Playboy's Secret Wife novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Late Checkout
Callie wakes up in Las Vegas as Mrs. Hargrove, with a contract, a bank card and a stranger's note, and finds his mother waiting in the lobby.
"Would Mrs. Hargrove like a late checkout?" the desk clerk asked me.
I looked behind me for a woman in a good coat.
Nobody was there.
It was ten past eleven, I was standing in last night's dress, and my head felt like a bag of broken glass.
"I'm Callie Dunne," I said. "Room 2214. I'm just leaving."
"Of course, Mrs. Hargrove." She slid a thick cream envelope across the marble. "Mr. Hargrove asked us to give you this."
I stared at my left hand on the counter.
There was a gold band on it, with a small row of diamonds.
I had not worn a ring in four days.
The last one had been in my fist when I threw it at my fiancé's chest.
"Who is Mr. Hargrove?" I said.
The clerk's smile stayed exactly where it was.
"Your husband, ma'am."
I opened the envelope right there with my sunglasses still on.
The first page was a marriage certificate from the county of Clark, Nevada.
It was dated for 3:40 that morning.
Bride, Calliope Ann Dunne. Groom, Lucas Hargrove.
At the bottom was my signature, loopy and enormous, with a heart over the i.
Behind it was a black bank card with my name embossed on it, and a slip from a private bank.
The balance on the slip had seven digits.
The first one was a two.
I read it twice and the number didn't change.
The last page was typed, with a handwritten note stapled to the corner.
At the top it said Terms.
One, do not marry anyone else unless I say so.
Two, do not sleep around, because my mother reads the papers.
Three, if I ask you to live with me, you do.
Four, sex is optional.
Five, there is no divorce, because Hargroves don't do divorce.
Under the list, in black ink, someone had written one more line.
"P.S. I'm kidding. Meet me in three years, we'll end it, and you'll get a second payout. Don't spend it all at once. L."
I did not remember a man.
I did not remember a chapel, or a vow, or a sentence with the word yes in it.
The last thing I remembered clearly was the third bar on the Strip, and the bartender telling me, very kindly, that I was cut off.
Three days earlier, at my own bridal shower in Chicago, my fiancé Trent had walked into the room with my maid of honor on his arm.
Her name was Dee.
I had known her since we were nine.
A month before that, Trent had sat on our couch and told me Dee was like a sister to him, and I was being paranoid.
He'd stood in front of forty women at my shower with his hand on Dee's stomach and said they were so, so sorry, but a baby deserved honesty.
Someone had filmed it.
By the time I landed in Las Vegas the video had two hundred thousand views.
I had come here to drink until I was a person that didn't exist.
It seemed I had been very successful.
"Ma'am?" the clerk said gently. "Your car is waiting if you'd like it."
"Where is he?" I said.
"Mr. Hargrove left for the airport at six."
"Is there a number?"
She tapped a line on the last page that I'd missed.
A phone number, under the P.S., in the same black ink.
My hand was shaking, but I took out my phone.
It had forty-one missed calls, nearly all from Trent.
I did not look at them.
I pushed through the lobby, past the slot machines and the people in sunglasses, until I found a quiet corner by a fake palm tree.
I dialed the number from the page.
I didn't know what I would say to a man who had married a woman that drunk.
I only knew I was going to say it loudly.
It rang once.
"Mrs. Hargrove," a woman answered, in a voice like cold, expensive glass. "How lovely. This is Lucas's mother."
My mouth went dry.
"I'm in the lobby, dear," she said. "Turn around."
I turned.
A silver-haired woman in a cream suit stood ten feet from me, with two large men in dark coats behind her.
She was holding her own phone to her ear.
She lowered it, and she smiled at me.
"Before you start shouting," said Eleanor Hargrove, "you should know I came all the way from Chicago to meet you."
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend