toward the door, slamming my fist into it hard enough to make it rattle in the jamb.
“Darling,” Harrison greeted me as he pulled the door open. His stupid, charming smile was in place. His jacket was off, his sleeves rolled up to reveal his forearms. Was there anything sluttier a man could do than roll up his sleeves like that?
Another growl escaped me.
“You know, I’m starting to wonder if I married a werewolf with all the growling you do.”
“About that,” I said, slapping the file folder into his chest.
He reached for it automatically.
“What’s this?”
“Annulment papers. With very clear wording about how I don’t want your money, just to be done with you. Sign them. Then all this is over,” I said, brushing past him and into the penthouse.
It looked even neater than it had earlier.
The bed was changed.
There were fresh vacuum lines in the carpet.
But all my things were sitting on the table in the kitchenette.
I made a beeline for the boots on the floor, shaking them.
“Dammit,” I groaned when they were empty.
“Layna,” Harrison said, making my head whip up to find him gesturing toward a chip rack. The kind that the dealers had. My chips were all stacked neatly inside it. “I would never steal your money.”
“I didn’t think you did it,” I said, getting to my feet and taking the rack. “I thought the staff found them.”
I sat down, taking out my chips bag and stacking the remaining ones into the rack.
“Sign the papers, Harrison,” I said, glancing up to see he had the folder tucked under his arm. He hadn’t even glanced at it. “The wording is very specific about me not wanting your money. Run it by your lawyer. He’ll be happy.”
“I’m sure he would be. But I’m not sending it to him.”
“Why the hell not?”
“I already told you this morning. I don’t want a divorce.”
“It’s an annulment. Since I wasn’t able to consent to the marriage.”
I jerked my chin up, daring him to contradict me.
“You saw the same footage I did,” he said. “You consented.”
“I was drunk.”
“No, you weren’t. Not sober, maybe. But not drunk.”
“Maybe I should have done the drug test,” I mumbled to myself.
“What?” Harrison asked, his voice a hushed whisper. My gaze flicked up to find him watching me with an unreadable look. “I did not, and would not ever, drug you, Layna. Go ahead and get a test if you need it for your own peace of mind.”
“Then why don’t I remember anything?” I asked, but my voice was more sad than angry. Like the balloon of outrage in my chest had finally popped.
“You celebrated hard after,” Harrison said.
That would explain why I’d seemed somewhat sober in the video.
“Well, regardless of how drunk I was or wasn’t, I don’t want this. So sign the damn papers,” I demanded. I got up from the table and started to gather my things from the penthouse.
I’d planned to stay in Vegas for at least another few days. Now, I couldn’t stand the thought. Hell, he might have ruined Vegas for me forever.
I didn’t know where I was going. I was on the road so often that I didn’t keep a house or apartment anywhere. But I needed to get the hell out of Nevada, that was for sure.
It wasn’t until I’d found my suitcase, purse, and carry-on and shoved everything lying round inside it that I looked at Harrison again.
He stood at the table, his fingers on the file folder.
“Did you sign it?”
“No. And I’m not going to.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am. I don’t want an annulment.”
“Well, my attorney said you can’t force me to stay married to you.”
“Not indefinitely, no. But maybe just for long enough.”
“Long enough for what? You know what? No. Don’t answer that. I don’t care. You’ll be hearing from my attorney.”
“Where are you going?”
“Leaving.”
“Vegas?”
“Yes. I’m done with this entire freaking town. Don’t be an idiot, Harrison. Look over the papers. Sign them. Then we can both move on with our lives.”
With that, I grabbed my rack of chips and stormed out of the room, slamming the door on this really awful day.