When I Flash Married a Billionaire novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Eight-Thirty

At the probate court Briony asks the man she rescued for one favour, a husband by two o'clock with no questions; he signs, then his occupation on the certificate and his driver's greeting say he is not who she thinks.

"I'm calling in the favor," I said into the phone.

"All right," he said.

"I need a husband by two o'clock this afternoon."

There was a pause long enough to hear him breathing, slow and even.

I waited for the laugh, or the click, or the polite word men use to leave.

"Where?" he said.

"The probate court on Lakeside Avenue. Eight-thirty, when the license office opens."

"I'll be there."

"Bring a photo ID," I said. "And don't ask me why."

"I won't."

He hung up first.

I sat on the cold tile with the dead phone in my hand and thought, I have lost my mind.

Then I took the veil out of its tissue paper and went to find my dress.

Dexter was still asleep at six, one hand open on my side of the pillow.

I zipped myself into the wedding dress in the bathroom, ivory crepe with a plain neckline.

Then I buttoned my green wool coat over all of it.

I left a note on the counter.

"Breakfast with Jorie. Back for hair at ten. Love you."

I stood a second looking at the word love.

Then I went out and let the door lock behind me.

He was waiting on the courthouse steps at 8:20.

I had seen him once, for six minutes, flat under a platform edge with a train coming.

Daylight changed him.

He was shorter than I remembered and wider, built like a man who used to hit other men for a living.

His hair was dark ginger, cropped close, with a short beard a shade lighter.

He wore a waxed canvas coat over a charcoal sweater and held a steel thermos in one hand.

His eyes were pale green, and they stayed on my face a beat too long.

"You're in a wedding dress," he said.

"I'm marrying you," I said. "I thought I'd dress for it."

"All right."

"Is that the only thing you say?"

"It's the thing I say when the answer's yes."

He held the door open, and I walked past him into the marble lobby with my coat open and my skirt gathering dust.

The clerk in the license office was a woman of sixty with half-moon glasses.

"First marriage for both?" she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"Do you have your photo identification?"

He put a driver's license through the slot, and she typed without looking at it.

I filled out my half of the form with a pen on a chain.

I wrote my name in small neat capitals, and my hand did not shake.

His did, very slightly, when he signed under mine.

"You're nervous," I whispered.

"I'm about to marry a woman who jumped onto a train track for me," he said. "I'm entitled."

The clerk coughed and slid the license across.

The magistrate's room was small and brown, with a flag and a plastic fern.

Our magistrate wore reading glasses on a chain like the clerk's.

"Any family?"

"No," I said.

"None," Ewan said.

"Rings?"

I had not thought about rings.

Ewan looked at his left hand.

On the fourth finger was a plain steel band, scratched and dull, worn thin on one side.

He worked it off over his knuckle, frowning.

"It was my father's," he said quietly. "It's the only one I've got."

"You don't have to."

"I know."

The magistrate said the words, and I said mine in a voice that sounded like another woman's.

"I do."

"I do," he said, and his voice was low and steady, as if he'd said it before, alone in a car.

The ring was too big for my finger and went on my thumb.

He didn't ask why I was crying, because I wasn't.

"By the power vested in me by the State of Ohio," the magistrate said. "You may kiss your bride."

We looked at each other.

He bent his head and kissed me once, on the corner of the mouth.

It was warm and brief and careful.

It was the first thing that had felt true since a hotel door opened an inch.

The magistrate stamped the certificate at 8:52 and handed it over.

"Congratulations," she said, in the tone of a woman who had seen stranger things on a Friday.

Outside on the steps the wind came off the lake and flapped my veil.

"Okay," I said. "Thank you. That's the whole favor. The rest is a wedding, and I'll tell you what I need on the way."

"Don't you want to tell me why?"

"You said you wouldn't ask."

"I'm not asking," he said. "I'm offering."

I laughed, and it came out wet.

I looked down to put the certificate in my coat pocket, and my eyes caught the line that said Occupation.

Where I had written "Architect," he had written two words in thick square capitals.

CHIEF EXECUTIVE.

Under it, in the box for employer, he'd printed "Sutherland Group."

I knew the name.

It was painted in white on the cranes along the lake, from Edgewater to the Flats.

A black car pulled up at the curb, and a driver in a gray suit got out and opened the back door.

"Mr. Sutherland," he said, very low. "You missed the nine o'clock."

"Not now," Ewan said.

"Ewan," I said. "What exactly did I just marry?"

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