Waking Up Married

Her first thought: “Who are you?”

It’s the morning after her cousin’s bachelorette party in Vegas and Megan Scott wakes up with the mother of all hangovers. Even worse, she’s in a stranger’s penthouse having woken up with something else as well - a funny, arrogant, sexy…husband!

Up until now, finding even a boyfriend had seemed impossible - been there, got the broken heart, sworn off men for good. Then a few martinis with Carter…no, Conner Reed and she’s gone from first meet to marriage in one night!

Megan wants a lawyer. But Connor’s shocking bombshell?

“I don’t want a divorce.”

Waking Up Married

“We need some ground rules.”

“Ground rules.” He didn’t like the sound of that. “Such as?”

Tightening the belt on her robe, she shifted her weight and squinted at him. “No sex.”

Forcing himself to laugh instead of swear, he shook his head. “Forget it, Megan. This is a real marriage we’re trying on and sex is a healthy, normal part of it.”

“Connor, I’m serious—”

“I’m serious, too,” he said, following her off the bed and taking her shoulders in his hands. “Not a chance. I’m going to seduce you, Megan.”

“I’ll say no,” she whispered, her eyes already drifting to his mouth.

“Fair warning.” His thumb moved to the pale pink line where her bottom lip became skin. “If you do, I’ll stop.”

“I can resist you.”

Connor gave in to the slow grin pushing at his lips. “You can try.”

Waking Up Married

Mira Lyn Kelly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is dedicated with love to my dad, for always supporting my dreams—no matter where they took me!

(Okay, that’s far enough, Dad. No reading past here!)

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

About the Author

CHAPTER ONE

FORCED TO LISTEN to one heaving revolt after another reverberate off the polished marble, Connor Reed cursed his conscience.

Talk about an inconvenient burden. No matter how his stomach rocked and his head slammed, there was no way he could make a bolt for the beckoning doorway to freedom at the far wall.

Wrenching his gaze back to his own slightly green reflection, he turned off the tap and wrung out a towel. Pushed some empathy into his expression and prepared to face the music.

“Hey, gorgeous,” he called, crossing over to the pitiful creature half leaning into, half clutching the toilet in front of her. “Feeling any better?”

Raccoon eyes peered out from beneath a blond rat’s nest as she reached for the damp cloth he held in offering. “Carter—”

“Connor,” he corrected drily, torn between amusement and what, by all rights, ought to be the very antithesis of it.

“We need a lawyer,” she gasped, barely finding the time to look chagrined before the next wave of revolt took her.

A lawyer. Not exactly a stellar kickoff to their honeymoon. But then, this wasn’t exactly a stellar situation to begin with. Of course, in the less than fifteen minutes since the warm body sprawled beside him had moaned—once, and not in a good way—then lurched from the bed to the bathroom, he hadn’t quite put all the soggy pieces of the night before into place. But based on the shocking evidence at hand—or more specifically, finger...and the band of glinting diamonds encircling hers—this was the worst-case scenario come to life. Cutting loose gone bad. Consequences in action. Yeah, in all likelihood, this was going to be a major hassle to clean up.

So a lawyer sounded like an ideal place to start. Once the upchuck portion of the morning concluded, at any rate.

“One thing at a time, babe. Let’s get through this, and we’ll worry about the rest later.”

Whatever her choked response was, he got the gist it was an agreement of sorts.

Damn, what a disaster.

Rubbing a hand over the back of his neck, Connor gave his blanching bride a not-so-subtle once-over.

Twelve hours ago she’d been “authentic” with her sharp wit and gently rough edges. Her too-wide smile, assortment of freckles and sexy laugh. Now, with her hair threatening to dip into God only knew, she just looked...rough. No gentle about it.

Still, even as he stared at the hot mess she was before him, fragmented images bombarded his mind with hints of who she’d been the night before. The girl-next-door giving in to a bit of wild. The perfect fit for his bad-boy mood. He’d thought she looked like a few hours of fun.

