Page 9 of Shopping for a CEO's Fiancee
“Ewwww, no.” She gives Amanda an odd, smug look. “I am getting married fifteen times this week. You crashed wedding number eight. You insisted that the twenty-four-hour drive-up Elvis shop take your order before they finished my wedding. You appeared at the window and asked for a Venti mocha half-caf with cinnamon and peppermint, a twenty-pack of chicken nuggets with marmalade packets, and proceeded to shove marriage licenses through the window.”
“Marriage licenses!” Our first factual clue. I look at Amanda. “We had marriage licenses made?”
Plural. She’s saying this in plural. My gut tightens. If I’m going to be a bigamist, being married to two guys isn’t exactly how I’d envision this.
Four people. Two to the power of four. Sixteen possible marriage combinations.
Wait! Not exponential. Factorial.
Screw it. I can’t math right now.
Exactly how many of those combinations happened last night?
Hold on. I latch onto hope for the null set. Zero. Best case scenario, zero marriages happened last night.
Kari nods. “They made you come inside because you tried to have too many weddings done at the same time at the drive-thru. And they were out of chicken nuggets.”
“Too many? There really was more than one?” Amanda gasps, looking at her ring, loosening her grip on me.
“You two don’t remember any of this?” She looks at Josh. “You don’t remember hitting on me?”
Josh goes from pale to the color of fresh snow.
Amanda folds in half with laughter, then begins moaning with pain, holding her head. “Josh hit on you? Josh can’t look at a vagina without doing an Exorcist imitation! He would never hit on a woman!”
“His exact words were, ‘Hey, baby, I’d love to see your vagina dentata. Show Daddy some teeth.’”
Josh faints. Drops to the floor like a sack of bones and Velveeta, resting quietly next to Chuckles, who stands up, still on the leash, and begins head butting Josh with his cone.
Which still says “WILL SLEEP WITH PUSSY FOR FOOD” on the side in Sharpie. My stomach chooses this moment to growl.
At that exact moment, a goat walks by, sees Josh, and faints. Now we know Josh’s spirit animal.
I grab my phone and text Jed, the head of security at Litraeon.
I text: Goat located next door. Send goat retrieval crew.
Geordi bends to help Josh, while Amanda tries to laugh and manage her headache.
“Josh is part goat!” Amanda declares, snickering and groaning in alternating currents.
Kari and I are the only two reasonably functional people in the room.
Bzzzz.
Jed texts back: Sir, we don’t have a goat retrieval crew. Suggestions?
I reply: Ask Brona.
There. Done. See? Being CEO is easy. You make everyone else do all the work you don’t want to do. That’s leadership.
“What was the name of the place? Where are the marriage licenses?” Amanda asks.
The goat stands up and wanders off toward the macaron case. Josh is still on the floor, but he sits up, revived by Geordi, who is feeding him sips of coffee.
“Love Me Tenderly was the chapel. Some strange woman with auburn hair mumbling about bagpipes and $700,000 was the one in charge of your paperwork.”
“Marie!” Amanda hisses.
“She wouldn’t be crazy enough to file them, would she?” Josh asks, his voice faint.
Amanda and I give him twin looks that make him add quickly, “Okay, okay, I know she’s more than crazy enough. I mean—she didn’t go to the license bureau and really file them. Right?”
“And did we—” he points between himself and Amanda—“have a marriage license drawn up?”
“The woman only had one in her hand, but a bunch sticking out of her purse. You had two ceremonies, actually.” Kari looks at Amanda with suspicion. “I didn’t marry a dog, but you married a cat.”
“I what?”
“You insisted on marrying a cat you kept calling Charles Kulls. Said his nickname was Chuck.” She looks down at Shannon’s cat and wrinkles her nose, reading the Cone of Shame. “Is this the cat? Because you could do better. He looks like he has mange.”
Chuckles glares at her like Hannibal Lecter staring at Clarice through the bars.
Josh stands, blinking hard, looking like a white owl. Geordi’s next to him, their fingers threaded, holding hands. Even if I am married to Josh, I think he has other romantic prospects.
“Chuck Kulls?” I can’t keep the snicker out of my voice. Amanda punches me, hard, in the breastbone. I deserve it.
“First you married him—” Kari points to Josh, “and then good old Chuck.”
