Chapter 3: Can't Get Married the Same Day You Divorce?

By the time they'd driven a few blocks, Wendy's pulse had finally settled. She ran her thumb over the pocket watch in her coat, debating whether this was something worth calling Grandpa Hale about.

"Don't worry about it," Jordan said. "I'll get someone to handle it."

Wendy still couldn't sit still, so Jordan looped the car around and steered them straight to a bar instead, tugging Wendy inside before she could protest.

Two very different kinds of beautiful walking in together turned heads across the room even the stone-faced man in the corner booth glanced up.

Jordan found Wendy a seat. "Sit tight, I'm going to go find the owner."

Wendy nodded, only half listening.

The noise cut out, replaced by something softer a piano.

It pulled her straight back to an old dream she'd buried a long time ago, one where she'd wanted to be a pianist.

Onstage, a young girl was fumbling through the piece, hitting wrong note after wrong note, nerves getting the better of her. She fled the stage the second it ended.

Wendy's fingers tapped an unconscious rhythm against the armrest. Before she'd fully decided to, she was already walking toward the stage.

The room turned to watch a slender woman, long black hair, looking like she'd stepped straight out of a painting.

She settled at the piano, eyes fixed on the keys.

The first notes came out clean and effortless.

The same people who'd been struck by her looks a moment ago went quiet, struck by something else entirely.

When the song ended, she left the stage to real applause.

A man set a glass down in front of her. "Gorgeous. Do me the honor?"

"I don't drink," she said.

"Don't drink? At a bar?" His face flushed red, humiliated in front of an audience. He shoved the glass closer. "You're drinking it whether you want to or not."

Wendy stood to leave rather than argue with him.

He blocked her path. People were watching now, but nobody moved to help he had the build of someone used to getting his way through force.

Already at the end of her patience for the day, Wendy didn't hesitate. She flung the wine he'd tried to force on her straight into his face.

He roared and swung a hand at her.

She flinched, throwing her arm up on instinct.

The blow never landed. Instead, the man cried out someone had caught his wrist mid-swing.

He begged, whimpering, until the grip released him.

"Thank you," Wendy said quietly.

Julian Vance turned toward her. In the dim light his eyes looked bottomless, and something about them made her want to look away.

She hadn't expected to run into him again so soon.

Jordan rushed over. "You okay?"

Wendy shook her head slightly. Jordan glanced at Julian and said, with a knowing smile, "Mr. Vance. Out for a good time tonight?"

Julian said nothing and returned to his corner booth.

Wendy grabbed a glass and drank, coughing as it burned going down, cheeks flushing, eyes glassy.

"What are you doing, woman?"

"Who's more powerful," Wendy asked, "Julian Vance or Nathan Hale?"

"Vance, obviously. Nathan wouldn't be half of what he is without the Hale name behind him."

"What's he like? Vance."

"Bad temper. But at least he's not a smiling snake like some people." Jordan eyed her warily, then followed her gaze to where Julian sat smoking, and her stomach dropped. "You are not thinking about him. No. Absolutely not a good idea"

Wendy smiled. "Only one way to find out."

Before Jordan could argue further, Wendy smoothed her hair and crossed the room toward him.

"Mr. Vance," she said carefully. "Could I have a moment?"

Under his stare, guilt crept in but the wine had loosened something in her, and she didn't retreat.

He stubbed out his cigarette, stood, and said simply, "Okay."

They stepped into a private lounge, the noise of the bar falling away behind the door.

Only then did the dizziness hit her fully. She steadied herself. "Mr. Vance, I want to propose something."

He nodded, listening.

Emboldened, she pushed forward. "I just divorced Nathan Hale. He wants to make my life miserable for it. I need you to fake a marriage with me just to buy some time while I sort myself out. In exchange, anything you want to know about Nathan, I'll tell you. And that woman earlier I'll explain things to her myself."

She got it all out in one breath, heart hammering, eyes locked on him.

"I don't know her," Julian said.

Smoke curled between them, blurring his face. Wendy coughed lightly and frowned.

"We can marry," he said, crushing his cigarette out, "on one condition."

"Name it."

"No one finds out it's fake."

"What?" She wondered if she'd misheard.

"As far as anyone's concerned," he said patiently, "this marriage is real."

She hesitated. She'd wanted a paper arrangement something clean, something she could walk away from once she was back on her feet. Not a second trap dressed up as an escape.

As if reading her thoughts, he added, "I won't force anything on you."

Her face warmed. "You want this in writing?"

"If it makes you comfortable."

He pulled out his phone and made a call. Less than ten minutes later, a visibly nervous man knocked and entered, holding out a document. "Mr. Vance, take a look?"

Julian scanned it briefly and passed it to Wendy.

She stared at it a beat before taking it. A contract.

Seventeen pages, and she read every one. Nothing in it worked against her if anything, it guaranteed mutual respect throughout the marriage.

When she finished, he asked, "Anything you want changed?"

She shook her head. They signed, pressed their thumbprints to the page, and that was that.

Back at the registry, Jordan trailed behind them, thoroughly baffled, while Julian drove ahead with Wendy beside him.

The clerk at the counter rubbed her eyes, certain she was seeing double.

"Is it a problem," Wendy asked hesitantly, "to get married the same day I got divorced?"

The clerk shook her head quickly, though her eyes kept darting between Wendy and Julian the entire time.

Certificate in hand, Wendy turned to find Jordan. Julian caught her wrist then let go almost as fast. "You're not coming home with me?"

She rubbed the spot he'd touched, oddly self-conscious. "I need to see my mother at the hospital."

"All right." He handed her his phone. "Leave me your number."

The moment she'd typed it in, she practically dove into Jordan's car, relief washing over her.

