Accidental Bride (Beaufort Brides #3) Read online

  The last few hours felt like a blur now. He couldn’t even remember all the details.

  But the details didn’t matter. He had Kelly exactly where he’d always wanted her. Naked in his bed. Wearing his ring. Sweet and affectionate and uninhibited.

  She was his. And she’d still be his tomorrow.

  He had a marriage certificate to prove it.

  Three

  Kelly woke up in a thick fog.

  Her mind was so dark, confused, and cloudy that she could barely get her eyes opened. Her head ached, her mouth was parched, and every part of her body hurt.

  After a few minutes, she managed to open her eyes and stare up at a small chandelier.

  She’d never seen that chandelier before. It wasn’t in her room. It wasn’t in any room she’d ever been aware of. She had no idea why she’d been sleeping beneath it.

  The idea released a trigger of anxiety. She sat up in bed, groaning as her head ached even more. She was in some sort of fancy hotel room, but she couldn’t remember entering this room. When the covers slipped down, she gasped out loud when she realized she wasn’t wearing a shirt.

  A quick check under the covers confirmed that she was completely naked. Not even her underwear.

  She never slept naked. She’d never even dreamed of sleeping naked.

  And yet here she was in a strange hotel room, in bed without any clothes, with absolutely no idea how she’d gotten here.

  The likely scenario hit her so hard that her stomach heaved slightly. She jerked, ready to run to the bathroom, but the nausea settled into a sick, churning tightness in her gut.

  This couldn’t have happened.

  She was in Las Vegas, she suddenly remembered, for Gus and Veronica’s wedding. The bachelorette party came back to her. Drinking those red, fruity drinks. Watching the mostly naked men dance. Deciding to be a little wild for the first time in her life.

  She tried to push through the dark fog in her head, and she had a few scattered recollections of meeting up with the guys. She’d been at the wedding. She was almost sure of it. And Peter had been there. She could recall images of his face in passing snatches.

  He wouldn’t have left her alone. She was certain of it. He would never have let some random man take advantage of her.

  She scoured the room for some sign or hint of what she was doing here, and she saw her dress and underwear littering the floor. It caused another heave of her stomach.

  There were men’s clothes too. A gray jacket from a suit—like Peter had been wearing. A white dress shirt. And a watch on the nightstand. An expensive gold watch with a thick band.

  She grabbed for the watch.

  It was Peter’s, she realized in an intense rush of relief, as she checked the inscription on the back. His father had given it to him when he’d graduated from high school. Peter was the man who had been with her in this room.

  If it was Peter, then nothing bad would have happened.

  She had no idea why she was naked, but it couldn’t be any sort of nightmare scenario, not if Peter had been with her.

  He’d never let her be hurt. He’d never let her be too stupid.

  There was something large and loose on her finger, so she twirled it unconsciously, trying to make her mind work the way it was supposed to.

  On that thought, the door to the hotel room opened, and she grabbed for the covers to pull them back up to her shoulders.

  Peter walked in, wearing his gray trousers from last night and a white T-shirt. He held two large cups of coffee.

  He smiled at her when he saw she was awake and sitting up in the bed. His smile was strangely sweet, almost tentative. “Good morning.” He looked so adorably self-conscious she couldn’t help but smile back.

  “Hi.” She reached for the coffee as he approached, and had to catch the covers with one of her hands as they started to slide down again.

  He sat down on the edge of the bed beside her, his eyes searching her face in an unusually intense way. “How do you feel?”

  She took a long sip of coffee, the heat and strong flavor hitting her with an immediate sensation of pleasure.

  No clarity, though. She still couldn’t pierce the dark cloud in her mind.

  “Not too good,” she replied at last. “My head is killing me.”

  “We had a lot to drink last night.”

  She suddenly saw an image of herself, lying to Peter about how much she’d drunk with the other girls, before they’d met up with the guys. Of course, she’d had a lot to drink.

  She’d had way too much to drink. No wonder last night was a blur.

  She cleared her throat and took another sip of coffee. “What happ—how did I get here?”

  Peter’s gray eyes had been soft as they rested on her face, but now his gaze, his whole body stiffened slightly. “You don’t remember?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t remember anything. I’m sorry. I remember hanging out with Veronica and Heidi, and then I vaguely remember Gus and Heidi getting married. But I can’t remember anything else. Why am I in this room? Why am I naked? I didn’t do…” Her breath hitched in another flare of fear. “I didn’t do anything stupid, did I?”

  Very slowly, Peter reached over to set his coffee on the nightstand. “You don’t remember what happened last night?”

  “No. I just told you. I did something stupid and embarrassing, didn’t I?” She cringed, thinking about the possibilities. Maybe she’d stripped naked in a bar. Maybe she’d been making moves on random men.

  Maybe she’d come on to Peter.

  That thought was the worst. Surely she wouldn’t have done something so wrong, so crazy.

  “You only had a few drinks,” he said, a strange texture to his voice. It sounded tense. Too tense for everything to be all right. “I tried to keep count so you wouldn’t overdo it. You were…buzzed, but you weren’t completely wasted.”

  She glanced away, letting her loose, messy hair hide her face. “I had at least three with the other girls. I don’t remember how many I had afterwards. I’ve never really drank before.”

  He gasped. “You said you only had one.”

  “I know.” She couldn’t meet his eyes. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so mortified. She’d always been responsible. A very un-silly person. She wasn’t someone who ever did anything like this. “I…I didn’t tell you the truth.”

  “Why not?” He was sounding more and more upset.

  “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I don’t know. But I obviously had way too much to drink. Please tell me what I did. It wasn’t too…too bad, was it?”

  Peter didn’t answer.

  He didn’t answer for so long that she finally peeked out at him from behind her hair. He was staring down at the floor, something tight and conflicted frozen on his face. She couldn’t tell exactly what emotions he was feeling, but he was obviously upset.

  She was getting so scared that her breath came out in fast, thick pants. She hid behind her hair again, wondering if she even wanted to hear what she’d done in her drunken stupor last night.

  How could she have been so incredibly stupid? She’d always been a good girl—so good she was probably boring. Deanna and Rose had always gotten around more than she had, but they had never done anything like this.

  Only her. Stupid, stupid Kelly.

  “Kelly,” Peter said, whatever had been freezing him the minute before dispelling. He reached out to push her hair back from her face and tilt her head up so he could see her. “You’re saying you didn’t want to…want to…” He had his face under control now, but something deep was going on in his eyes, something that made everything worse.

  “Want to what?” Her voice cracked. “Did I…did I come on to you, or something? Did we…spend the night together?”

  Of course, they had. Why else would she be naked in bed right now, when Peter had obviously slept in the room too? She felt a hot rush of embarrassment.

  And a hot rush of something else. Something foolish. Something she
definitely shouldn’t be feeling about Peter. Not after what had evidently happened last night.

  “No!” He shifted on the bed. “Well, yes, but nothing happened. I mean, something happened, but it didn’t get very far.”

  She’d never heard him sound so stilted, so babbly.

  “So we didn’t have sex?”

  He shook his head as he met her eyes. “We started, but it ended before it got anywhere. We were both…totally out of it.”

  She let out a loud exhale. It didn’t sound too bad. It could have been much, much worse. “You were drunk too.” It wasn’t a question. She knew it was true. Peter would never have let them get into that situation, if he had been thinking clearly.

  “Yeah.” He was staring back down at the floor now, his shoulders very tense. “Not as drunk as you. I mean, I can remember last night. And I thought I…I knew what I was doing. But I obviously didn’t. If I hadn’t had too much to drink, I never would have believed…”

  “Believed what?”

  He shook his head. “I never would have let us get into this situation.”

  “Well, it doesn’t sound too bad.” Kelly smiled at him, trying to cheer him up. Her head still pounded like a jackhammer, but it didn’t sound like anything catastrophic had occurred. “So we were drunk and stupid for a night. At least nothing serious happened.”

  Peter cleared his throat. “There’s more.”

  “You said we didn’t have sex.”

  “We didn’t, but that’s not the only thing that happened last night.”

  He took a strange, shaky breath, and then he placed his left hand on her covers, the weight of it pulling them down slightly from where she’d tugged them up over her shoulders.

  She stared down at his hand, since she was obviously supposed to. And she blinked several times as she realized that he was wearing a simple gold band.

  On his ring finger. Of his left hand.

  She made a little noise in her throat as she remembered she’d been playing with something on her own finger all morning, without even recognizing it. She pulled her left hand out from under the covers and saw that she was wearing Peter’s signet ring.

  Thick, heavy gold with the Blake family crest engraved on the flat surface.

  “What…” she breathed.

  “Yeah.”

  “We got…”

  “Married.”

  “Why?”

  “I…I have no idea.”

  He wasn’t meeting her eyes, and she suddenly realized why. This was her fault. It must have been her idea. In her drunken state, she must have come up with this ridiculous notion, and Peter had been in no fit state to refuse.

  He’d always been a gentleman. He would never blame it on her.

  But it was obviously her own, stupid fault.

  “Okay,” she said, on another taken breath. “Okay. I’m sorry for getting us into this situation.”

  “It’s not your—”

  “It doesn’t matter whose fault it is, but it’s still not the end of the world. We can just…get it annulled or get divorced or something. We’ll pretend it never happened. No one has to know.”

  Peter was still staring at the floor. “Right.” He swallowed, so hard she could see it in his throat.

  With a wave of concern, she reached out to put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you mad at me?”

  He inhaled sharply and turned to look at her. “Of course not. I’m mad at myself.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Peter. I don’t care what you tell me. I know I must have been the one to get us into this situation.”

  “You didn’t—”

  “Don’t bother trying to argue. It’s really okay, Peter. I’m embarrassed, but I’m not upset, and I’m definitely not upset with you. Let’s get dressed, and then we can figure out how to take care of this. I’m sure we’re not the only people who have gone to Vegas and accidentally ended up married.”

  “Accidentally. Right.”

  “Right?” He was still acting strange, and she had no idea why. It bothered her—even more than the knowledge of what she’d done when she was drunk.

  “Right.” He gave her a little smile. “I’ll go take a shower, if you want to finish your coffee.”

  “Okay. Sounds good.”

  She watched him walk into the bathroom. He moved naturally, and he smiled at her again before he shut the door, but she could tell that something was still wrong.

  She flopped back against the pillows, taking several more swallows of coffee. She told herself to be practical and reasonable about this, the way she was about everything else.

  Her leg moved against something that felt strange on the sheet, so she slid a hand down to check it out instinctively. Her eyes widened dramatically as she realized what it must be.

  Dried semen.

  “Oh God,” she groaned, starting to cover herself up with the sheet but then pushing it down abruptly. She sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. Glancing down, she saw something dried on her bare stomach.

  That must have been from Peter too.

  She had absolutely no memory of anything that had happened in this bed last night, but evidently it had ended with Peter coming.

  Her whole body flushed hot at the realization.

  She wasn’t supposed to be thinking about Peter like that. He was her friend, and that was what he’d always, only been. He wasn’t interested in her in any other way.

  They’d been drunk. Men would go to bed with almost anyone when they were drunk. He still wasn’t interested in her. He’d been really upset about their getting married.

  She stared down at the ring on her finger. This morning, she was evidently a Blake. Her grandmother would be so pleased.

  If truth be told, it wasn’t as horrifying a thought as it should have been.

  But none of that mattered. Peter was obviously upset. The only kind thing she could do for him was help him get out of the situation as quickly as possible.

  That was what she was going to do. Whatever Peter wanted, she would go along with it. This was her fault, and she wasn’t going to let him suffer because of it.

  ***

  Peter stepped into the shower, the water on so hot it almost scalded him.

  He hadn’t spent his entire life being smart. It was only in the past few years that he’d tried to grow up and do something purposeful with his life.

  But nothing he’d done in the past had been nearly as foolish as this.

  He’d actually believed Kelly wanted him, wanted to be married to him. He’d let himself believe her inhibitions were down enough for her to act on what she really wanted.

  He hadn’t wanted to know the truth of it—that she was too far gone to make a good decision, or make any decision at all.

  He’d obviously been too drunk too, but he couldn’t take any comfort from that excuse.

  It had been his mistake. And he would have to live with the way his heart felt broken right now, like he’d lost what he’d almost had.

  He stayed in the shower a long time, too wracked with the harsh reality to think clearly or come up with a plan. He only turned off the water when his skin was really starting to hurt.

  As he was drying off, he heard a beep on his phone from the pocket of his trousers. He leaned over to pick it up and blinked in surprise when he saw there was a voice message from his mother.

  He clicked on it, glad of the distraction. His issues with his parents were nothing compared to the pain of losing Kelly, after thinking for one night that he’d had her.

  The message began abruptly.

  Peter, what is this about you getting married? I just got a call from Verna Wilson, who heard it from her daughter, Heidi, who I guess is with you there. She said you got married to that Beaufort girl. Why didn’t you tell me? Your dad and I would have put on a beautiful wedding for you. You know we would want to be there. I’m so happy that you decided to be a man about it, but I don’t know why you had to do it in such a rush. There are tradit
ions, you know. Anyway, I want to hear all about it, so call me back as soon as you can. Since Verna knows, you can bet all of Savannah knows by now. I can just imagine what old Mrs. Beaufort is thinking. Her granddaughter married a Blake! Call me, Peter. Call me as soon as you can.

  Peter’s heart was racing as he heard the end of the message. This was a nightmare. Not only had he been an utter fool, but everyone he knew would find out about it. His mother had sounded so happy, beneath her outrage at being left out.

  He would have to disappoint her, on top of everything else.

  He sat down on the side of the tub, his towel wrapped around his waist. He stared down at his phone. His body was buffeted with waves of mortification and loss and grief and self-directed anger.

  If he hadn’t wanted it so much, he would have stopped this thing from happening last night. He’d known better.

  Deep inside, he’d known it was too good to be true, too easy, too much like a fantasy come to life.

  Kelly didn’t want him. Not like that.

  She never had.

  A tap on the bathroom door surprised him. “Peter?”

  He raised his head at the sound of Kelly’s muffled voice through the door. “Yeah.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It feels like you’re upset in there.”

  “I’m not upset.”

  “It feels like you are.”

  “How can you tell what I’m thinking through the door?”

  “I don’t know. It just feels like you are. And you’ve been in there a long time. Can I come in?”

  “Yeah.”

  She opened the door, wearing one of the hotel bathrobes. Her hair was still loose, and it was long and messy and beautiful, hanging down around her body. She’d put her glasses on, so she looked more Kelly-like.

  Peter had never seen anything or anyone that he’d wanted more.

  Kelly came over to sit beside him on the edge of the tub. “I’m sorry about this,” she murmured.

  “You don’t have anything to be sorry about. I’m the one who got us into this situation.”

  “How did you get us into it? I was the one who was most wasted. It was my idea. Wasn’t it?”