So how the hell had she ended up flipped over his shoulder, giggling about how crazy he was, as he toted her into one of those all-night chapels Las Vegas was famous for?

Megan turned, giving him a full-on frontal view of the too-tight, hot-pink T-shirt she’d been wearing when he’d stumbled into the bathroom after her.

Stamped across her bust in black block letters were two words: GOT SPERM?

Oh, right. That was how.

Hell.

* * *

What had she been thinking!

Megan peered up at the darkening scowl across Carter’s—no—Connor’s face and then down at what was probably a combined ten carats of diamonds adorning the fourth finger of her left hand...and heaved into the bowl again.

She’d had sex. With a stranger. Someone she maintained only the foggiest recollection of meeting. And then...she’d gone and married him.

Or maybe they’d waited...going the more traditional route and saving themselves for after the wedding. So it would be special.

Ugh!

So incredibly special the only detail of the entire consummation she remembered was the soft rub of fabric between her thighs, the heady weight of him above her and her intense frustration in getting her toe caught in his belt loop while trying to wrestle his tie loose.

And now, here she was on her knees, hurling her lungs out while this man, essentially a stranger, bore witness to one of the most intimate unpleasantnesses a person could endure. She wished he’d left when she’d told him to. But he’d stayed to make sure she was okay...like the good husband he was.

It was almost enough to make her laugh, only it really wasn’t funny and her body was otherwise engaged.

“There can’t be much left” came the gruff voice from behind her.

As the spasms subsided, she hazarded a glance at the man she’d married. Beyond the contemplative expression, those dark eyes didn’t offer up much to read.

“There isn’t...” she groaned. “I’ve been on empty for a few rounds already. This...is just my stomach making a point...I think.”

“Hmm. Really driving it home, I see.” The touch of dry humor pulled her focus back to him again. To the details she’d missed in the first pass. He was tall. And not because of her near-floor-level perspective. Tall enough so as he leaned against the open doorway, his free hand hung in a loose grip from the top of the frame mere inches from his head. And he was built in a powerful, lean-strength kind of way where the muscles across his chest, abdomen, shoulders and arms were well-defined but without the extreme bulk of serious bodybuilders. This guy just looked really fit. And as if that weren’t bad enough, he was classically handsome too, with a blade-straight nose, high cheekbones and an assortment of even features so appealing she suddenly wondered how long she’d been staring.

From her little hangout on the floor...by the toilet...where she’d been throwing up.

Ugh!

Really, the humiliation couldn’t get much worse. But it didn’t matter. This guy and all his good looks weren’t a part of her plan. So what if he was handsome, or that she’d seen hints of the kind of humor she typically appreciated, or that she was, in fact, married to him? She’d had enough close calls in her life with men she’d actually known, and she was through with the whole business.

Still, pride had her stumbling to her feet on limbs that were clumsy and tight from the combination of dehydration and kneeling too long. Limbs that weren’t quite working. Suddenly she was going right back down until two strong hands gripped her beneath her arms, holding her steady as she regained her footing.

The contact was awkward. Her, trying to hold herself apart; him, trying to support her without getting too close. “Thank you.”

“Not a problem.” And then after a pause, “Just one of the benefits of having a husband around, I guess.”

She nodded, exhausted, overwhelmed, but somehow more grateful than words could convey for that bit of superficial exchange. As much as they needed to, she wasn’t ready to talk about what happened last night. About how they were going to sort it out this morning and over the next however long it took to get an annulment processed.

Not until she’d at the very least had a shower, tooth-brushing, floss and several intensive minutes with the most mediciney mouthwash she could get her hands on. Glancing down, she added a change of clothes to her list. And then, committed to doing her part, she replied in kind, “Knew there was a reason I’d picked one up.”

The low answering chuckle had her daring another look over her shoulder.

It was the smile that did it. That brought the melee of vodka-soaked images into order enough for her to see at least a glimpse of the man from the night before rather than the near stranger she’d woken beside this morning.

