Anne McAllister - The Inconvenient Bride

Finn stared, poleaxed, first at Dominic, then at Sierra. “You’re going to marry him?” He sounded as disbelieving as Sierra felt.

But there were some things Finn didn’t know about. Like the chemistry that had been bubbling between her and Dominic for months. Like the night after Mariah and Rhys’s wedding. Like the most sizzling sex she’d ever experienced. Like the fact that she hadn’t been able to forget the man she’d shared it with even though she knew she should, even though she’d tried. Like Frankie.

Especially Frankie.

“I’m going to marry him, yes.” She nodded her head.

If Finn considered arguing, a long look into her eyes apparently made him decide not to. “Right,” he said. “Two it is.”

“We can’t,” Ballou protested.

“No way,” cried the models.

At five of two they were done.

“Let’s go.” Dominic was tapping his foot as she packed up the tackle box in which she carried her gear. Then she grabbed her jacket, stuffed her arms in it, and picked up the tackle box, hugging it against her chest.

“Where are you going with that?” Dominic demanded.

“It goes where I go,” Sierra said stubbornly. She looked down at his briefcase. “Like yours.”

He sighed mightily. “Fine. Come on.”

“What about a license?” she asked as he spirited her down the elevator.

“We’ll get one.”

“What about a waiting period?” She was sure there must be one.

“Normally twenty-four hours,” Dominic said. “I can get us an exception.” He was dragging her out the door, through the rain, and into the hired car waiting at the curb.

“This is insane, you know that, don’t you?” she muttered, scrambling in ahead of him. The windows were steamed. She remembered other windows…

“Yes.” Dominic climbed in beside her. He was so close she could feel the heat from his body, remembered how very hot that body could be…

“You’ll regret it tomorrow,” she said with an edge of desperation to her voice.

“Very likely.” He banged the door shut behind him.

“I’ll regret it tomorrow.” She clutched the tackle box like it was a life preserver in a storm-swept sea.

“Without a doubt.” Then he turned to face her squarely, and she saw a wild, reckless look in Dominic Wolfe’s normally cool blue eyes. Hot ice. That was what it made her think of. It was a look Sierra remembered seeing only once before—on the wildest, craziest night of her life.

“So you have to decide—are you in or not?”

For three months she’d tried to forget that night. She hadn’t forgotten.

From the glitter in his eyes, she knew Dominic hadn’t, either.

Marrying Dominic was insane.

She would regret it. So would he.

They had nothing but sex between them. Primal attraction. Animal hunger. Lust. A four-letter word that started with L, but hardly the right one on which to base a marriage. But what was the use of being a gambler if you never threw the dice.

They went to the bank.

He got her a check. Made them print it out, spelled out her name. “Sierra Kelly Wolfe,” he said, “because you will be when you cash it.” And he thrust it into her hand.

He didn’t ask what she was going to do with it. He didn’t seem to even care. “Satisfied?” he asked as she stared at it, counting the zeroes.

Sierra, trying not to gape, nodded dumbly. “Yes.”

“Good.” He steered her out of the bank and bundled her back into the car. “City hall,” he told the driver.

Sierra hadn’t been to city hall since she’d applied for her cosmetology license. She was amazed to find they got their marriage license in the same room. She didn’t mention this amazing bit of news to Dominic. He wasn’t listening.

He was arranging their wedding.

He gave the clerk information. Then it was her turn. She gave the answers by rote, filled in the forms, signed where she was told. If she’d doubted his ability to arrange an exception to the waiting period, she didn’t doubt for long.

He called a friend, who called a friend. In a matter of minutes it was arranged that someone called Judge Willis would perform the ceremony in his chambers.

“Almost there,” Dominic said, and taking her arm once more, he hauled her toward the door. “I’ll call Finn. Tell him and Izzy where to meet us.”

“You don’t want to call Rhys?”

Dominic had been best man at Rhys and Mariah’s wedding. Sierra had been Mariah’s maid of honor.

In the act of opening the door, Dominic stopped and arched a brow. “Do you want to call Mariah?”

Never in a million years! Mariah was sane and sensible. She would throw herself in front of a speeding train before she would let Sierra do something as stupid as marry her brother-in-law on the spur of the moment.

“Didn’t think so.” Dominic pulled out a cell phone, checked his organizer, and punched in Finn’s number. “Finn? All set,” he said without preamble. “Meet us in Judge Willis’s chambers at five.”

He rattled off the directions, then grabbed Sierra’s arm again. “It’s not in this building. Let’s go.”

It was two streets over, five flights up, down two long corridors. Dominic’s legs were a lot longer than hers, and Sierra was panting by the time they arrived. Finn and Izzy and all four of their kids arrived moments later.

“What the—?” Dominic looked aghast at the sight of nine-year-old twins, Pansy and Tansy, three-year-old Rip and baby Crash. He turned his gaze on Finn’s wife, Izzy, his look both accusing and appalled.

Izzy didn’t give him a chance to object. She poked her umbrella at him. “You want me to get a baby-sitter, you have to give me more than ten minutes’ notice.”

Then she turned her eyes toward Sierra. “Are you crazy?” she demanded. To be marrying Dominic, she meant.

It was a question anyone knowing them would ask, and Sierra knew it. She shrugged. “Probably.”

It wasn’t the answer Izzy was looking for. Scowling, she turned back to Dominic. “Are you coercing her?”

“I am not.” His expression went from appalled to offended.

“Then why—”

Finn redirected the umbrella tip away from Dominic’s midsection. “I don’t think that’s our business, Iz,” he said to his wife quietly.

“But—”

“You don’t have to worry about her,” Dominic said firmly. “I’m not going to beat her. I’m not going to mistreat her. I’m not going to tie her up and dye her hair brown. I’m just going to marry her.”

Izzy didn’t look happy—or convinced.

But before she could argue, the door to the judge’s chambers opened just then and a pointy-chinned woman looked down her nose and said, “His Honor will see you now.”

Dominic cast one more despairing glance at the assembled group and ushered them all in. He introduced himself, Finn and his wife, then drew Sierra forward.

His Honor took one look at her and his eyes bulged. His jaw flapped. His gaze went straight to Dominic. “I misunderstood. I thought when Harvey called, he said you wanted to get married…”

“I do.”

Sierra felt Dominic’s arm come around her as he hauled her close, just in case there was any question in the judge’s mind about who the intended bride was.

The judge’s eyebrows hiked halfway up his bald head. But at the sight of Dominic’s fingers tightening on her shoulder and his steely glare, His Honor nodded his head. “Very well. Come in.”

Dominic and Sierra went in. Trailing behind them were a pair of saucer-eyed red-headed twins, then Finn with Rip on his shoulders, and Izzy who carried a wriggling Crash.

The pointy-chinned woman let out an audible sigh, shut the door and left them to it.

The ceremony itself was an anticlimax.