Page 13 of Accidentally Hitched (Unintentionally Yours #1)

Amanda

T hey lied.

What happens in Vegas does not stay in Vegas.

Who you do in Vegas follows you home from Vegas and becomes your boss.

Even as I open the door to my apartment, throw my keys in the bowl and plop down on the couch, my head is still spinning.

I feel like that hangover came home with me too.

It’s like a weird, twisted version of Groundhog’s Day.

Except in this version, my life is completely different than it was before.

It’s like I won the lottery but have to pay for it for the rest of my life.

How I got myself into this, I couldn’t tell you. But I will say, as I kick my boots off and head into the bedroom to shed out of my boho work clothes and slip into a pair of cotton shorts and an oversized CAKE t-shirt, I am very much pointing fingers of accusation. And they all land on Kate.

And speaking of Kate.

As I pull my hair up into a ponytail, my phone is vibrating on the bed, her perfectly annoying face on the screen.

It’s like she knows I am thinking about it. And she wants to poke the bear more. A telepathic game of “I’m not touching you!”

“Hey!” I force sugar into my tone as I answer the call.

“Hey! Open up!”

“What?”

“I’m at your door and my hands are full! Open up!”

Fuck.

I was really, and I mean really hoping to spend the evening alone.

Maybe get caught up on laundry. I haven’t even unpacked my bag since the trip.

Or sit down and work on the song I have been trying to write for over five months with little to no success.

Or, you know, just close the blinds and hide from my life while consuming an entire bottle of wine and a sleeve of Thin Mints that I have stashed in the back of my freezer for occasions like this.

Well maybe not exactly like this. I never would have visioned myself getting plastered and married in Vegas only to return home and find out the guy I was with is my new boss.

That shit only happens in romance novels.

Full disclosure: it’s fun to read. It’s not fun when it’s your life.

Stay boring, ladies.

I pad my way to the front door and open it. Kate smiles and blows past me, the scent of her flowery perfume and Thai food assaulting me as she goes.

“What’s all this?” I ask.

“What do you mean what’s all this?” She hefts the bags onto the counter and looks back at me. “It's a celebratory dinner!” With that, she pulls a bottle of wine out of the bag and rounds the counter to grab the corkscrew.

“What are we celebrating?” I ask slowly.

“Your new job! You did make it to work today, didn’t you? Tell me you didn’t sleep through it.”

“Of course I went to work today. It was my first day,” I snap back, peeking inside the bag that smells unmistakably like drunken noodles.

“Well, that’s good. I totally called in sick today.

But I think they expected me to!” Kate giggles casually and hands me a glass of wine.

I take a sip and immediately my nerves are dulled around the edges just a little bit.

I realize I haven’t eaten today, which is probably why the food smells so good.

We pull the boxes from the bag and divvy it up onto plates before making our way to sit at the coffee table.

I have a dining room table, and I do make a point of using it sometimes.

But not when I’m alone with my sister. When it’s just me and Kate, we eat at the coffee table, much like we did when we were kids, and our mom and dad left us home to go to business dinners or out with friends.

It wasn’t irresponsible. I was old enough to babysit when they did it.

But it did get lonely spending so many Friday and Saturday nights alone.

I envied my friends who had family game nights or movie and pizza nights.

But I also liked the time alone with my sister, even if we were different.

It was the only time we felt like we could be silly instead of perfect.

“So, how was it?” she asks around a bite of fried tofu.

“It was…a lot.”

“Was the building as amazing inside as it is outside? I swear it's as tall as the Empire State Building.”

“Less than half,” I correct her. “But yeah. It’s massive on the inside. And gorgeous.”

Kate listens with wide, sparkling eyes as I talk about all the signed records and posters of artists. I tell her about the fish tanks and the bar and the glass elevator.

“That’s some Willy Wonka shit right there!” she shrieks, and I laugh, feeling giddy for the first time since I walked into the building this morning.

Before I realized that I work for the man I paid five hundred dollars for in Vegas…

On cue, Kate uses her weird, sister-to-sister telepathic powers.

“What’s your boss like? I heard the Hardin men have iron fists.”

Iron fists, sharp jawlines, and thick…well you know…

“He’s…persuasive.”

Kate narrows her eyes. “Oh? What do you mean by that?”

“I mean…he wants me to take on more responsibilities than were originally stated in the job description.”

“Anything you can’t handle? Any red flags?”

You mean other than asking me to fake being his girlfriend and pretending that we didn’t fuck each other a couple of days ago?

“Not really. Though I do need to think about it.”

Kate stops chewing and gives me a look. It’s a look she inherited from our mother, one that says the next words out of my mouth might be harshly judged.

“Is he offering enough money?”

I nearly choke on my wine. “It’s plenty of money. More than I even agreed to.”

