Shotgun Wedding: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (7 page)

I
wake
up the next morning and the ceiling is too white. Where are the muddy watermarks? Where are the hairline cracks that radiate out like spider webs from the corners?

"What the—" I gasp, sitting straight up in bed.

Wait. The bed is too soft.

And too big.

And then it all comes rushing back: oh sweet Lord. I'm married to Grayson.

And he's kind of an asshole.

And kind of wonderful.

And totally too hot for his own good. Or for my own good, at least.

And we kissed. In my apartment. And now I'm guessing I'm in
his
apartment.

Wait, mother-fucker
locked me in
last night!

And…where the hell is he?

I'm in a large, sun-drenched room high above the city. Across from me, huge windows cover more than half the wall. They look out over a sea of high rises, the sky a watercolor blue above it all.

"I don't think we're in Brooklyn anymore, Toto," I whisper to myself.

The bed is huge; it feels even larger than a king-sized bed. Then again, Gray is larger than any other man I've ever met. It wouldn't surprise me if he had a bed custom-built for his size.

But, why am I in his bed? I specifically remember—after beating on his front door, cursing his name, and finding a bottle of vodka in the freezer—passing out in the
guest room.

Passing out after many, many shots of vodka.

It seemed the appropriate reaction to a shotgun Russian-mob wedding.

"Gray?" I call out. My voice sounds small in the large room, and I glance out the open doorway to my left. "Gray?" I try again, a little louder.

Nothing but silence.

I flop back onto my back. The bed is so comfortable. And my life is such a disaster. And I'm so hungover.

Despite my aching head, I have the clear memory of someone picking me up last night, cradling me, telling me to go back to sleep; the soft, safe memory comes back like a hug. Like Gray's arms around me. Shit, did he carry me into his bed last night?

And why am I wearing my old, white t-shirt and panties…and
only
my old, white t-shirt and panties. What the hell? And there's no sign of my bra, jeans, or shoes. I spot my purse on the side table, but other than that…

I'm not so concerned about where my crappy clothes are, but...did Gray undress me? Or did I drunkenly fling off all my clothes?

And which option did I wish had happened?

I fall back on the bed, letting my fingers run over the sheets. How high a thread count must these be, to feel so soft and smooth and cool against my skin? Back when we were teens, Gray and I had literally scrounged around in dumpsters behind supermarkets, looking for food when our fathers forgot to buy any.

And look at him now. I guess working for the Russians has been incredibly profitable.

I can't remember the last time I was able to just lay in bed. It seems that I've been working at the bar nonstop since I was a child. I should get up. I should make a plan. I should go to the bank, empty my savings, stock up on…I don't know…running shoes.

I close my eyes, just for a minute. I can't help it and I can't deny it: I feel so
safe
here.

But I'm not. I have to remind myself. I'm married to a mobster. Probably a killer. And he works for murderers, thieves, who knows who else.

What do they say about you choose your bed, then you have to lay in it?

I should get the fuck up, right now. But it's such a comfortable bed…

Suddenly, the sounds of Whitney Houston fill the room. I have to laugh, even though it hurts my aching head. My best friend Elle steals my phone every time I see her and programs a new song as her ringtone.

Or in this case, an old song. I grab my purse and root through it to find my cell. Whitney almost makes it to the chorus of
I'm Every Woman
before I finally find the damn thing.

"Elle?" I say.

"Where the hell
are you
?!" Elle shrieks on the other end of the line. "I went to your apartment this morning."

"Oh, hello. Good morning, it's nice to hear from you, too." I scoot off the bed and wander over to the bay of windows across from the bed.

"Don't play innocent with me," Elle whispers. I hear kids shouting in the background. "Kat, did you
get married
yesterday?!"

"Elle, are you in class?"

"Duh. It's 10 a.m. on a Friday. Where else would I be?"

"Right, but…aren't you
the teacher
?"

Elle cackles on the other end of the line. "Girl, the kids can wait. There's only one week of school left before summer break; none of them are paying any attention to me. So let's get back to
did you get flippin' married yesterday
!?"

"What did you hear?"

"Um, I'm telling you: I heard you got married. Last night. Oh crap—Lorelei, get off the desk. No. No. No standing on the desk, kids."

"Who told you that?"

"What?" Elle says. "Orion, do not put crayons in your nose. Seriously. Don't. No, don't even smell them." Her voice drops as she puts her attention back on me. "Kat, are you going to answer the question or not?! And,
why wasn't I your maid of honor
?"

"Oh Elle," I whisper, suddenly conscious that even though Gray isn't in the room, I have no idea if he's home or who the hell is around me. "I think this conversation is going to take more than five minutes. And believe me, you would not have wanted to be my maid of honor. No one would've wanted to be at this wedding, least of all me."

"Shit, it's true, then."

"How did you find out?" I can't believe anyone would know anything, yet. It doesn't even feel real to me. "I mean, this all literally happened when my father tricked me into going down to the Russian church on Park, and then locked me in the basement."

"Shut the front door," Elle says on an exhale. "Derek from your bar called me. He said your father was AWOL, you were
married
to some huge
Russian
with tattoos and fists the size of concrete blocks."

