Inconveniently Wed!

“Maybe we could grab a bite before we call it a night? I know this great retro diner within walking distance of here that makes the best cheeseburgers around.”

“I love cheeseburgers.” She slipped her hand into his. This time she was ready for the sparks the contact generated and she reveled in them.

“Crazy, huh?” he said.

Serena didn’t have to ask what he meant. “Outrageous—and, believe me, I know outrageous.”

The pair of them were so different—he classic Brooks Brothers and she unapologetically offbeat. Yet they were in tune with one another. So much so that a couple of hours later, when they started back from the diner, their strides matched and their arms swung in unison.

They stopped in front of the Bellagio’s illuminated fountains. Back where it all began, Serena mused. Somehow she knew her life was never going to be the same. As they watched the water shoot up Jonas turned. He’d kissed her several times since first leaving the Bellagio, each kiss longer and more enticing than the last. Even so they’d left her yearning for more. She couldn’t get enough of him, and not just physically. This went beyond being turned on.

Instead of kissing her now, he took her in his arms and danced with her in the moonlight, ending with a dip that left her nearly parallel to the ground. His unexpected turn as Fred Astaire charmed her, and left them both laughing, but afterward, when he held her in his arms, his grasp was just this side of desperate. She understood perfectly. Over his shoulder she watched the water arc in the air, every bit as enchanting as their time together.

“Tonight has been magical,” he said, as if he could read her mind.

Serena hummed in agreement. “I wish it didn’t have to end.”

“Does it?”

His answer surprised her. She pulled back far enough so she could see his face. “Doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know.” The way Jonas frowned gave the impression he rarely found himself without an answer. Yet he struggled for one now. “You…us…on the surface it doesn’t make any sense.”

“Not much, no. But someone recently reminded me that appearances can be deceiving.”

Serena laughed, but he was still frowning. “When I saw you I had the strangest feeling that I knew you—that I’d been—”

“Looking for you,” she supplied as her heart bucked out a couple of extra beats. “What happens now?”

“Normally I’d say goodnight, give myself a few days to think and put things in perspective.”

“I return to San Diego in less than twelve hours.” She pulled out of his embrace and despite the evening’s heat felt chilled immediately. “Got another idea?”

He frowned again. “Yes, but it’s…” He shook his head and looked a little dazed. “It’s crazy.”

A grin tugged at Serena’s lips. “I’m always up for crazy.”

He didn’t smile. He swallowed, and she watched his Adam’s apple bob. “This qualifies as insane, even if in a totally weird way it makes perfect sense.”

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense.”

He inhaled deeply. “You could stay.”

Serena barely heard his words over the pounding of her heart. “Stay? In Vegas?” she said, to be sure she hadn’t imagined the offer. After Jonas nodded, she asked, “For how long?”

He did smile now, and his expression was that of a gambler letting his fortune ride on the roll of the dice.

“How about forever?”

Chapter Two

WHAT had she done?

Serena woke in the strange hotel room with a start. Clutching the sheet to her chest, she jackknifed to a sitting position and turned her head. Even knowing what she would find, she felt her mouth gape open at the sight that greeted her.

Oh. My. God!

It hadn’t been a dream. Jonas Benjamin was splayed out on his side of the bed beside her—shirtless and then some. Since his eyes were closed, she allowed her gaze to follow the length of his spine down his nicely muscled back. The sheet interfered with her view when it reached his hips, but what she couldn’t see now she clearly remembered seeing—and touching—last night. With her memory working overtime, Serena became uncomfortably aware of her own nakedness.

It wasn’t the vivid recollections of their passionate lovemaking that had her panicking. It was what had happened just prior to it. Jonas’s right hand was tucked beneath the pillow, but his left one was clearly visible, and the third finger sported a cheap band identical to the one on hers.

They were married!

The magic of the previous night leaked away, leaving stark reality in its place. She, the woman who couldn’t commit to anything, had stood in a tacky Vegas chapel and promised to love, honor and cherish for a lifetime a man she hadn’t even known for a day.

It was only in the past year that she’d committed to a hair color, going back to her natural red after trying out shades that ran the gamut from Goth black to punk purple. Or that she’d committed to a job. She’d worked full-time decorating cakes at the upscale Bonaventure Creations in La Jolla for a solid eleven months—a record on her part, especially since she still loved it. But marriage? She couldn’t do marriage—even if for a brief time last night it had seemed like a really good idea.

Serena smothered a groan with her hand. She’d done a lot of bone-headed things in her life. Leaping without looking was a specialty of hers. But this wouldn’t be as easy to fix as the bad neon-green dye job she’d sported two St Patrick’s Days ago. Nor would it be as easy to hide as the dragonfly tattoo that hovered low on her right hip—the result of one too many margaritas on her twenty-first birthday.

What was she going to do?

Her gaze followed the trail of their discarded clothing back to the room’s door. The only thing that came through loud and clear was she needed to leave. Now. Before Jonas woke. Before he smiled and said something sweet or funny. Before he was able to change her mind. Because maybe he could…for a little while anyway.

His tie caught her notice. It hung from the corner of the headboard. Serena frowned as she studied it. They were so different. Too different. Likely upon his waking reality would smack the professional and very put-together Jonas Benjamin upside the head, as it had her, and he would be as eager as she was to extricate himself from this situation.

Pride demanded she be the one to leave first. Serena slipped from the bed and gathered up what she could find of her clothing. A few minutes later she was dressed, minus her bra and one of her earrings. She heard him stir as she bent to slip a hastily penned note of explanation into one of his size-eleven wingtips.

“Who…who’s there?” he called sleepily.

He didn’t even recall her name! Her heart sank even as her resolve strengthened.

“Nobody worth remembering,” she whispered, and closed the door.

The lock snicked shut before Jonas made it off the bed. Cursing, he flopped back on the mattress, rubbed the sleep from his eyes and tried to get his bearings. The events of the previous evening came back to him with the force of a fast-moving freight train and made him grateful to already be prone.

Serena. His wife.

He’d only gotten a peek at her pale face before the door closed, but he knew this much for certain: she wasn’t going out for coffee and bagels. She’d bolted.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure how he felt about anything. He’d married a woman he’d known for a handful of hours. Talk about acting out of character. He preferred his Is dotted, his Ts neatly crossed. Tidy and well-ordered—that was how he liked his life. Every move he’d made since graduating from law school had been planned out carefully and methodically. Or every move until he’d walked into that lounge the previous night and spied a vivacious redhead. For a handful of stolen hours she’d been his sole reality. He hadn’t lost himself in a woman like that ever. As thrilling and baffling as he’d found the sensation the evening before, right now he felt confused and oddly vulnerable.

A cellphone trilled and pulled him back to the present. The ringer was low and muffled, and came from beneath his wrinkled trousers.

“Benjamin here,” he said, after retrieving it.

“Where are you?” Jameson Culver demanded by way of a greeting. “We agreed to meet first thing this morning at campaign headquarters, to go over the radio spots you’ll be taping tomorrow. It’s after nine.”

“Ah…right. Sorry. I’ve been…tied up.” It wasn’t a complete lie, he decided as he recalled one of the inventive uses Serena had found for his necktie. His campaign manager, however, was far from mollified.