“Want to what?” Her voice cracked. “Did I…did I come on to you, or something? Did we…spend the night together?”
Of course, they had. Why else would she be naked in bed right now, when Peter had obviously slept in the room too? She felt a hot rush of embarrassment.
And a hot rush of something else. Something foolish. Something she definitely shouldn’t be feeling about Peter. Not after what had evidently happened last night.
“No!” He shifted on the bed. “Well, yes, but nothing happened. I mean, something happened, but it didn’t get very far.”
She’d never heard him sound so stilted, so babbly.
“So we didn’t have sex?”
He shook his head as he met her eyes. “We started, but it ended before it got anywhere. We were both…totally out of it.”
She let out a loud exhale. It didn’t sound too bad. It could have been much, much worse. “You were drunk too.” It wasn’t a question. She knew it was true. Peter would never have let them get into that situation, if he had been thinking clearly.
“Yeah.” He was staring back down at the floor now, his shoulders very tense. “Not as drunk as you. I mean, I can remember last night. And I thought I…I knew what I was doing. But I obviously didn’t. If I hadn’t had too much to drink, I never would have believed…”
“Believed what?”
He shook his head. “I never would have let us get into this situation.”
“Well, it doesn’t sound too bad.” Kelly smiled at him, trying to cheer him up. Her head still pounded like a jackhammer, but it didn’t sound like anything catastrophic had occurred. “So we were drunk and stupid for a night. At least nothing serious happened.”
Peter cleared his throat. “There’s more.”
“You said we didn’t have sex.”
“We didn’t, but that’s not the only thing that happened last night.”
He took a strange, shaky breath, and then he placed his left hand on her covers, the weight of it pulling them down slightly from where she’d tugged them up over her shoulders.
She stared down at his hand, since she was obviously supposed to. And she blinked several times as she realized that he was wearing a simple gold band.
On his ring finger. Of his left hand.
She made a little noise in her throat as she remembered she’d been playing with something on her own finger all morning, without even recognizing it. She pulled her left hand out from under the covers and saw that she was wearing Peter’s signet ring.
Thick, heavy gold with the Blake family crest engraved on the flat surface.
“What…” she breathed.
“Yeah.”
“We got…”
“Married.”
“Why?”
“I…I have no idea.”
He wasn’t meeting her eyes, and she suddenly realized why. This was her fault. It must have been her idea. In her drunken state, she must have come up with this ridiculous notion, and Peter had been in no fit state to refuse.
He’d always been a gentleman. He would never blame it on her.
But it was obviously her own, stupid fault.
“Okay,” she said, on another taken breath. “Okay. I’m sorry for getting us into this situation.”
“It’s not your—”
“It doesn’t matter whose fault it is, but it’s still not the end of the world. We can just…get it annulled or get divorced or something. We’ll pretend it never happened. No one has to know.”
Peter was still staring at the floor. “Right.” He swallowed, so hard she could see it in his throat.
With a wave of concern, she reached out to put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you mad at me?”
He inhaled sharply and turned to look at her. “Of course not. I’m mad at myself.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Peter. I don’t care what you tell me. I know I must have been the one to get us into this situation.”
“You didn’t—”
“Don’t bother trying to argue. It’s really okay, Peter. I’m embarrassed, but I’m not upset, and I’m definitely not upset with you. Let’s get dressed, and then we can figure out how to take care of this. I’m sure we’re not the only people who have gone to Vegas and accidentally ended up married.”
“Accidentally. Right.”
“Right?” He was still acting strange, and she had no idea why. It bothered her—even more than the knowledge of what she’d done when she was drunk.
“Right.” He gave her a little smile. “I’ll go take a shower, if you want to finish your coffee.”
“Okay. Sounds good.”