My Fair Marchioness (Scandalous Affairs Book 3) by Christi Caldwell (book recommendations for young adults txt) 📕

living arrangement thing. I was hoping that maybe I was worming my way into her heart since she had initiated having sex today, but maybe she just needed something physical. I was not complaining, but I didn’t know how I was supposed to go about showing her that I really wanted this to work.

It had been rash of me to offer to marry her, but I had been in love with this woman since we were teenagers. She always thought I was another dumb jock who had hoes in different area codes, though. My life was complicated, and sure I had some one-night stands…okay, more than some. There had been a couple girls in the past couple years that I thought could be something, but they couldn’t take my schedule.

I watched her return to her laptop, pulling the headset over her head, and the room filled with the tip-tapping of her fingers flying across the keyboard. I walked back into the bedroom and threw a t-shirt over my head. I took out my phone to see if I could get a reservation somewhere nice. It was kinda iffy, but someone must have recognized my name because I was able to get something at one of the nicer sushi bars. I knew she loved her sushi.

After hanging up, I saw a text from my teammate and probably my best friend on the team, Benny. Benny was a massive, brown-skinned, six-foot-four left-winger from Boston, and we had bonded over being two of the few Americans on the team.

BENNY: When you coming back from that Vegas wedding?

I scratched the back of my neck. I wasn’t sure how I was going to break it to my teammates that I had randomly gotten married. I sighed but figured I had to come out and say it.

ME: Uhh….her fiancé flaked on her…so I kind of married her instead???

BENNY: What in the actual fuck? Are you serious?

I ran a hand over my face and groaned. Benny was my best bud, so I knew he would give me shit for this, but I had no idea how I was going to break this to my other teammates. I texted him back immediately.

ME: Yes.

BENNY: Wait…this is the girl from home that you’re legit in love with?

ME: Yup.

BENNY: What the actual fuck?!?

What the fuck indeed. Not like Benny had any room to talk; he was in love with our teammate TJ’s twin sister. Too bad the curvy Canadian hated his guts. Women didn’t like it when a guy stared at their tits and asked if they were real. Poor Benny.

I flicked over to the sports news and looked at a few articles that talked about me and whether if Philly was getting the right value in me. One article was calling for me to be traded because I was taking too many penalties. As if I didn’t know that! As if it was news to me that you could take a bad penalty and cost your team everything?

I threw my phone down on the bed in anger and sank onto it in defeat. Like I didn’t know that this was a bad season for the team. With Metzy in the net, we had a good chance; we just had to work really hard. I shouldn’t have missed my flight home today. I could have used an extra day on the ice for conditioning to get my head in the game. We had been on a hot streak, but it came to an end, and it was like we lost our mojo.

I shook off the emotions and picked up my phone again to try to watch some video to see what I had been doing wrong in the last couple games. I wanted to work hard to stay in Philly and stay with the Bulldogs. My contract expired in July, but since I was an older player, I had a feeling they would let me become an unrestricted free agent and let another team waste their money on me. I really wouldn’t have blamed them if they did. But I loved Philly, and I needed to stay there if I wanted to make my wife fall in love with me.

I set my phone on the bedside table and got up off the bed. I went over to my suitcase and pulled out the extra suit I had brought. I hadn’t been sure which one to bring for Fi’s wedding, so I brought two. It was good to have a spare sometimes. I took the iron out of the closet and ironed out the wrinkles, then hung it up in the closet. I checked my watch; we still had plenty of time, and I heard Fi tapping away at her keyboard, so I didn’t want to disturb her. I rubbed a hand across my face and felt the annoying scratchiness of my beard coming in, so I went into the bathroom to shave and fix my hair.

By the time she padded into the bedroom, I was suited up and adjusting my tie in the mirror.

“Oh, should I dress nice?” she asked.

“I guess so. It’s Vegas, sweetheart.”

She put a finger on her chin, as if in thought, but then went into the closet and rifled through some clothes she had hanging up in there. She pulled out a black dress with thin straps and looked over at what I was wearing before changing into it. The dress hugged her in all the right places and showed more cleavage than was normal for her. My mouth watered, and I knew if I didn’t unclench my jaw, we would never even leave the suite tonight. I watched her slip on a pair of heels before shaking her bright red hair out of the messy bun.

“I think I need to straighten my hair and do my make-up. Can you give me like twenty minutes?” she asked.

I straightened my tie again. “Sure.”

She eyed me from across the room. “Are we even going to make it to dinner?”

“What?”

She