Oh, God. What had she gotten herself into—and how fast could she get herself out of it?

CHAPTER TWO

Twelve hours earlier...

“OH, COME ON, screw the sperm bank.” Tina sighed with a dismissive flutter of her candy-apple acrylics. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Megan Scott tipped her glass, swallowing the last decadent drops of white-chocolate martini, then slumped deeper into the plush cushions of the lounge chair she’d taken up residence in some forty minutes before. Contemplating another drink, she did her best to ignore the incessant bickering her fellow bridesmaids had perfected through a lifetime of practice.

That it was her womb they were battling over was of as little consequence as the fact that Megan already had a plan and she was sticking to it.

“Um...the fun comes nine months later,” Jodie snipped back. “All tiny and new, wearing one of those little nursery beanies...and without any of the communicable side effects on offer with your plan...”

Tina’s plan, as Megan understood it, revolved around the T-shirt—hot off the silk screen and sporting the slogan GOT SPERM?—folded neatly on the cocktail table between them.

“I mean, seriously, who’s to say this total, random stranger enticed by your thirteen-dollar custom call for baby batter isn’t attempting to walk off the early stages of Ebola or worse? Casual, unprotected sex is stupid. And you’re trying to talk Megan into it. For God sake, why don’t you pick up a knife and stab her.”

Turning the glass upside down, Megan watched as a single last drop of martini goodness slid to the rim. Catching it with her tongue, she hoped the cocktail waitress would take her action as the plea for help it was and bring a refill. Fast.

“You’re such a prude. It’s pathetic.”

Eesh.

“What I am is too much of a lady to say what you are.”

“Girls, please,” Megan interjected before the volley of barbs got any more intense. “I totally appreciate you two looking out for me this way.” Okay, she was stretching the truth, but somehow her tongue let her get away with it. Honestly, she’d have rather been of such little interest they both got her name wrong all weekend and ignored her through dinner. But courtesy of her mother’s propensity to spill secrets, the family grapevine had guaranteed her Vegas arrival for cousin Gail’s wedding was met with a tempest of polarizing opinion regarding her decision to undergo artificial insemination in two months’ time. “Tina, I love—really love—this T-shirt, but the only place it’s going is into my scrapbook. And, Jodie, thank you for the support but—”

Jodie’s hand came up, cutting her off. “I don’t, really. Support what you’ve decided to do. You ought to wait to find a husband like the rest of us.”

Images of Barry and the two years they’d dated flashed through her mind, threatening to suck her into a vortex of churning emotions she wouldn’t allow herself to surrender to. Shame, embarrassment, anger and helpless frustration.

“Megan, I swear I didn’t even realize it myself. Not until right that minute...and suddenly I knew. I’d never stopped loving her.”

She wasn’t going there again, wasn’t wasting another precious second on the man who’d left for a conference talking about starting a family with her and then come home married to someone else.

Spine stiffening, she reined herself in.

She didn’t need Barry.

She didn’t need any man to have the child she’d always wanted—well, at least not for more than five minutes of quality time with a plastic cup.

Jodie sighed, a faraway look settling over her features. “Wait for your Prince Charming and you’ll have someone to share your special moment in the nursery, making it all the sweeter.”

“Well, actually,” Megan started, but Jodie wasn’t finished.

“You’re what’s wrong with our society. I mean, life isn’t about getting everything you want the instant you want it. Some things are worth waiting for. That said, in a toss-up between bedding down with the next patient zero or hitting the drive-thru for prescreened sperm...I’ll back the bank.”

Megan felt the telling wash of heat rush through her cheeks, but thinking about Gail and what kind of wedding she’d have if all three of her bridesmaids were at each other’s throats, she tamped it down. “Okay. Well, thank you...for your thoughts on the issue.”

