My phone stops ringing, and I run a hand through my hair. “Where the hell is my—”
“Table. My side,” Bliss says. I want to be annoyed with her for knowing exactly what I need.
“It’s called a nightstand,” I correct, striding to it. The phone rings again, my dad’s name appearing. “Anything else I should know before I answer this?”
She shakes her head, my ring on her finger sparkling. “No.”
“Don’t suppose we signed a pre-nup?” Though it won’t matter if we get an annulment, because then it will be like the marriage never happened.
“I wanted to, you said no, because it would piss off your dad even more.”
That sounds like something I would say. Still, she didn’t have to agree so easily. I flatten my mouth. Answering the phone, I give her a look before covering the speaker with a hand. “When I’m done with this call, we’re going to have a nice long talk. So don’t go anywhere.”
“I can’t go anywhere.”
“Jackson Cash Morgan. Answer me,” Everett yells into the phone, but I ignore him.
“Why?” Can’t leave the money behind, sweetheart? I want to ask, but I don’t, because a part of me wants to believe Bliss wants me for me, not my money or fame. Another reason why I shouldn’t have given up on Violet. At least I knew she didn’t need me for any of those reasons.
“You took my clothes out of my bag and burned them in the fire pit beside the pool.”
I really did that? What the hell was wrong with me last night? “And you let me?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, you’re twice my size,” she says, and I feel worse. No, not worse, I feel like shit. “Don’t worry; you said you’d buy me more.”
So, shit feeling gone now. I’ve married a gold digger. Everett’s going to hand me my ass over this.
Chapter Three
Bliss
The only thing worse than waking up nude with a guy that can’t remember the night before, is waking up married to him and finding out he’s more of a jerk than you previously thought.
I glance down at the wedding ring on my finger. It’s beautiful, white gold or platinum, with diamonds all over it. It’s the first piece of jewelry I’ve ever owned.
Although, how long it will stay mine remains to be seen.
“No, I did not plan this,” Jackson growls into his cell phone as I slip on my glasses. He comes into focus, and I blink. I’m not sure who exactly had my glasses fixed, but a big part of me wants to believe that the man standing by the bed had something to do with it.
“It just happened, Everett. That’s how,” he snaps.
Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine I’d end up here, just outside of Charleston, South Carolina, with country music’s golden bad boy, Jaxon Hunter.
In private, though, I think of him as just Jackson.
My heart skips a couple of beats when his dark blue gaze rakes over me. Strawberry blond hair sticking up all over the place and a morning beard that makes his face all adorably scruffy.
Dark blue jeans hang on his narrow hips as he paces. Tight abs, with an, oh holy crap, eight pack in the making leaves my tongue glued to the roof of my mouth. Then there are the tattoos. Don’t even get me started on the tattoos, but I want to get started on them.
He tilts his head and smiles, as if he knows exactly what I’m thinking, sending my heart into overdrive.
“We’re staying married,” he says into the phone, his blue-eyed gaze pinning me to the bed. “If you have a problem with that—honestly, I don’t give a damn.”
As if he could ever be just Jackson.
Blushing, I glance away. I’m not stupid though, despite agreeing to marry him while I was perfectly sober and he was perfectly drunk, to think that what will happen next will be all hearts and flowers.
But I was desperate. I’m still desperate.
I’m tired of living on the street, tired of homeless shelters and crashing in bus stops when I have no other options. Since I was let go from the tour, I have no place to go. No place to live, unless I go back home to Forrestville.
A shudder racks my body as I think about what waits for me at home. No, not my home, not anymore.
My Uncle Brian drags me by the hair, across the floor. I wrap my hands around his wrists, trying to ease the stinging in my scalp. My glasses are barely hanging on my face. “You were supposed to stay for a week, maybe longer if you’d been any good.”
Pain slices though my heart from where he’d beat me when I’d turned up this morning. “Please, don’t send me back,” I beg. I’d rather stay here and take my “uncle’s” abuse than go back.