Vanessa blinked wildly. “Amad! I don’t—I can’t—”
“Just think of it this way. The fact that I’m a sheikh puts me in a unique position to take extra good care of our little walnut.” Amad found the dip in her waist. “Or whatever size it is.”
Vanessa relaxed slightly.
“And you know what? We better get you a nice dress to go with this ring. What do you say we swing by a vintage clothing shop on our way to the chapel?”
“I’d say that’s way too much,” Vanessa said, narrowing her eyes.
“I knew you’d say that.” Amad couldn’t keep the cheek-splitting grin at bay. This was too much fun. Probably the most fun he’d ever had. “But we’re doing it anyway.”
3
Vanessa peeked through the red velvet curtain. Everything gelled into the perfect, fun, cheesy moment: a chapel with a backdrop of an old-timey saloon, white flowers tied to the backs of the pews, and her eggshell white thigh-length dress, the entire top half a scoop neck covered in sequins.
It all reeked of shotgun matrimony. And she couldn’t ignore the prickle of excitement in her gut. Or was that worry? It was really hard to tell the difference. She was about to marry a sheikh. How had that detail been overlooked over the past three months? It wasn’t like it changed anything, but still…
“Babe.” Amad’s sexy baritone broke through her thoughts, and she whipped around to face him.
“What?”
He cocked a brow. “You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”
She shook her head. “No. Just thinking about how I’m about to be a princess or something even though I’m just a waitress in Las Vegas. This is how those Christmas rom-com’s start out, ya know? The secret life of the hero surprises the city girl, and they clash comically.”
“I promise you that I am the same man I was an hour ago, a week ago when I FaceTimed you from Dubai, and a month ago when we made this baby.”
She nodded, nibbling on her lower lip. “Yeah, yeah. I know.”
“And we’re not starring in a Christmas rom-com.”
“Well that part I’m not so sure about,” she chided jokingly, pointing at him. “If you can suddenly be a royal sheikh, then I’m not so sure there isn’t a camera crew outside waiting to film our eventual holiday love affair.”
Amad snorted. She loved it when she made him laugh like that. Just one of the many things that she enjoyed about this man. The L-word didn’t belong in her life, but with Amad, she’d always sort of thought that maybe someday it could. Not yet, of course—not after their super-casual-but-exclusive fucking. But now that there was a baby in the mix? It seemed like the L-word should be involved. Even though it wasn’t.
Life had gone from zero to weird in twenty-four hours.
A chapel assistant ushered them forward. Since they had no friends with them, they’d opted for the witnesses-provided package, where the chapel supplied the necessary two witnesses in order to finalize the marriage. In the front row of pews, the two witnesses waited—very friendly, normal-looking people. The man and woman waved as Amad and Vanessa made their way toward the podium.
“Thanks for witnessing this,” Amad offered.
“It’s our pleasure,” the curly-haired woman said.
“And our job,” added the man.
Vanessa giggled into Amad’s shoulder. “This is nuts!”
He shushed her, pointing toward a swinging red door off to the side. “Here comes the sheriff!”
Amad elbowed her as their officiant swept through the doorway, a man dressed in the trappings of the American Old West. He wore cowboy boots with spurs and an oversized cowboy hat, and he moved with a slow, measured gait. Vanessa couldn’t help but giggle as the ceremony got underway. With plenty of drawl in his ”Whaddya say, pardner?” and the requisite vows, she and Amad were married in a sonorous and rapid-fire ceremony. The chapel assistant snapped a picture of them with ”the sheriff” before he left the building.
“I can’t believe this,” Vanessa gushed in the limousine back to Amad’s apartment. He kept a swank but sparse bachelor pad in a high rise that usually served as their command central whenever he was in town. She stared at the sparkly rock on her finger. “We’re freaking married!”
Amad wrapped his arm around Vanessa’s shoulder as he leaned forward to lower the window separating them from the front of the limo. “We’re newlyweds, you know,” he said to the driver.
Vanessa swatted his shoulder. “Shoulda hitched up some cans to the exhaust pipe and made this a proper wedding vehicle.”
The two of them giggled and canoodled in the backseat until the limo pulled up to Amad’s high-rise. They tumbled into the lobby together, necked in the elevator, and once they burst through the heavy black door of Amad’s apartment, they were both shouting with laughter.