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Chapter One

Knova

Sunlight streams across one side of my face. I try to open one of my eyes, but my brain is on fire with the mother of all hangovers. I moan and bury my face in the pillows. I’m not ready to be awake.

“Five more minutes,” a man’s voice says. Something beside me stirs.

I open one eye. Viktor’s lying beside me, looking just as destroyed as I feel. I close my eye again. Open it. He’s still there.

The fuck is going on?

My gaze drags over him before my brain can catch up. His hair’s a wreck, flattened on one side like he lost a fight with a pillow. There’s a bruise blooming along his jaw, and his mouth—God, that mouth—looks kissed raw. One arm’s thrown behind his head, showcasing the bicep I’ve definitely noticed before but never stared at like this.

His chest rises and falls with every sleepy breath, cut with muscle and littered with scrapes I can’t explain. The sheet’s tented below his hips, dangerously low across the V of his abs, and sweet baby Jesus, if that’s not morning wood, I’m a flightless bird.

That’s when I realize I’m naked.

I shriek as I scramble upright, wrapping a sheet around my naked body. Doing so means dragging the sheets off of Viktor’s body. He whimpers and tries to pull them back.

Why am I naked? Why is Viktor in his boxers?

I need water. And an Advil. And I need to know what in God’s name happened last night. I remember whiskey. A lot of whiskey. And… Elvis? What was Elvis doing there?

Viktor rolls onto his stomach and buries his face in the pillows. I’m overwhelmed by the smell of him: a hint of musk beneath layers of mint, pine, and bergamot. I’ve spent enough time around big groups of unwashed men that I usually detest BO, but Viktor actually smells good. I’m guessing he uses body wash and followed it up with a splash of cologne for the party.

I shake my head. Focus, Knova! Stop huffing your childhood friend and get up. I start to edge toward the side of the bed when something flashes silver between the pillows. At first, I think my dog tags fell off, but no, they’re still around my neck. The silver came from something smaller. Something on the finger of Viktor’s left hand. A plain silver band.

A wedding ring. When did Viktor get married?

Elvis . Elvis telling me to say, “I do.” The money shot. For Dante. I hold up my own left hand.

My ensuing scream is so loud that Viktor yelps and sits up too fast. He topples sideways over the edge of the bed and lands on the floor with a thump so heavy it rattles the floor. A moment later, his head pops back into view. “What?” he asks, his voice still thick with sleep and, probably, a hangover to rival mine. “What happened?”

This can’t be real. This isn’t happening. It’s just a hangover fever dream. Any minute now, I’ll wake up, and Dad will be yelling at Viktor from the front door about stepping on his precious grass.

I hold up my hand. Viktor squints. He stares so long that I wonder if he’s gone into some kind of error mode. Then, slowly, he lifts his hand and stares at the matching silver ring on his finger.

I expect him to scream, too. Instead, he bursts into laughter.

“This isn’t funny! ” I shriek.

“Are you kidding? It’s hilarious!” He laughs so hard that he ends up back on the floor, cackling and hooting. Clearly, he’s lost his mind because there’s nothing funny about this.

I scramble out of bed and stalk around the room in search of my things. My clothes are everywhere. Did I explode out of them last night? Did Viktor and I…?

I can’t even bring myself to think it. There isn’t enough whiskey in the world to make me sleep with him now. We have too much history. He’s disappointed me too many times. I don’t hate him as much as I pretend to, but I certainly don’t like him enough to hook up with him. At least, I don’t think I do. Maybe drunk-me had other opinions.

I’m trying to figure out how to pull my dress on without dropping my sheet toga when the phone rings. An actual, honest-to-God landline. I’ve been so freaked out by waking up in bed with Viktor that I haven’t paid much attention to the room, which is, admittedly, spectacular. Who paid for this? It looks like the presidential suite of a five-star hotel.

I change course and head toward the phone, past a table laden with plates that must have come from room service. There’s an empty champagne bottle and two flute glasses, one of which has lipstick smudged at the rim. I feel like a crime scene investigator processing clues, and I don’t like the picture that’s coming together.

I scoop up the phone’s receiver with one hand and tighten my grip on my sheet-toga with the other. “Hello?”

“Hello, Mrs. Hale? This is Cherie calling from the front desk. Is everyone all right? I’m told that someone in your room screamed earlier, and there was a loud noise…?”

Mrs. Hale? That doesn’t make sense. She must have just gotten it wrong—people screw up my name all the time, especially on junk mail and spam. But Mrs. Hale is my mother, Kingsley. It wouldn’t even register if it weren’t for the ring on my left hand and the piece of paper sitting on the small desk beside the phone.

“Mrs. Hale?” she repeats.

“I’m fine,” I say automatically. “Viktor fell over. He’s okay. Thanks for checking.”

Cherie chirps something through the phone about how she’s so glad my husband is okay, but I don’t hear what she says because I’ve already hung up. I stand there, staring down at the paper with our signatures on them. The words at the top make my already pounding headache take a turn for the worse.

Marriage License.

My name. Is written on a marriage license.