I grin at my friend Derek's description. He's one of the cooks, and he's been teaching me everything he knows. "Well, Elle, I think I finally have you beat on the drama front. I can't believe I'm actually going to say this out loud, but apparently my dad was in deep with the Soloniks. And—yeah—they own the bar now."

"Don't say it. Don't say it. Don't say they own you, too." Elle's completely serious, now.

"It's Gray," I whisper. "Gray's back. He's in New York. And he is working for Viktor Solonik."

"That's it," Elle growls. "Emergency cocktails. Tonight. This afternoon, actually. I get off work at four. Ricky's, like usual?"

I have to laugh. Normally I'm the teetotaler who doesn't drink, and Elle can down a bottle of wine a night. But despite my raging hangover, drinks with my girl sound amazing. If anyone deserves to get wasted two nights in a row, I think it's me.

"Definitely," I say. It's only after Elle hangs up that I realize I have no idea where Gray is or if he's unlocked the door.

It's time to break out of the nicest prison I've ever seen.

* * *

B
ut first I
need to find my pants.

I pad out of Gray's bedroom, the hardwood floors smooth and shining beneath me feet. God, no wonder Gray looked disgusted at my apartment. His place is straight out of a magazine. Or a dream. I think the place has more square footage than the tiny house I grew up in.

I glance in the smaller, second bedroom. The sheets are messed up—did Gray sleep in there last night? Why would he have done that, and how the heck did I end up in his giant bed? My clothes aren't here, either.

"Gray?" I call down the long hallways.

But he's not in the main living room or the expansive cooks' kitchen. I stand in the kitchen for the first time, and it makes my mouth water—and not just because I'm suddenly ravenous. I trail a finger across the gleaming marble countertops. There's a KitchenAid, a Vitamix blender—crap, those things are like six-hundred dollars or more.

There are chef's knives in a big knife block, and my fingers itch to use them. I look under the cupboards and the pots and pans are straight out of a Williams-Sonoma wet dream.

Or my own dreams.

The thing I love most in the whole world, besides Elle of course, is cooking. I never had the money to go to chef's school, but if I had I could only dream of working at a restaurant with equipment like this. Gray has a six-range gas stove. It's huge and gorgeous—a beast, just like Gray. The porcelain-enameled spill basin is either cleaned lovingly by a maid with a toothbrush, or Gray hasn't done more than boil water on this bad boy.

I open the fridge. There's water, beer and milk. And some apples. That's it.

"Good grief," I mutter. The freezer isn't much better. I rifle through the assortment of frozen microwave meals and the two vodka bottles he's got stacked in there. Those are in addition to the fully stocked bar that I'd raided last night.

What a waste.

It hits me that if we really cared for each other—if this was a real marriage and I was a real bride—I could wake up every morning and cook. I open up his cupboards. He's killing me! No flour, no baking powder, no oats—just granola bars and protein powder.

"How the hell does he stay so
big
?" I wonder. I shouldn't care about him. He fucking put a
guard
outside my door and basically locked me away in his ivory (and camel, and fabulous neutrals) tower.

My stomach growls again. I'd ordered a pizza last night, eaten a couple slices then given the rest to Dacko. Oh right. That kid.

I tiptoe to the front door and look out the peephole. He's still standing there, arms crossed, leaning only slightly against the wall. Damn, did he stand there
all night long
? Gray either pays him a helluva lot, or commands a helluva lot of respect.

Or both.

I sigh. As furious as I was—
am
—with Gray, he was right. I could be someone's—I shiver at just the word—
fuck toy
.

I decide I'll have a nice, long talk with Gray today. Assure him I will follow his "rules" but that there's no reason why I can't leave the apartment. I mean, I'd be going to work
with him
!

And I needed to make money. Because however nice and sweet and hot Gray may be…I was tired of depending on men. First my mother, who fucked up our family business. And now Gray.

But how to make Gray shelve the guard-dog act?

I guess my acting that I just
loooove
being here. With him.

They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. I'll go shopping—or order effing groceries in, if Gray still isn't home. Pick up some basics. The thought of cooking up jambalaya, or a pot roast in the stove, sounds
divine
. I'd get Gray all nice and happy and content and full and unsuspecting…

Ooh, he has a KitchenAid, too. I could work on my chocolate cake recipe. I shouldn't like the idea of feeding Gray cake so much. But I can imagine how much he'd love it, like he used to go crazy for sweet when we were growing up…

"Snap out it," I tell myself. Just because this is a perfectly appointed prison doesn't make it a prison, nonetheless. I walk back to the bedroom, trying not to love every single frickin' perfect detail in the place.

* * *

M
y clothes aren't
in Gray's bedroom, either. However, I discover a room off the boudoir. Technically, one could call it a bathroom.

But good Lord, I could just as easily name it Paradise.

Gray's bathroom is about as big as my apartment's living room. Yes, there's a toilet and a sink, but that's about where the similarities end to any bathroom I'd ever seen before.

The sink is massive; if I lay atop it, it would be longer than me. Of course, it would be damn uncomfortable to rest on, as the giant, white-marble slab features two basins. A well-lit mirror stretches across the entire wall. There is a separate, private room for the toilet. And the shower isn't just a shower: it's in its own, giant alcove. You basically walk into a separate room just for showering, no doors, no curtains.