Marriage by Mistake

manners. With her fists clenched in her jacket pockets, she sat.
    Dean moved with easy grace to a red floral chair to one side. He picked up a briefcase and set it on the coffee table between them.
    So, Kelly thought, he already had the papers drawn up. Quite...foresightful. And quite unlike the man she'd known. That, apparently, had been one big, fat masquerade.
    But whatever. All she had to do was sign. She did not lean back against the sofa cushions. Why, she'd be out of here, done with the whole humiliating episode in minutes.
    Dean set one hand atop the leather briefcase. "I understand you don't believe me about the hypnosis, or about forgetting everything that happened during the ensuing two days. But I wonder if you wouldn't mind...humoring me for a few minutes."
    "Um. What?"
    He opened the clasps of the briefcase with a simultaneous click. "I'd like to know what I did for two days. You could help with the answers to a few simple questions."
    Kelly chewed the inside of her cheek. She was supposed to humor him? To what end? "Well, I don't— What's that?" He'd drawn some sheets of double-folded paper from his case.
    "This is my credit card report, starting with the plane tickets I bought Friday evening." He shook it open. "The first item I don't understand is a place called 'Nat's.'" He looked over at her.
    Kelly looked back. Did he really think she wanted to play this game? And why? She wasn't going to fight a divorce.
    His brows rose. "Bar?"
    Kelly's breath rushed out. She didn't go out to bars with men she met after the show!
    He tilted his head. "You're just humoring me, remember? Not admitting my story's true or anything."
    "It's a diner," Kelly blurted, as if he didn't know that perfectly well himself. They'd sat over the same pair of free refill coffees for three hours. He'd smiled at her as they'd talked and talked, a smile all slow and tender. She'd begun to melt, thinking he really cared. Yeah, right. Just showed how much she knew.
    Dean's eyes went back down to his sheet. "A diner. That sounds pedestrian enough. But what about this sailboat? I rented a sailboat in Las Vegas?"
    "No, that was Lake Mead." Kelly snapped her mouth shut. What was she doing? He had to know they'd spent the day on the lake, just lazing and looking up at the blue, blue sky. He had to remember they'd shared their first kiss in the shadow of a narrow river canyon. The boat had rocked beneath them. And so, she'd thought, had her world.
    "Pardon me. Lake Mead. That should have shown up on the printout." He frowned down at the paper. "We got there awfully early."
    "We drove through the night."
    He shot her a penetrating look. "I...see."
    Kelly felt her eyes widen. "We drove," she said firmly. "Besides, we weren't married yet." But she supposed he'd 'forgotten' that, too. Forgotten her stammered explanation of her no-sex-without-marriage policy, forgotten his serene acceptance of her restriction, followed by his own, incredible proposal.
    Apparently so, for his gaze went back down to his paper printout and his voice went dry. "Oh, yes. Our wedding, held at the Little Chapel of the Dawn. My investigator confirms: all perfectly legal. I even bought you a ring and—" His implacable face suddenly reddened. "Party favors."
    Kelly found herself blushing, too. On the way out of the chapel, laughing, he'd bought a pair of handcuffs. "It was no big deal," she now claimed. They'd been fur-lined and hadn't even had real locks—nor had they ended up getting used.
    His face resumed its normal color as he set his printout to the side. "You're right. Not much of a big deal, compared to what is conspicuously missing. Miss Williams—" Slowly, he clasped his hands and set them around one knee. His dark lashes lowered. "Miss Williams, nowhere on this credit report is there a record that I bought protection. Condoms. Anything of that nature."
    Kelly stared at him.
    "I assume we had sexual relations and so I need to ask." He lifted his lashes enough to give her an amazingly direct look. "I have to ask: were such relations unprotected?"
    Kelly continued to stare. His eyes were steady, his mouth flat. "We didn't use protection," she heard herself admit.
    His stare went into laser-mode. "Then you could be—"
    "No."
    "But—"
    "I'm not pregnant." Her gaze averted and she found herself blushing all over again. "I already know."
    "Oh," he said a moment later, and released a deep breath.
    "God." Kelly jumped from the sofa, stalked to the nearest wall, and