Next. To. Viktor’s.

It’s not just the hangover. Or the fact that I’m naked. Or that Viktor is too.

It’s that I’m standing here, clutching a phone, staring at my name on a goddamn marriage license.

To him.

And for a second—just one stupid second—I don’t feel panic.

And that’s the scariest thing of all.

“Who was that?” Viktor asks.

I whirl toward him. “Please tell me we didn’t fuck last night,” I blurt. My thighs are sticky. My neck’s raw from stubble burn. And my body feels like it’s been worshipped.

I feel… Okay, not relaxed, because I’m in my own personal hell, but I feel… good. My pussy has that post-coital release feeling that comes with getting off. Possibly more than once.

Fucking traitor.

Viktor stands up and looks me up and down. His grin widens. He holds up both hands to sniff them. “My fingers smell like pussy,” he says, looking disgustingly pleased with himself. “My favorite flavor.”

“Not helpful!” I snap.

“No, but it’s a start.” Viktor slips his thumb under the waistband of his boxers. “Wanna come see if my dick smells like it, too?”

“You’re disgusting.” I stomp back to my dress and make a beeline for the bathroom. Viktor wiggles his eyebrows and glances down at his groin. When he does, his cheeks turn pink. He releases the elastic band, which snaps against his annoyingly firm stomach. “Never mind,” he mumbles.

I pause at the door to the bathroom. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Viktor, tell me. ”

“I’m pretty sure we didn’t make it that far last night.” He dips his head and cuts his eyes away from me.

Relief washes through me. Thank God. I don’t know what the hell went down last night, but it’s a good thing if we didn’t have sex, right? That’ll make it easier to get an annulment. Assuming we need to. Maybe this is all a prank. Not the part where we’re naked, obviously, but Dante’s guy made us sign an NDA. I vaguely remember that. And there were cameras. Employees of the Mona Lisa. This was planned.

I stumble into the bathroom and glance at the trashcan. No condom. Good. I’m increasingly sure that whatever we did last night didn’t involve full-on PIV. Aside from the fact that this information could help us secure an annulment, I’m relieved on a personal level. I don’t want the first sex I have after the love of my life to be drunk sex with my nemesis.

I take a quick shower to wash the feel of my sticky thighs and the smell of Viktor’s cologne off me, then allow myself the luxury of blow-drying my hair. When I’m done, I feel better. Not great, but more human. The headache is receding. I’m back in control.

Viktor has crawled back into bed and cocooned himself in blankets. I jab him with my finger a few times before he finally stirs.

“Get up,” I tell him. “We’re leaving in ten minutes.”

Viktor burrows deeper into his blanket nest. “Nooo,” he moans. “Why?”

“Because we’re going to see Dante.” If I have anything to say about it, this stunt marriage will be annulled by lunchtime. Dante got us into this mess. He damn well better be the able to get us out of it.

* * *

“I need coffee.”

“My skull’s splitting.”

“Did someone shove a porcupine in my mouth and hit purée?”

Viktor groans the whole ride to Dante’s office but never once complains about the fact that we accidentally got married. That part? Radio silence. Either his hangover is worse than mine, or he’s not nearly as upset as he should be.

The arena is pretty empty today, which means that we can hear the screaming as soon as we exit the elevator near Dante’s office. And it needs to be said that the man shouldn’t even have an office here. He’s retired. But that’s a memo he still hasn’t gotten. The insulation’s good enough that I can’t make out the words, but someone is getting their ass kicked.

I hope Dante’s the one getting chewed out. That’ll save me some effort when my turn rolls around.

“Maybe we should wait?” Viktor suggests. He comes to a stop in the hall about fifteen feet from the door.

“What, are you scared of him or something?” I pause with my hand on the door and turn to glare at him. “If you’re going to be scared of anyone, it should be me. The sooner we get this marriage annulled, the sooner we can forget it ever happened.”

Viktor shuffles closer. “I’m not scared. I just don’t want to be in the same room as whoever’s yelling. My head is killing me.” He rubs his temples for emphasis.

I ignore him and push the door open anyway. The screaming gets louder when we step inside. One of Dante’s assistants is sitting at the desk out front, trying to make himself look small. If he slides any lower on that chair, he’ll end up on the floor.

I walk right past him toward the door behind him. Through the glass, I can see Julie and Dante arguing. The glass must be reinforced—knowing Dante, it’s probably bulletproof—because I still can’t make out what they’re saying. Julie is going to town on him, though. I don’t know how that woman puts up with him. Sure, he’s hot in that Robert DeNiro sort of way and rich as King Midas, but there’s more to loving a man than that.

A man needs to be a good listener. He needs to pay attention to the little things. He needs to be committed to being a life partner. He needs —

“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you,” the assistant warns.

“Are you kidding? This is the perfect time to go in there.”

“You married the wrong twin!” Julie screams.

I push the door open.

“Hi.” I raise a hand. “Wrong twin here.”

I keep the door open for Viktor, who’s still lingering in the front office with his hands held over his ears like a little kid.