“I did not marry a cat,” Amanda says flatly.
“She can’t marry Chuckles,” Josh adds. “He’s neutered.”
“Why would that stop someone from getting married?”
“We’re talking about a human-cat marriage, people,” I say, exasperated.
“Not because of that,” he says pointedly. “Because Amanda wants kids. Four, to be exact. Two boys and two girls. She’s talked about it forever and—”
Amanda’s sucker punch folds him in half.
“Four kids!” I choke out as I watch Josh with a detached awareness. “Four?” I look at her hips, assessing. They’re nice and wide. She could produce plenty of McCormick children. Big heads tend to run in our family.
Case in point: Declan.
She shrugs. “That was before I married a cat. A girl can dream, right?”
“You plan to have them in litters?”
Her eyes meet mine. For the first time in this madcap race to figure out whether we’re married, who we’re married to, and what happened last night and this morning, I feel a sense of peace.
“Injured husband over here!” Josh rasps.
“You’re not my husband!” Amanda and I shout in unison.
Kari gives us a series of looks that make her face shift, like she’s living in stop-action animation. Maybe my brain creates the effect. What’s the half-life of illicitly-slipped-in-wedding-wine mescaline?
“He’s mine, anyhow,” Geordi hisses. Rainbow Brite bares his teeth at me. Not only is he wearing a lip ring, but he appears to have his gums pierced.
“Isn’t he your boss?” Josh says out of the side of his mouth.
Geordi tips his chin up. “I don’t care. Love means sacrifice.”
“Love?” Josh gasps, looking down at Geordi with wide, emotion-filled eyes. “You love me? How can you love me? We only met last night!”
“I didn’t say I’m in love with you. Just that there’s, you know—” Geordi reaches for Josh’s hand and watches it, suddenly shy. “A spark.”
“A spark?” Josh’s voice goes low.
Chuckles stands up and begins head-butting Geordi’s shin, looking at Kari. If Chuckles had fingers, two would be pointed at Kari in an I see you gesture.
“Let’s get going. We need to find Marie,” I say to Amanda, wrapping my arm around her waist. Kari cocks one eyebrow.
“‘We need to find Marie’ is not part of your vocabulary, Andrew,” Amanda says.
“It is now.”
Chapter Six
I’ve never been inside the spa here at Litraeon. I have my hairstylist and groomer back home. My treatments are done in my office, away from prying eyes. Yes, men get aesthetic treatments, too. When you’re a CEO and the paparazzi click click click, one stray hair becomes fodder for negative media.
The only reason I let Amanda drag me downstairs is because our security detail keeps the press out of Litraeon. Being this hungover means that no amount of lighting can save us from bad pictures.
“My God! You look like Lucifer himself took you home and chained you to a wall, with tentacles entering every orifice!” shouts an accented voice.
I look at Amanda, whose face is surprisingly angelic, ethereal and captive, as she searches the room for the source of that statement.
“Lüq?” she whispers, enraptured. I straighten.
She’s never said my name with that kind of reverence. She’s come damn close a few times in bed, but I think calling me God was justified then.
I have zero desire to see Lüq again, and the idea of a conversation with hu and Marie at the same time makes me want to rip my hair out, strand by strand.
Which would reduce the need for any grooming treatments for a while, but leave me looking like The Rock, muscles and all.
“Entheogenic Twins! How are you, Le Hawk?”
My fingers curl into fists as Amanda embraces Lüq, hu’s face calm and appreciative as hu’s hands sink into Amanda’s body, caressing and touching her like hu has a right to do so. Lüq’s got to be my dad’s age, right? Hu isn’t my competition.
“You are the most beautiful creature in this resort,” Lüq says to her, pulling back and stroking her hair.
“That’s my line,” I say. I’m not joking.
“You are orange,” hu declares, examining my face under the bright lights next to a fountain that has a strange, salty musk scent. “Evangi! Gagai!” Snap snap. “Get Mr. McCormick in the hot seat immediately!”
Hot seat?
A tiny little pixie of a girl with enormous eyes brings me a latte and we follow Amanda and Lüq. I take a sip. Not bad. a little watery, and the milk tastes sweet. Must be skim. I take a bigger gulp and wonder if Declan and Shannon are right.
