Wilde at Heart (Wilde Security, #3)(18)

Reece made a low grumbling sound in his throat and paced away from her. A few seconds later, he whirled back. “The Headhunters are a criminal organization, no different than the mob. Would you have borrowed the money from the mob?”

“No! Of course not. I have a brain.”

His expression clearly asked, Then why the f*ck don’t you use it? But to his credit, he didn’t say it out loud. “They’re absolutely going to make an example out of you if you don’t pay up. That’s their M.O.”

“Yeah, not a newsflash. Why do you think I’m running from them? I like my legs unbroken, thank you very much. Even more than that, I’d really like to keep breathing for the next fifty or so years.”

“All right,” he said abruptly, startling her.

“Whoa, wait. Was that a let’s-get-hitched all right or—”

“Yes. As much as it pains me to admit this, you have a point. Marriage will solve my problem until I can figure out who’s behind the blackmail.”

Shelby exhaled hard. Okay, Reece didn’t sound thrilled about it, but he did agree it was their best option. The sense of relief that swamped her left her lightheaded, almost giddy. She might be able to pull this off after all. Solve both of their problems and keep herself alive and out of prison. Maybe after this was over, she’d even have a shot at a real life, away from people like Jason, away from the world she was born into, the world she wanted out of but kept getting dragged back to.

“But,” Reece added and her heart dropped. “If we want to pull this off, you have to stop being…” He motioned to her with both hands.

“Stop…what? Being me?”

“Exactly. My wife can’t have blue hair and tattoos and piercings and…all of this. It has to go.”

Shelby somehow managed to keep her wince inward and gazed down at her inked arms. “I can’t get rid of my tattoos.”

“You can cover them up.”

But…she liked her tattoos. She liked being her. Well, for the most part. And the thought of changing herself for even a little while caused her stomach to twist. Changing to please a man was far too much like her mother for comfort. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea after all.

Except what other choice did she have? Reece was her golden ticket, her shot at getting out of all this crazy and making herself a better life. If she had to change to get his help, she’d do it. She’d just think of it like a temporary witness protection program.

“Okay.” She worked up a bright smile that hurt her cheeks. “Let’s do this.”

Sometimes when life takes an unexpected turn, it leaves you awed and excited. Other times, it just leaves you feeling off-kilter and queasy, like you stepped off a carnival ride.

Reece felt as if he hadn’t yet gotten off that ride. The world was whirling around him at nauseating speeds and he couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe—

What the hell was he doing?

He stood at the jukebox-slash-altar, next to the overly cheerful Elvis, with his stomach doing corkscrews. In the ninety minutes since Shelby had disappeared with Elvis’s assistant, he’d woken up his shocked lawyer back in D.C. and had a prenup drawn up, which he then gave to the assistant to take to Shelby. He may have lost his mind, but he wasn’t about to take any chances when it came to his companies. Not when his brothers and one hundred other people counted on him to keep their paychecks coming.

The prenup came back signed and was filed along with the marriage license and—holy f*ck, was he really going to do this?

Yes.

He never pictured himself getting married but, yes, he was going to go through with it. He couldn’t keep paying the blackmail. Without a doubt there was another email already sitting in his inbox, demanding more money. And he couldn’t very well leave Shelby in danger when he was more than able to help. So she was right—this was a win-win short-term solution for the both of them. Shelby would get her money, and he’d have time to figure out the identity of his blackmailer.

A business arrangement. That was all this was. They’d do the ceremony thing and then outline some rules and—

The doors at the back of the room opened. Shelby stepped through and everything stopped. His racing thoughts. His flipping stomach. All the nerves eased away, and a strange sense of peace filled him.

She wore a classy 1950s-style dress in bridal white, but she had added a splash of color with a poufy underskirt that matched the purple in her hair. The ensemble screamed “Shelby” and a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. How she managed to inject her own style into this was beyond him, but he admired her for it.

Too bad she’d have to tone it down once they returned home. His smile faded at the thought. It wasn’t fair to ask her to change herself, but it was the only way this cockeyed scheme had any hope of working.

Next to him, Elvis broke out into song. It took him a second to place the lyrics: “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”

Jesus.

By the time Shelby reached them, she was laughing so hard tears streamed from her eyes. “Oh my God. You should see your face right now. Priceless.”

Reece leaned toward her, lowered his voice. “Why is he singing?”

She dropped her voice to match his. “Because he’s Elvis.”

“He could have picked a different song.”