Jordan spotted the marriage certificate and gaped. "I did not realize you had *this* much recklessness in you."

Wendy laughed helplessly. "This isn't recklessness."

She held out the contract. Jordan, who trusted Wendy's legal instincts far more than her own, skimmed it and her eyebrows climbed higher with every page.

"Wendy. Did you drug this man? He basically signed his rights away for free."

Wendy's eyes slid away. "Don't be ridiculous."

Jordan glanced out at Julian still parked nearby, then abruptly pulled over and nudged Wendy toward the door. "Have your brand-new husband take you to the hospital. My dad just called I've got to go."

Wendy watched, baffled, as Jordan sped off. She walked over and tapped on Julian's window. "Would you mind giving me a ride?"

He chuckled, and her face went warm all over again.

Jordan, watching in her rearview mirror, decided half-joking, half not to follow them anyway. A same-day divorce and remarriage left her with more questions than she was comfortable leaving unanswered.

At the hospital entrance, Julian asked, "Want me to come up with you?"

Wendy shook her head. Her mother wouldn't take kindly to Julian's presence.

She went in with Jordan instead.

At the ward door, a nurse stepped into her path, voice clipped. "Ma'am, no visitors. Please leave."

Wendy kept her tone even. "That's my mother in there."

The nurse's eyes rolled skyward. "Ma'am. Please leave."

A doctor walked up and addressed the nurse directly. "Payment window's closed. Hold the medication."

"What?" Wendy's stomach dropped. "How much is owed? I'll pay it right now."

The doctor glanced her over and asked the nurse, "Is she family?"

The nurse shrugged. "No. Patient's only listed contact is her husband."

The standoff held. The nurse flipped open a small notebook. "Straight from the husband himself. Ma'am, please don't interfere with hospital procedure."

Stunned, Wendy took the elevator down a floor, then climbed the stairs back up on foot.

She caught the doctor on the phone near the entrance. "Understood, Mr. Hale. I'll handle it exactly as you asked."

A few more pleasantries, and he hung up, leaving the nurse posted at the door like a sentry.

Wendy stared at the ward, ice settling in her chest. Nathan. Of course it was Nathan punishing her for filing the divorce.

Whatever thread of attachment she still had to him snapped clean in that moment.

"Why is your mom even in Nathan's hospital?" Jordan asked, confused.

Wendy shook her head, unwilling to say another word about him right now.

She glanced at the door, then quietly texted Julian the ward number.

He'd be here soon.

She and Jordan stepped forward again. The nurse rounded on them. "Do that again and I'm calling security."

"You keep saying I'm not family," Wendy said. "So prove it. Let me see her."

"You're being difficult. We don't let unverified visitors in."

Wendy saw straight through the excuse. "I've donated blood here before. Run a paternity comparison if you want proof."

The nurse's face cycled through three shades of red. There was no protocol for that, and no way to justify keeping them out much longer.

In the middle of the standoff, Wendy looked up and spotted Julian approaching. Her whole face relaxed.

The nurse turned, saw the man who regularly topped the trending lists, and froze mid-sentence.

Julian handed her a business card, unbothered. "Any further issues, take it up with my lawyer."

The nurse stepped aside without another word.

"I'm going in to see my mom," Wendy told them, and disappeared into the ward, leaving Jordan and Julian to size each other up over a thoroughly stunned nurse.

Eleanor Wells lay in the hospital bed, her face drawn and pale. She opened her eyes at the sound of the door.

Seeing it was Wendy, she closed them again.

Eleanor had been sickly for as long as Wendy could remember, in and out of hospitals her whole life. After Wendy married into the Hale family, Franklin had more or less dumped Eleanor here and washed his hands of the rest.

"Has Dad even been to see you?"

Wendy poured a glass of water cold, the thermos long since gone lukewarm. "How long has it been since a nurse checked in on you?"

Eleanor said nothing, her expression shuttered.

Wendy sighed and got to the point. "I'm moving you to another hospital."

"I'm not going."

Her voice came out rough, but it was the first thing she'd said.

"Nathan and I are divorced. He's cut off your medical funding."

Something in Eleanor's face eased. "So you finally did it."

She'd been waiting a long time to hear that.

Wendy managed a small smile. "Does that mean you'll actually talk to me now?"

"Just stay away from wealthy men," Eleanor said.

Wendy's heart stuttered. She decided, right then, not to mention Julian not even that it was fake. Even a paper marriage to money would be enough to freeze her mother out all over again.

She helped Eleanor change and eased her out of bed. The moment they stepped into the hallway, Julian appeared and took Eleanor's other arm without being asked.

Between the two of them, they got her downstairs quickly.

Eleanor settled into the back seat beside Wendy and immediately asked, "Who is he?"

"A friend of Jordan's," Wendy said softly.

She caught Julian's eyes in the rearview mirror and held them, a silent, pleading request that he go along with it.

He looked at her for a long moment, then fastened his seatbelt and pulled away without a word.

Eleanor accepted the answer without suspicion and was asleep within minutes.

They got her settled into a private VIP room at a new hospital, and once everything was arranged, the two of them left together.

With one crisis handled, Wendy finally let herself relax until she noticed they weren't heading anywhere familiar. She sat up straighter just as a five-star hotel came into view.

"We've known each other for half a day," she said, panic creeping in. "Isn't this a little fast?"

Julian glanced at her and said nothing.

Wendy's words tumbled out in a rush. "We had an agreement you said you wouldn't push me into anything. I want to get out, please pull over, or, or"

The car sailed straight past the hotel entrance without slowing.

She sat there, stunned, staring at him.

Julian looked entirely too pleased with himself. "I already finished playing my part for your little show. Now it's your turn to play along with mine.”