Julie crosses her arms. “Perfect timing. I just saw the photos from last night. What the hell happened?”

Viktor finally shuffles through the door. Now that my hands are free, I punch my fist into my palm. “I’d like to know that, too.”

Dante darts behind his desk, using it like a shield. “Remember your contract!”

I take a step forward, still warming up my fist. “The part about not punching you? I remember. I just don’t care.”

“Viktor, control your wife,” Dante barks.

Behind me, Viktor snorts. “What, like you were controlling yours before we walked in here? I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works, boss.”

Julie chuckles. “You’re a smart man, Viktor. That makes one of you.”

“Nice.” I, too, nod my approval to Viktor. “That was good. You had my back. I like that.”

He holds up his hand for a high-five. After some consideration, I grant him one. Consider it positive reinforcement for when we team up to bully Dante into solving the problem he made for us. Viktor beams.

It’s kind of… cute? Especially with his blond hair still rumpled from sleep. Against my will, I remember how he looked this morning, when he was all pecs and firm arms and sleepy bedroom eyes.

With my scent all over his abnormally huge hockey hands.

Ugh, this fucking hangover . I’m clearly delusional. I whirl back to Dante and glare at him. “Fix this.”

“Fix what?” Dante asks.

Julie lifts her hands in the air. “I think she means the part where you married the wrong twin.”

Viktor points at Julie. “You said that before. How does that work? Who was supposed to get married?”

Dante sighs. He pulls out his chair and settles into it with the kind of groan that old guys do when their joints are going downhill. “It was supposed to be Knight. I thought it would be cute to throw a surprise wedding for him and Sofia. Like a photo op with my people only so I could control the narrative. You know, to kick off the season with a classic Vegas wedding.”

I blink a few times. “So, your brilliant idea was to marry off my drunk brother in some secret ceremony? With an Elvis impersonator? You know that Sofia’s parents would lose their shit, right? They’ve been planning that wedding forever. Marco Rossi is Italian to the bone. Just like you. Would you accept that bullshit for your only daughter?”

“What can I say?” Dante lifts both hands and tries to look innocent. “I thought it might take the pressure off.”

I don’t believe this guy. Dante’s always been a meddlesome busybody, but this one might earn him an HR complaint and a shovel to the kneecaps. I’m almost glad his newest scheme went awry, for Sofia’s sake. Knight would marry her in a heartbeat, but Sofia’s really close with her family, and she’d be disappointed if she woke up to find that she’d been blacked out during the vows.

Then again, Sofia’s too smart and responsible to get roped into this, whereas Viktor and I bumbled right into it. Probably because we feel safe around each other. Too safe.

That has to stop.

“For the record, this morning was the first I’d heard of any of this,” Julie informs us. She runs a hand through her silver bob and sighs.

“Okay, well, it was a shitty plan all around, and I want an annulment.”

“You were in the presidential suite last night, I believe,” Dante says. “It’s not that easy to annul a marriage after it’s been consummated.”

I wrinkle my nose. “Gross. Were you stalking us?”

Dante gives me a look that suggests I may have been dropped on my head as a kid. “Who do you think paid for your suite? And your room service?”

“We didn’t,” Viktor says. He rubs the back of his neck. “We didn’t consummate it. That should make it easier, right?”

Dante places one hand over his heart. “Sorry, kid. What can I say? Whiskey dick happens to the best of us.”

“Don’t talk about his—” Julie cuts herself off with a growl of frustration. “Have our repeated talks with HR taught you nothing ?”

“What? I was expressing my condolences.” Dante gives a little devil-may-care shrug. “Listen, don’t worry, I’ll figure something out. In the meantime, we’ll keep this quiet.”

For some reason, it hadn’t occurred to me that he would even consider sharing this information. But he has a billion photos of us, right? And I think we kissed… maybe? On camera? At the altar?

Oh my God. I don’t know what’s worse: the idea of my brother finding out about this or our parents. Knight will tease me about it until the day I die, but my Dad will go berserk on Viktor. My dad is not his biggest fan. Viktor got on his bad side the first time he desecrated my dad’s beloved lawn by setting his unworthy foot on the grass. Imagine how Dad will react if he finds out Viktor desecrated me.

Not that he did. Not that it would be anyone’s business if we’d done anything. Except the government’s, I guess, since apparently we’re going to have to testify that we haven’t done the horizontal tango.

“Promise,” I croak. “Promise me that this conversation never leaves this room.”

“Hey, Knova. Take a breath for me.” Viktor approaches me and rubs my back, between my shoulder blades. My skin prickles like it already recognizes his touch. Did he rub my back last night?

I slap Viktor’s hand away, but not before my body betrays me with a full-body tingle. Ugh. No. No sexy thoughts. We are not doing this. “Promise.”

“I’ll do you one better.” Dante reaches into his desk and pulls out—surprise surprise—an NDA. “I’ll make everyone sign one. This will stay private.”

Viktor’s hand brushes my back again.

My body goes still.

This isn’t supposed to feel good. It isn’t supposed to feel anything .

I sign the NDA like I’m signing a treaty for a war I already lost.