I hide under the covers, embarrassed.
“We can’t have sex without a condom—just because you’re Mr. Parker doesn’t mean I can’t get pregnant.”
I hide deeper.
“I’d be your Mr. Parker if you wanted me to.”
“Really?”
“No. Technically I don’t think I could. I’m the heir to a title…”
Heir to a title, heir to a title…
“Ashley?” I say his name the second he’s off the phone.
“Hmm?”
“What did you mean last night when you said you’re heir to a title?”
He shifts on the bed, back resting against the headboard. Shrugs. “My father is a baron—it’s not as posh or grand as an earldom, but it’s a title I’ll inherit when he passes.”
“What does that mean?”
“It just means he’s a peer among the aristocracy and so will I be, and so will my wife.”
Um. He needs to speak English. “Okay.” I’ll definitely be googling peer and aristocracy later when I’m alone. From the bathroom on my phone most likely, ha ha.
Ashley sneaks a peek at me. “How would you feel about that?”
How would I feel about that? He’s asking as if we’re going to stay married and will have a life together away from here.
“There’s nothing to discuss. We can’t stay married.”
My head is still reeling—from the alcohol and the wedding rings and the news that Ashley is some British nobleman’s son.
“Why can’t we?”
Is he insane? Seriously, has he gone and lost his mind overnight?
I glare at him. “We are in our twenties. And we are not in—”
In love.
But we said it to one another over and over last night. Me to him and him to me.
“I love you, Georgia.”
“You love me? I love you.”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
Jesus, what a mess. What if I told him I love him and I don’t? I hadn’t considered it before—that I could fall in love with him—because we were only just roommates. There was nothing romantic about our situation.
There was never a chance we were going to date or be in a relationship.
And now we’re married?
What weird, alternate universe are we living in where Ashley Jones, the future English Baron Von Waffle House Whatever wants to stay married to me? A simple girl from small town USA?
He’s still drunk.
“I love you.”
“You love me? I love you.”
People say a lot of things when they’re three sheets to the wind, and apparently last night, we said them all. Did it all. Drank until we walked ourselves into a walk-up wedding chapel, stood before the chaplain, and said a few vows I’m almost positive we wrote ourselves while we waited in the pews for our turn.
“Georgia, stop thinking about it. We’ll figure it out.”
Such a sweet boy.
So handsome and good.
It would be impossible not to fall in love with him.
Maybe I am falling for him.
Maybe I already have.
I scoot toward him so I can rest my head in his lap; he begins stroking my hair with the hand bearing the ring. When I move my head so I can look up at him, he’s staring down at that hand. At the ring.
At me.
He lowers his head so he can kiss me; for two people who just caused a giant headache for themselves, we’re acting as if we haven’t a care in the world.
We kiss until room service comes.
Ashley kisses me again, feeding me fruit off the plate. Feeding me eggs from a fork. Buttering a warm croissant and breaking off small pieces before setting them on my tongue. Scooping a bit of whipped cream off the top of the pancakes then sucking it off of my tongue.
We have sex sitting up, me on top, making out while I ride him. Staring into each other’s eyes, wedding bands still circling our fingers.
I won’t deny that seeing them on our hands is somewhat…intoxicating.
Sexy.
We have to figure this mess out before I get entirely too used to it.
Twenty-Three
Ashley
“Are you wearing a ring?”
Conner O’Reilly is staring me down on the practice field, the rugby ball gripped between his giant, mammoth-like paws.
One quick glance down at my hand reveals I forgot to take off my wedding band—Georgia would kill me if she found out, doubly so if she found out someone noticed.
We agreed we weren’t going to wear them, at least not in public. Well, she decided we weren’t going to wear them anywhere at all, period. She’s still on the annulment kick whereas I want to take the time to think it through because there are consequences to the actions from our Las Vegas vacation turned drunk impromptu wedding.
“So?”
“Is that a wedding ring?” Conner wants to know, now jogging beside me as we run laps around the small field we use to run plays on.
“No, dipshit, it’s a chastity ring.”
He laughs as we’re joined by a few other teammates, who fall into line behind and around us for their warm-up run.
“Why would you be wearing a chastity ring?” Stewart appears from the left, already huffing and puffing as if we’ve gone forty miles.