She let out a long sigh, which told me that no one had played a practical joke on us. We were really married. She went on to explain the process of an annulment and how it might be better if I filed since I had a stronger reason for saying I was incapable of entering into a marriage agreement. I'd been fortunate, as a kid having dyslexia, to have had supportive parents who advocated for me in school. Plus, my father had it as well, and he helped me develop coping skills and adaptations so I could be successful. But that didn't mean that I didn’t sometimes feel cursed by it. Dyslexia is a processing disorder, not an intellectual one, but people often believe that a person who had difficulty reading couldn't be smart. Once I became an adult, I did everything I could to keep anyone I worked with from knowing I had dyslexia. The growth of technology made this much easier because most businessmen I knew dictated notes and recorded meetings, all things I did when I was in school and now in my career. It looked like for once, having dyslexia was going to be helpful, although it still made me look stupid. I mean, seriously, who accidentally got married and then didn’t remember it?
"I guess that means I need to return to Las Vegas." The idea of that wasn't entirely unpleasant. Oh, sure. My mind was a little bit annoyed by it, but all my body could think about was being with Amelia again.
"I'm sorry, Max. I know that's not what you wanted to hear."
"Don't be sorry. This predicament is as much my fault. It was wrong of me to put all this on you to deal with in the first place. I’m sorry for that.”
The line was quiet for a moment. "Even with all this, Max, I don't regret spending time with you."
To be honest, I didn't regret our time together either, but I couldn't admit that to her. These types of words carried more meaning than what we'd agreed to.
Still, I'd be a jerk by not saying anything. "I had a really nice time with you too, Amelia."
She was quiet for a couple more seconds. Finally, she said, "I guess you will let me know when you can come to Las Vegas?" Her words signaled the end of our call, and for a moment, I panicked because I wasn't ready to stop talking to her.
But I couldn't find a good reason to stay on the call, so I said, "It probably won't be until after Thanksgiving. In fact, I'll tell my brother that I'm going to return to him to check on the club's progress in Los Angeles after Thanksgiving. Then I'll be able to hop over to Las Vegas to meet with you and file whatever I need to file."
“Okay, that sounds good. I'll talk to you after Thanksgiving."
"Okay."
There was another long pause. "Have a nice Thanksgiving, Max."
"You too, Amelia."
When I hung up, I kicked myself for being such a blithering and insensitive idiot.
I looked at my calendar, noting that Thanksgiving was just over a week away. That meant in just over a week, I'd be seeing Amelia again. How was it that I could both be excited and dread it at the same time?
CHAPTEREIGHT
Amelia
When I saw Max's name pop up on my caller ID this afternoon, happiness filled my chest. There was no reason for that to happen. Our little tryst was over, and now we just had this hassle of an unexpected marriage that we needed to get annulled. But when I eagerly poked the answer button, I had to admit that I was dying to hear his voice again.
Unfortunately, the call was awkward. The moment we had met at the airport, we had clicked and conversed easily, but this call wasn't anything like that. I supposed that was a good thing because Max and I were done, even if somewhere inside me, I didn't want us to be. At least he hadn’t sounded angry or irritated. But it was clear that he still didn’t want anyone to know about us and our situation. He wanted our marriage annulled, but he also didn’t want to raise any eyebrows by immediately flying out to take care of it. His trip west would be under the guise of meeting with his brother about their club in Los Angeles.
Honestly, I didn’t much like feeling that I was a sordid secret. Then again, I didn’t really want people to know what happened, either. I was still baffled by how our marriage came about. It was so odd. Quite frankly, it was suspicious that we both had no memory of the night. How had it all played out? It wasn't like we could stumble into a chapel and get married. We would've had to have gone to the County Clerk's office and gotten a license first. While Las Vegas made it easy to get married quickly, I couldn't imagine they would give a marriage license to two people who were so out of it that they wouldn't remember it the next morning, right? Furthermore, chapels weren’t supposed to marry intoxicated couples.
But even without the marriage, having no memory between the limo and waking up the next morning was disconcerting. How did we get into the clerk's office and fill out an application?
I pulled out the paperwork that I had put into my desk to study it. It looked like a drunk version of my handwriting.
I sighed. It didn't matter how it happened, only that it did happen. Clearly, we had gotten a license because I was staring at it. How else would we have gotten it or the marriage certificate? There was no other explanation than we got drunk-married.
I put the papers back in the drawer under the ring I’d woken up wearing. I’d looked for Max’s but didn’t find it. Either he tossed it or took it with him. I couldn’t imagine him doing the latter.
It occurred to me that our limo driver would be able to give me all the answers to that night. I wondered if he’d told his colleagues about it. Probably not. Crazy marriages happened every day in Vegas. There was nothing interesting about it to talk about.
I scanned the cobwebs in my brain of that night to remember who he was. I hadn’t caught his name. He’d said that the hotel had sent him as a courtesy to Max. Hotels could be very generous to guests that they considered to be whales, the term they used for rich big spenders.
I wondered if the hotel would give me the name of the driver they sent. Probably not. Maybe they’d give it to his secretary. I could call pretending to work for him.
I did a search on my computer to find the number for the concierge at Max's hotel. I wasn't sure if they were the ones that sent the car, but perhaps they could tell me who I would need to talk to.
I dialed the number, and when the woman answered, I said, "Hello. I'm calling from Max Clarke's office. He was a guest of yours for a couple of days recently."
"Yes, we remember Mr. Clarke."