Tina’s less-than-delicate snort sounded from beside her, and Megan craned her neck in search of their waitress. Only, rather than the leggy server with the no-nonsense attitude, she found her attention snared by the man walking past their table. Hand raised in casual greeting, mahogany eyes fixed on someone across the room, he was tall, dark and handsome in the most traditional sense. Broad and tapered, chiseled and cut. All clean lines and classic good looks. The balanced symmetry of him so flawless, it might have made him bland.

If not for his mouth.

This guy had one of those slanted smiles going on. The kind so lazy only half of it bothered to go to work. And yet, something about the ease of it suggested a near permanence on his face, while its stunted progress implied—well, she supposed that was part of the lure. It could really imply anything.

That smile was the kind women got lost in while trying to unravel its mystery.

Only, Megan was through trying to read signs and figure guys out. Which was why she pried her eyes loose from the table where this one had settled in with a friend or associate or whomever, and forced herself to refocus on Tina and Jodie...who were totally focused on her.

In tandem they leaned forward, resting on their elbows.

“Window-shopping the gene pool, Megan?” Tina asked with a knowing smirk as one pencil-thin brow pushed high. “See something you like?”

Jodie’s eyes narrowed. “His suit is too perfectly cut to be anything but made-to-measure. The suit, the watch, the links. This guy has quality catch written all over him. Megan, quick, cross your legs higher and give up some thigh. Tina, get his attention.”

Megan’s lips parted to protest, but Tina was a woman of action. “Wow, Megan, I knew you were a gymnast, but I didn’t think anyone’s legs could do that!”

Tina’s face took on an expression of benevolence and she crossed her arms, leaning back in her seat. “You’re welcome.”

Needles of tension prickled up and down her back as she struggled for her next breath. Eyes fixed on the tabletop in front of her, Megan held up her empty martini glass and prayed to the cocktail gods for a refill. When she thought she could manage more than a squeak, she cleared her throat and replied to anyone within listening distance, “I’m not a gymnast.”

At which point Tina and Jodie burst out laughing.

* * *

“It may not seem like it now, but you’re better off without her...”

Connor Reed shifted irritably in his chair, swirling the amber and ice of his scotch as he listened to Jeff Norton forfeit his status as one of the guys. “Noted.”

And not exactly a news flash.

“...You and Caro were together for almost a year... It’s okay to be hurt...”

Hurt? Connor’s eye started to twitch.

This wasn’t guy talk. It wasn’t the promised blowing off of steam with which he’d been lured to Sin City.

It wasn’t cool.

“...a blow to the ego, and for someone with an ego like yours...”

Growling into his glass, he muttered, “We need to get your testosterone levels checked.”

“Whatever,” Jeff answered, unfazed. He was as secure with his emotional “awareness” as he was with his position as Connor’s oldest and best friend. “All I’m saying is you were ready to marry Caro two weeks ago. I don’t believe you’re as indifferent as you make out to be.”

“Yeah, but you never want to believe the truth about me,” Connor replied with an unrepentant grin. “Seriously, though, Jeff, like I told you before, I’m fine. Caro was a great girl, but hearing what she had to say...I’m more relieved than anything else.”

The following grunt suggested Jeff wasn’t buying it.

And to an extent, the guy might be right. Just not the way he figured.

Connor wasn’t heartbroken over the end of the relationship because his heart had never played into the equation. Callous but true. And something Caro had understood from the first.

Connor didn’t do love. All too well he understood the potential of its destructive power. He knew the distance of its reach, had experienced the devastation of its ripple effect. No thank you. He hadn’t been signing on for more.

What he’d been after was a family. The kind he’d only ever seen from the outside looking in, but coveted just the same. The kind his father hadn’t wanted some bastard son to contaminate, and his mother had been too deep in her own grief to sustain. So he’d been determined to build his own.

There were a lot of things he’d done without as a kid. Things he’d made it his purpose to secure as an adult. Money, respect, his own home...and the thriving business he ran with an iron fist that garnered them all. But a family...? For that, he needed a partner. One he’d thought he found in Caro. She fit the bill, fundraiser ready with the right name, education and background. Coolly composed and devoid of the emotional neediness he’d spent his adult life actively avoiding. Or so he’d thought, right up to that last day when she’d folded her napkin at the side of her plate and evenly explained she wanted a marriage based on more than what they had. She hadn’t expected to, but there it was.

Fair enough. He gave her credit for having the good sense to recognize she wanted something she wouldn’t find with him. And most important, before the vows were exchanged.

So, heartbroken? No.

Disappointed? Sure.

Relieved? Hell, yes.

“...I think you’re lonely. Sad...”

Throwing back the rest of his single malt, Connor relished the burn down his throat and spread of heat through his belly. If he weighed in fifty pounds lighter, it might have been enough to fuzz out the discomfort of this conversation.

But there was always the next one.

“...remember, there are other fish in the sea—”

“Come on, what’s next—hot flashes?” Holding up the empty, he scanned the crowd for the cocktail server.

“—hell, apparently the one over there is a gymnast.”

Connor quirked a brow, angling his head for a better look. “Which one?”

Jeff winked. “Just making sure you were listening. Care about you, man.”

Though he’d never figured out why, Connor knew.

That caring had been the single constant in his life from the time he’d been ripped out of poverty and drop-kicked into the East Coast’s most exclusive boarding school at thirteen. He’d been the illegitimate kid with a chip on his shoulder, a jagged crack through the center of his soul and a grudge against the name he couldn’t escape—and Jeff had been the unlucky SOB saddled with him as a roommate. Connor hadn’t given him any reason to cut him a break, but for some reason, Jeff had anyway.

Which was why, for as much as he gave his friend a hard time about being an “in touch” guy...he also gave him the truth. “Yeah, you too... Now, where’s the gymnast?”

* * *

Another two rounds and some forty minutes later, Connor leaned back in his chair watching as Jeff reasserted his status as a testosterone-driven male by smoothly intercepting the cocktail girl he’d been eyeing for the better part of an hour. Connor didn’t even want to think about the rap this guy had laid on her to get those lashes batting and her tray cast aside so fast, but whatever it was, it must have been phenomenal.

Jeff shot him a salute, and the deal was done.

Reaching into this breast pocket, Connor pulled out his wallet, tossed a few bills onto the table and then set his empty glass atop the stack.

The night stretched out before him with all its endless...exhausting possibilities.

He could hit the blackjack tables.

Grab a bite.

Pick up some company. Or not. With this apathetic indifference he was rocking—

“Excuse me.”

Glancing up, he’d expected another waitress ready to clear, but instead it was the blonde in the midnight dress from the other table. The gymnast, who most definitely wasn’t a gymnast if her height and the soft S-like lines of a figure draped in one of those clingy wrap numbers were anything to go on.

Very nice. “Hi. What can I do for you?”

Her smile spread wide as her big blue eyes held his. “This is going to sound like a line. A really, really bad one. But you’ve got to believe me when I say it’s not.”

The corner of his mouth twitched as he readied for what inevitably was the rest of the line. Playing in, he gave her a nod. “Okay, you’ve got the disclaimer out of the way. Go for it.”

She nodded, releasing a deep breath. “I noticed you were about to leave. And I’d be more grateful than you could imagine if you wouldn’t mind walking out with me. So it looks like we’re leaving together.”

Right. “Just looks like we’re leaving together?”

Again her wide smile flashed, and Connor saw shades of girl-next-door. Not usually his type, but for whatever reason, there was something about the look of this one...

“Yes. My...friends saw me notice you earlier and...well...and you don’t even want to know what it’s been like since. I told them I’d come over and see if you were interested because I want them off my back. But I can tell from looking at you, that I’m not the kind of woman you’d be interested in...which is, actually, the only reason I decided to come over. I’d love to get out of here without them following me for the rest of the night.”