“I woke up in his suite this morning with a massive hangover.” I closed my eyes and waited for her reaction as I took another bite of my burger.
“You slept with him? Luna, he’s your boss! Well, at least you’re his alibi.” As she freaked out on the other end, I scrambled to swallow the bite.
“No! I woke up with my clothes on, and I’m quite sure I’m intact. But I have no idea what happened between us other than a kiss.” I tossed the rest of my burger back into its box as I lost my appetite.
“Wait. You don’t remember anything? Shit, Luna, do you know what this means? If you were that drunk and assuming you passed out, then you wouldn’t know what your boss did the rest of the night. He could have slipped out of the room and done anything.”
The idea sank in, but I couldn’t believe it. Not about Gabriel Grant. I was certain he’d been with me the entire night, but as she pointed out, there was no real proof of it. I hadn’t seen him. “That can’t be, though. Gabe wouldn’t do that.”
“What if he was making you his alibi, Lu? He brought you to bed for a reason? Why not take you home if you weren’t going to…you know.”
Kim had always had a fondness for true crime TV, and now it was getting the best of her. “Maybe we were? He was drunk, too.”
“I’m certain a man like him would handle his booze better than you. Think about this, Luna. If this goes to court, you’d perjure yourself saying you were with him the entire night. If you can’t remember, then you can’t say that without a doubt.”
She had a point. No matter what I believed, there was no account for the truth.
Chapter Six
Gabriel
As soon as Mason closed the door to leave, I slipped my hand into my pocket and brought out the marriage certificate and rings that had been weighing me down all morning.
I’d cringed throughout the interrogation, especially when it came to explaining that part of the night. I’d kept it vague, but only to protect us both. With any luck, we’d be able to squash the marriage as if it never happened. It wasn’t that big of a deal and people did that sort of thing all the time.
If the police found out, all I’d have to tell them is that I’d already decided to end the marriage. It wasn’t like I’d kept the trip to the chapel a secret, but I hadn’t gone into detail.
With a sigh, I resigned to the fact that I wasn’t going to convince myself that everything would be fine no matter how hard I tried. What the fuck did I do?
I checked outside the peephole to see if Joe had taken up post outside my door, but since I didn’t see him, I assumed he’d finally gone down to secure his own room.
I went to the other side of the room where my phone was plugged into the charging station to call Luna. I’d hated having to wait, but I didn’t want any sort of blow up with my lawyer in the room. I wanted a chance to speak with Luna again before I mentioned the annulment to him. If there was going to be any problems, I’d rather bring it to his attention all at once.
I took a deep breath as the phone rang and she said hello.
“I’ve been worried sick.” Her panicked voice cracked as she belted out her greeting.
It was good to hear her voice. “I’ve been being questioned. I thought you’d be sharing in my experience, but I assume they didn’t question you?” Surely, they’d known she was in the room and after I’d told them about our being together, they would have brought her in.
“I talked to the detective a minute after I got out of the shower and they were searching your room. They told me not to leave the area, and I haven’t left my room. There are reporters all over the place, and one is outside in the hall.” That explained her soft voice.
“I want you to come to where I’m staying. I’ll send my car for you. Bring all of your things because we’ll be here for a while.”
“Look, Gabe. I need you to understand I’m considering giving my statement to the police and hopefully they’ll let me go home. My father’s called and-”
“You can’t go home, Luna. I need you to stay here with me. Despite this misunderstanding, I have a job to do, and so do you.” She wasn’t getting away from me that easy. Taking away everything else from the day, we had to talk about the marriage and what we were going to do about it.
“Gabriel, I’m sorry, but I don’t remember anything from last night. I mean, I see bits and pieces. I remember… I mean, I know we kissed. But I’m afraid that aside from drinking entirely too much and maybe an episode of dancing on the bar and winning at the blackjack, I don’t remember anything else.”
She sounded so frail, and I wanted to take her in my arms and apologize for everything. This couldn’t be easy on her, but dammit, she couldn’t bail on me now. Not when everything in my life was falling apart.
“I’m sorry. But considering what I do remember, we need to talk.” I waited for her to respond and after a long pause, she did.
“Fine, talk, but I want to know what happened last night. Tell me what I did. Especially the part with my mouth.” Her voice broke, and I was worried that tears were spilling all over her perfect cheeks.
“After dinner, we went to the bar and celebrated with some of the other guests from the event. While I talked about investments for G2, you were getting a little wound up with one of the other male guests, including one who encouraged you to do a few shots with him. It wasn’t a tough challenge for him because you were already good and loose.”
I remembered looking over across the table to where she stood with the man, his hands all over her as she giggled and batted her long lashes at him with curiosity.