Accidentally Married on Purpose (5 page)

“You’ve got impeccable timing, you know that?” He glanced over his shoulder and said, “I needed a personal day, all right? Sue me. What the hell do they care anyway? I checked the schedule. Nothing was on it. Blue has no commitments except studio time next week. So why have they been blowing up my phone all damn morning? Where’s the fire?”

On top of annoying the crap out of him, the constant texts and calls from his agent and publicist had made Sherry suspicious. They’d also given Tyler ample opportunity to correct her misassumption, but he’d been too selfish to do that. He’d almost turned it off a million times, but his dad had this number. He’d told his old man to call any time, for any reason, if he or his mom needed him. The frustration and questions weren’t enough to risk missing that call.

“The label got wind of the article,” Charlie said. “They’re using it to twist the system, man. Stone wants three new songs added to the album. One a duet with Kristen Wilson and two more that specifically hint at
committed
love.” He made a disgusted sound, and Tyler imagined him flipping off the air. His friend hated this bullshit as much as he did. “And Ty, I hate to tell you this, but if you don’t start playing along or find a woman of your own, it looks like they’re gonna do it for you.”

Tyler kicked the chair in front of him, watching the seat bounce with force. Suddenly, he couldn’t breathe. He was in the middle of a date with an incredible woman, and Belle Meade Records was tightening the screws. That’s what he was, too.
Screwed
. His career might just be in jeopardy after all. Now he had to come up with three new songs, sing one with a woman he’d barely met, and fake a relationship for the fans, or risk losing the one thing in this world he gave a shit about: his music.

Squeezing the bridge of his nose, Tyler closed his eyes. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

They disconnected, and Tyler took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. The proverbial shit was about to hit the fan, and he had no clue what to do next. Other than finish his date.

“Everything okay?” Sherry’s floral scent enveloped him a half second before her gentle hands closed around his shoulders. He craned his neck as she began kneading the knots. “Let me guess—that was the boss man?” she asked, giving him a sympathetic smile. “If we need to cut this date short, I totally—”

“No.” Tyler shook his head. “We’re not going anywhere.” They may be about to mess with his life, but he refused to let the label ruin their date. Forcing a lighthearted grin he didn’t quite feel, he said, “Wait till you see what I have planned next.”

The concern on her beautiful face eased, replaced by excitement. The tension in his shoulders melted under her fingers. “Really? There’s more?”

“Plenty,” he assured her, taking her hand and bringing it to his lips. “Ready to go?”

She flashed a smile and nodded, and threading their fingers together, Tyler led her to the exit.

He had no clue what tomorrow would bring or what his next step should be to protect his career. But those were decisions for later. Tonight was New Year’s Eve. Tomorrow, Sherry Robicheaux was on a plane back to New Orleans, and he was, more than likely, off to Nashville to discuss his new fake relationship.

The thought twisted his insides.

One thing was certain. If this was going to be his last true night of freedom, he was going to enjoy the hell out of it.

Chapter Four

An incessant buzz drilled its way through Tyler’s ears, rousing him from a deep sleep with the subtlety of a woodpecker. He blindly slapped a hand out to silence his cell phone but knocked it to the floor instead.
Great.
The room fell into silence for a nanosecond, and then the buzz began again. Groaning, he peeled open his eyelids to turn off the damn thing, only to have bright sunlight stab his corneas. He slammed them shut with a curse.

Hangovers sucked ass.

His mouth was drier than the desert outside his window. It tasted like tequila. Memories of
why
it tasted that way swam before the backs of his eyes like a tidal wave of booze.

Dancing. Liquor.
Lots
of liquor. Not nearly enough food to balance out said liquor. Fireworks. Sherry’s laughter…blurred images of her head tipped back in passion.

Tyler’s eyes popped open again.

Sherry. He jerked his head to the side, pain slicing through his skull as he surveyed the rumpled sheets. No sexy brunette zonked out beside him. He glanced around the room, more carefully this time, and saw clothes strewn across every surface. A bra dangled from the television set. Definitely not his.

