Page 46 of Accidentally Marrying the Prisoner
Conrad digs through the extra-large, green floral, quilted diaper bag with our last name embroidered in gold thread on the front. I can fit half the nursery in that bad boy and still have room left over!
He hands me a large manila folder with a twinkle in his eye and a wide, sexy as sin smile beneath his backwards ball cap. “Happy anniversary!”
I flip open the folder and am greeted with the worst thing imaginable. “You want a divorce?!” I cry out.
“God no,” Conrad says, taken aback.
“Then what the hell is this?” See how good I am at sharing my feelings now? I wave the folder in the air with the documents petitioning for a divorce now that our mandated three years are up, my cheeks burning as tears burst out of me.
“Daddy mean!” Drea starts to wail, shaking off Conrad’s hand to throw herself at my legs, which threaten to crumple beneath me as our world falls apart.
How many times has Conrad told me—lied straight to my face—that we were forever? That three years with me would never be long enough? Had he been hiding his true intentions all along so as not to hurt my feelings? He promised he wouldn’t.
“How could you do this to us?” I hurl the folder at him like a baseball with as much force as I can and bend to heft Drea up onto my hip. I sob into her hair, turning away and duck-shuffling down the sidewalk.
I still have some lumber left over in the garage that Conrad hasn’t gotten to yet, having started up whittling gorgeous frames to go with the custom portraits I illustrate and now offer to print and ship to our customers. I have just enough to board up the doors and windows to keep him out—and mein—for as long as it takes for the urge to murder him to pass. Sure, I could go to prison and try out being on the opposite side of things, a prisoner randomly assigned to marry some civilian. But then Imight end up back at square one with another Lying McLiarson. I’d rather not.
“What did I tell you?!” Mom yells, flying through the courthouse doors and down the stairs with Garth on her heels. She slaps the back of her hand against Conrad’s shoulder before she grabs and turns me in her arms, since I hadn’t gotten very far. “I told you she would jump to conclusions like any sane person would!”
“Yeah, like any sane person would!” I echo, because this totally doesn’t count as a strike against myjumping-to-conclusionsscoreboard.
“But no! You’re as stubborn as her,” Mom finishes, rubbing my back and turning her nose up at Conrad. “So not cool.”
“You just had to go and learn your lesson the hard way instead of learning it from me,” Alisa says, rising with Brad and my niece and nephew from behind a gigantic white dually parked on the street. She drops her hand with the phone she’d been using to record one of the worst moments of my life. “This family sucks at surprises.”
“I’m sorry!” Conrad drops the diaper bag on the sidewalk, then presses the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I thought it would be romantic.”
Mind boggled by his thought process, I yell, “To give me divorce papers?”
Sondra steps out from behind a fat trunk of an old pine tree and hustles closer, sandwiching Drea and me between her and Mom.
Conrad chases and catches the papers taking flight in the hot breeze blowing in from the west. Thumbing through them, he finds the one he wants and tries to hand it to me. He sighs, regret heavy in his eyes when I jerk away from his approach.
“I don’t want that!” I tuck my wet face into Mom’s neck.
“Please, princess, it’s not what you think.” He’s close to tears himself when he shakes the paper, then jams his finger at the section where we’re both supposed to sign the petition. “Read it.”
I turn up my nose but can’t help cutting my eyes to the signature that threatens to blow up my whole life.
Over my dead fucking body will we ever get a divorce. You’re mine for life, princess.
Your husband until the end of time,
Conrad O’Byrne
“Oh.” I clear my throat. “I’d rather have gone on vacation, but this ok, I guess. Thanks,” I say flatly, blowing Sondra’s bushy hair out of my face when she leans forward to read the paper.
“Happy anniversary!” Tripp yells excitedly, turning the corner at the side of the courthouse, and he pops the tube he’s carrying, spraying us with glittery paper confetti. He straightens his back, his face falling. “What happened? Did she actually sign it?” Tripp—the man who ended up being the sweetest and most doting father-in-law—points the empty tube at me. “If we have to choose, we’re keeping you in the divorce. You know my nephew, Derek, has always taken a shine to you and would happily pull a Brad move.”
Brad coughs into his hand, his cheeks turning pink, abashed.
Conrad growls, “No one is getting a divorce, and I will feed Derek his own eyeballs if he so much as looks at my wife again.”
“You’d go back to prison,” Tripp says, rolling his long sleeves up to his elbows like he’s itching for a fight with his son for upsetting me.
“She’d wait for me,” Conrad says, then flicks his gaze to me. “Right?” he asks in a low voice, vulnerability peeking through. He knows he royally fucked up.
“I don’t know,” I say haughtily, shifting Drea higher up my hip. “I might pull an Alisa move.”