“Then what’s the problem? You’re not getting married anytime soon. You don’t have a sugar daddy because you don’t date. Making a lot of money is pretty important for you if we are being honest.”

Kate is honest, that’s for sure. As usual, I deflect the dig about my spinster life and sip my wine while she goes on.

“Plus, you get to make a job out of your music hobby.”

I dodge that bullet too, though the last word grazes my skin a little. I hate when she calls it that, especially since she has lived most of her adult life bouncing from one guy with money to the next and asking our father for cash in between.

“It’s just a really big contract and it’s going to be a lot of work. It will take up a lot of my time. And my personal life.”

“As long as you still make time for me, I think you’ll be fine. Who knows, maybe you’ll get to write music for someone super famous! Maybe you’ll get to go on tour, and you’ll meet a hot musician! That’s endgame right there.”

I suppose if my only goal in life was to find a man who could pay my bills, I’d agree with her. But that’s another thing that makes Kate and I very different people– we don’t want the same things.

I take another bite of my noodles and reach for the remote, resorting back to one of the few things we have in common. “Have you seen the new Jessica Beil show?” I ask.

“The one about the sisters? Oh, my God I have been dying to watch it. Jessica is a queen!” Kate squeals.

“She is, isn’t she?”

I reset the show so we can start it over from the beginning. We make it through one episode and for all of an hour, I forget about work and Callum. But as we take our dishes to the sink, Kate pours more wine and studies me again.

Round two.

“So, I was thinking…”

Fuck. Here we go.

“Kate,” I cut her off, holding up my hand. “It’s been a long day. After a crazy weekend. I don’t want–”

“I just want to say that I am proud of you.”

“Oh.”

Maybe I over-assumed.

“You surprised me in Vegas.”

“I surprised me too,” I admit.

“You were actually fun.”

There it is. There is literally never any such thing as just a compliment with Kate. It’s always laced with something else.

“And the timing is perfect.”

“Really?” I ask, scrubbing our plates in the sink with way more aggression than necessary. “And why is that?”

“I mean let’s be honest…you’re getting old.”

I drop the plate, and it crashes into the sink.

Kate doesn’t even blink.

“I’m 29.”

“That’s what I’m saying! And even though I always knew I’d get married before you, I guess I at least expected you to be in a relationship by now.”

I fold my arms over my chest and press my hips against the counter in front of the sink. “Did it ever occur to you that not everyone just runs into their soulmate at a boba shop?”

“It was a sushi restaurant, and I get that,” she says, her tone edged to match mine. “But the point is I was putting myself out there.”

My eyebrows scale my forehead and my mouth pops open. “Kate. I just went on a date in Las Vegas with a complete stranger who I PAID FOR at some stupid, very unethical man auction!”

“It was perfectly ethical, thank you. The proceeds went to charity. Or homeless strippers. I don’t know.”

“Not only that but I slept with him. There you go. I SLEPT WITH HIM. And! The sex was fucking phenomenal. Best I’ve ever had. How’s that for putting myself out there?”

She bites her lips and sucks her cheek before striking again. Because even when she’s wrong, and she obviously is, Kate will always have the last words. “That’s great and all, Mandy, but it would be better if you’d exchanged numbers. You didn’t exchange numbers, did you?”

Do I have his number? Yes. Did we exchange numbers when we met? No. Is this way more complicated than I am going to admit to her? Yep. But I also know that she’s not going to give up if I don’t say…something.

Kate steps forward, her face softening persuasively and she touches my arm. “Amanda. Let me help you.”

I almost laugh at that. “I love that I look desperate enough to put off signals that my singleness is a crisis.”

“Seriously. I can play matchmaker. I’ve hooked up lots of couples. And with a little…reshaping…” she touches my hair and forces a smile. “We can find you someone in no time.”

“Cal and I exchanged numbers,” I blurt out.

Amanda blinks, her expression blank. “Cal? The…Vegas guy?”

“Yes. After we slept together. We swapped numbers.”

“That’s…interesting. And cute. But the odds of him ghosting you are pretty high, sweetie.”

“Actually…we’ve been in touch.”

“He texted you?”

No? But yes?

“Yes.”

Kate’s eyebrows stitch together, and she nibbles on her bottom lip, a telltale Kate sign that she’s piecing something together. “Alright. Well, it still seems a little crazy but–”

“Isn’t that how it always starts? A little crazy? You always say love is unpredictable and that you find it when you least expect it.”

“I guess so,” she forces a smile. “So, when are you going to see him again?”

“If I had to guess…very soon.”

She squeals and we go back to watching the show. Meanwhile, my stomach is fluttering. I am going to see him again soon. Because crazy or not, it would be even crazier not to accept this offer. Which means I’m going to see him tomorrow…and the day after that…and the day after that.

Till death do us part, right?