Slumping back against the pillows, Tyler swiped his hands across his eyes. He dug the heels of his palms into his eye sockets and tried to piece together exactly what happened last night. He distinctly remembered the call with Charlie—how could he forget?—then taking Sherry back to her room so she could freshen up. He’d picked her up an hour later, they hit the casino floor, and then…what?

A feminine moan, and not the pleasured kind he enjoyed, sounded from the bathroom. Tyler stopped rubbing his eyes. If Sherry felt anywhere near how he did, she was in a world of hurt. Yawning, he slid his hands down his face, preparing to head in and check on her…only to still as his gaze fell upon a silver band wrapped around his finger.

His ring finger. On his left hand.

No.

No, no, no, no, no.

His arm extended with a jolt. That wasn’t there. He was imagining things. Delusional from dehydration. No matter how blitzed out of his mind Tyler had gotten, he’d never do something that stupid.

A second moan came from the bathroom, and Tyler shot to a sitting position. Pain exploded behind his eyes. Disbelief twisted with dread as he stared at the closed door, knowing what he had to do. Go in there. Check on Sherry.

See if her hand held a matching silver band.

“Shit.” Cautiously, as if the damn ground was going to latch onto his ankle and drag him into marital hell, Tyler set his feet to the carpet. Pushing to a stand, he took a tentative step—then stopped dead in his tracks when he spied two things on the nightstand.

A DVD boasting the title “Our Wedding.”

And a photograph the happy couple had apparently taken in front of a chapel. Sherry in a white lacy veil over her sweater-and-jeans combo, him with a damn top hat, and both of them wearing matching, inebriated grins.

Wouldn’t the tabloids love to get a hold of that?

Tyler swiped the evidence in his hand and did the first thing he could think of—dumped it into the nightstand drawer. Then he snatched his discarded jeans from the floor and hastily yanked them up his hips. Plans and scenarios ping-ponged in his mind as he zipped his fly. He was still dreaming. They were gag rings bought from a vending machine. Tyler stopped and tapped a finger against the metal. Jeweler he wasn’t, but that shit looked and felt real.

His stomach rolled and cold pricked the back of his neck. His hand went limp and slapped against his thigh, crinkling paper in his pocket. He stopped breathing. Another memory flashed as he shoved his hand inside, not wanting to do it, but at the same time knowing that he
had
to, and he withdrew his death warrant. A Clark County certificate of marriage.

There it was, written in ink. Tyler Blue of Opelousas and Sherry Robicheaux of Magnolia Springs had gotten hitched at the Love Me Tender Wedding Chapel. Most likely by Elvis.

The words swam in his vision. It was like some sick joke. That or a cruel twist of fate. Never in his life would he want this. Marriage wasn’t for him—at least not for another twenty years. Attachment, commitment, they got in the way of dreams.

His chest spasmed. God, had he even told Sherry who he really was? Had she seen the certificate? Tyler couldn’t remember. It had been his intention to tell her everything after dinner—before sleeping with her. But since he was standing there married, he figured at some point along the way he’d decided to chuck his prior plans out the damn window.

Shit…he was
married
.

A cough came from the bathroom and he panicked. Quickly, he pocketed the paper declaring the owner of the voice Sherry
Blue
, wife of a world-famous musician, and looked around the room for a sign. An out. A silver lining of any kind. Other than the band around his finger.

The only thing that came to mind was that as bad as this disaster was—and it was a disaster—it could be a hell of a lot worse. This wasn’t permanent. As shitty and unwanted as this was, people got out of drunken marriages all the time. And without anyone finding out.

But how many of them are celebrities?

The truth was that despite what his
wife
believed, he wasn’t some Joe Schmo off the street. Was he dumb enough to think Tyler Blue could actually get married and divorced in a span of a couple weeks and have no one in the media ever find out?

And that didn’t even factor in the bride.

