Cannon (Carolina Reapers 5)

I caught the white and gold folder emblazoned with the name of a wedding chapel on the front and opened it slowly.

My stomach twisted into a hellacious knot.

“Oh God,” Persephone whispered next to me.

It was a perfectly executed copy of a marriage license, signed by both of us. A certified copy, to be specific.

“Where’s the original?” I questioned. This was fixable. It had to be.

“You guys were married at four p.m. and made it to the clerk and recorder by four-thirty,” Harper answered. “For being out of your minds, you were ridiculously thorough. The county took your original for recording and gave you the certified copy.”

“Let me guess, we’ll get that in the mail too?” I quipped sarcastically.

“Pretty much,” the scientist answered, then sipped her orange juice.

I stared down at the license, letting the reality of it sink in.

“Holy. Shit.” Persephone’s words were a breath of a whisper. “We did it.”

Three facts hit me simultaneously.

The first was that I was actually, really, completely married to Persephone.

The second was the way she’d signed, officially taking my name.

And the third—the most ridiculous out of all of this—somehow, I’d managed to kiss the very woman I’d fantasized about for the last two fucking years, and I couldn’t remember a single second of it.

Married. Bound. Chained to a woman I’d never be worthy of, a woman I’d destroy with my temper or my reputation. She’d never survive it unscathed, not in the debutante circles she ran. Her family had more blue blood than freaking aliens. She represented everything I hated about class warfare, and I was everything she turned her nose up at.

“Cannon, I think we’re really married,” Persephone whispered.

My reply came without hesitation. “Not for long.”

2

Persephone

This is fine.

I repeated the words over and over in my head as I calmly collected pieces of clothing scattered across the hotel room. My clothing.

A silk blouse here.

A sleek pencil skirt there.

My strappy black pumps over in the corner.

Sweet heavens, why had I hung my red lace bralette on the doorknob?

I clenched my eyes shut as I slipped the damning evidence in my bag, my mind a fuzzy mess of fog and forgotten dreams.

A flash of me sliding the bra off through the sleeves of my silk slip—the slip I’d awoken in this morning—fizzled behind my eyes. The reason for doing so? Totally a blank. As was the rest of the night.

My wedding night, apparently.

And I knew from the lack of soreness between my thighs and my perfectly untouched lipstick that nothing worth remembering had happened—despite waking up beneath the sexiest and most infuriating man I’d ever set eyes on. I’d thought I’d been dreaming when I’d felt his delicious weight atop me, his lips caressing my neck, his strong thigh between my legs. Thought it was one of my most creative dreams yet until…well, until we both realized we were awake.

My fingers trembled as I gathered the rest of my things, the only lack of composure I’d allow to show. Because I was Persephone VanDoren and I’d be damned if I gave control to the gathering panic coiling in my chest.

Cannon spoke on the phone in the sitting room attached to the hotel’s bedroom, and his deep tenor skittered over my body, leaving a warm chill in its wake. I sucked in a sharp breath and once again tried to recall the events of the night prior.

The plane ride had been pleasant, a quiet sort of comfortable as Cannon read his book. Nathan Noble and his twin brother Nixon had offered a subdued source of constant chatter on the plane’s opposite side, Nathan’s fiancé, Harper content with her research on her laptop. And Nixon’s date, Liberty—the auction winner—seemed more than happy to simply stare at him with an awestruck sense of disbelief as he’d chatted with his brother.

I did remember the headache Sterling had mentioned, and the pain pills which both Cannon and I had obviously assumed were harmless.

But after the plane ride?

Nothing.

Blank.

A thick, wet blanket of darkness buried the memory.

Once again, that cold, building panic pulsed in my chest, threatening to break my composure. How could I have let myself get into this situation? What would my father think? And my mother—

My cell phone rang from my purse on the nightstand, and I hurried over to it. As if I’d conjured her out of thin air, my mother’s picture flashed over my screen. For a few seconds too long, I debated not answering. But she was my mama, and I’d never shut her out.

“Hello, Mama,” I answered, forcing warmth and grace into my tone. “How are you feeling? Everything all right?”

“It most certainly isn’t all right, Sephie,” she said, her voice anything but unhappy. “How could you possibly elope and not tell me?”

My blood ran cold.

“What? How? I—” For once, words spewed from my mouth in a shocked state of confusion.