Page 14 of Wife By Accident

“I just asked you the same thing,” Olivia replied. “Like I said, I don’t remember much from last night”

“Yeah.” Leo rubbed his eyes. “Me neither.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Olivia asked.

“We were in the casino together,” Leo said. “You?”

“I remember…” Olivia’s cheeks flushed a light pink, and she shook her head. “I remember being in the casino, too. But the important thing is that we get out of these handcuffs.” Olivia pulled on her link again, rattling the chain. “I need to get to the airport.”

“Are you supposed to leave today?”

“Yeah. I need to get back to Seattle and start looking for a job.”

“I didn’t know you were looking for a job. Or that you were from Seattle.” He really knew very little about this woman he was handcuffed to.

“Can we focus?” Olivia gestured at the handcuffs. “Do you have the key, or not?”

“Not,” Leo said. “I’m sure these aren’t mine. I don’t own handcuffs, and I don’t own anything leopard print. Could they be yours? This is your room… right?”

Olivia gave him a look. “They aren’t mine. This is my hotel room, but I definitely don’t own handcuffs. And even if I did, I wouldn’t have handcuffed us together.”

“Me neither,” Leo agreed. They stared at each other for a long minute.

“Okay.” Olivia shook her head and used her free hand to tuck her hair behind her ear. “Maybe the key is in the room somewhere. Let’s look.”

“Good idea.”

They both tried to roll out of the bed at the same time, Leo to the left, Olivia to the right, and were jerked back together by the handcuffs hard enough that they bonked into each other. Leo rubbed his head, which had slammed into Olivia’s shoulder.

“We may need to use a little teamwork,” Leo said, hoping to inject some lightness into the situation.

“Maybe so.” Olivia met his eyes, and for a fraction of a second, they smiled at each other. A memory came back to Leo — he’d been holding Olivia’s hand and looking into her eyes as she’d smiled at him, just like this. Her curls had been framing her face, and there had been… a flower in her hair? He reached for the memory, hoping more details might appear, but nothing.

“Let’s start at the desk,” Leo suggested. “We can get out on your side.” He scooted over, and they stood in unison. Leo headed for the desk but stopped when he saw that Olivia had frozen.

"Everything okay?”

“Leo…” There was a strange note in her voice. “Do you see what I see?”

“I see a view of Las Vegas out the window, a suitcase, and a beautiful woman handcuffed to me,” Leo said. “Not necessarily in that order.”

“Focus. Look.” Olivia bent down and picked up a piece of paper from the floor. It was made of thick, heavy cardstock and bore signatures and an official-looking seal. What caught Leo’s eye were the words at the top, though: Certificate of Marriage.

His gaze dropped to the names, and he saw that he and Olivia had both signed. Apparently, her last name was Keller. And apparently, they were married. Or at least this certificate said they were.

“Leo,” Olivia said, her voice low, “this is a joke, right?”

“It must be a joke,” Leo agreed, “because there’s no way we’re married.”

“No way,” Olivia agreed. “This must be one of those funny fake wedding things.” She looked up at him with wide green eyes. “Right? Just pretend?”

“Right,” Leo said, but he wasn’t so sure. Vegas was known for being glitzy and fake, but the marriages were certainly real. With luck, though, this one wouldn’t be. “Anyway, there’s no way we can get to the bottom of this until we’re out of the handcuffs.”

“You’re right.” Olivia put the marriage certificate down gingerly on the desk, as though afraid that it might bite her. “There’s no need to panic until we know if it’s real.”

“Exactly. No need to panic.”

They nodded at each other, then descended onto the desk frantically, opening all the drawers and tearing through the papers in search of the key.