Tyler didn’t know much about Sherry Robicheaux. Barely anything, really. But he knew she was passionate and spontaneous. It was what drew him to her in the first place. Was it that much of a stretch to think she also believed in love at first sight? The very real possibility made his head pound harder.

Sherry could be in that bathroom right now, hungover and cursing the world, but blissed out about being married. He hoped to God she wasn’t. Because for Tyler, marriage to any woman, gorgeous or not—
sweet
or not—was out of the damn question.

“Tyler?”

The rough question made him flinch. Sherry’s voice sounded like she’d gargled rocks. Tyler blew out a breath and ran sweaty palms down the denim on his thighs. It was time to face the music. Squaring his shoulders, he took a breath and prepared to enter the bathroom. To greet—and console—his wife.

…

Waking up face-first on the bathroom floor may not be cause for alarm for everyone, but for Sherry, it ranked right up there. Especially since she knew the second her eyes cracked open that it wasn’t
her
bathroom.

Fuzzy-edged memories pranced around her brain, just out of reach, as she hooked a hand on the toilet seat and pushed to a sitting position.

The world tilted.

As her stomach heaved, she dove for the porcelain throne, but nothing came up. Nothing other than slightly sharper memories. Ones that told of dancing, magical fountains, way too much alcohol, and some very, very sexy time between the sheets. The images pulsed like an old movie, blanking out too much for her liking, but a flush heated her skin at what she
could
recall.

Hot damn. She’d been right. A night with a roadie like Tyler would definitely keep her fantasies occupied for years to come. Shame she couldn’t remember more.

Resting her head on the cool surface, she surveyed the fancy digs with half-lidded eyes. It was a hell of a room, particularly on a roadie’s budget. Further proof that either Tyler was in tight with his boss, or Blue wasn’t nearly the egotist she’d pegged him to be. Too bad she hadn’t had a chance to meet him the other night.

“Tyler?” she called out again, wincing at the roughness of her voice. She sounded like an old lady who smoked a bazillion packs a day. Lovely. Grabbing hold of either side of the toilet, she wobbled first to her knees, and then her feet. The mirror was just a few feet away. Time to inspect the damage.

Eyes half closed, she fumbled forward and latched onto the counter to steady herself. Hangovers really didn’t suit her. She turned on the faucet, and as she waited for the plastic cup to fill with water, Sherry raised her eyes to her reflection.

“What the freaking
hell
?!?”

She was wearing a wedding veil.

A wedding veil was on her head. It was white. It had lace. And it was on her freaking
head
.

She didn’t have a single stitch of clothing on her body otherwise, but she did have that.

“Hubba, hubba, wubba…what?”

She blinked hard, repeatedly, thinking her reflection would change. It didn’t. Cold water ran over her hand, and it didn’t wake her from the bizarre dream. The door behind her started to creak open, and Sherry jumped, snatching a towel off the floor.

When she saw a huge honking diamond on her finger, she ditched the towel and screamed instead.

“Whoa!” Tyler walked in, shirtless with jeans riding low on his hips, holding up his hands. “Do you want people to call security?”

Ignoring his flippant response and her naked glory, Sherry thrust her left hand in his face. “Is this real?”

A muscle popped in his jaw, and his eyes glared at the ring on her finger like it was the bloody Ebola virus. “I don’t think it’s a cubic zirconia if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Not the freaking diamond!” she screamed again. The sound echoed off the hard surfaces of the room and reverberated in her skull. Heeding his warning—seriously, the last thing she needed right now was witnesses—she lowered her voice and clarified through gritted teeth. “What it represents.”

“Oh, yeah. That.” Tyler’s lips formed a tight smile that belied his casual approach to the horrible situation they’d found themselves in. “Apparently we’re hitched.”

Sherry turned and thumped her head on the wall.

Perfect. Just perfect. The one time in her life she actually attempted a fling—a
one
-night stand—and this was the result. Something permanent. She could never get it right.