Page 17 of Colin (The Doherty Mafia)
It had to be this mysterious quality in her that made me marry her. I was too drunk to resist it. I mistook her sex appeal for something else.
What?
I had no explanation for it.
Getting married had never crossed my mind. Not once. Not even with Tina.
And ever since she came into my life and then left, getting married and settling down was a laughable idea. I didn’t entertain it.
Then why did I go along with it the previous night? No matter how drunk I was, why didn’t the alarm bells go off in my head?
“A man like you shouldn’t be drinking alone.” I heard a low female voice beside me and turned to find a girl in a sexy shimmering gold dress. She had a martini in her hand which she was sipping from. I barely even looked at her face but she already pissed me off.
On any other night, anywhere else—I would have smiled at the opportunity of banging another chick.
I had no interest in her tonight.
“What makes you think you know what kind of a man I am?” I snarled at her.
Her cheeks flushed and maybe she couldn’t tell if I was just making conversation or being an asshole.
“Why don’t you enlighten me?” she continued.
I put my glass down on the bar with a bang and turned to face her. She cowered a little, quickly realizing she had misjudged my tone.
“Stay the fuck away from me before you regret ever looking in my direction.” The words poured out of me like venom. I didn’t know who I was mad at, but she looked like she was on the verge of bursting into tears.
“Give this lady another one of those.” It was Aidan. He was standing directly behind me and speaking to the bartender, referring to her martini. Apparently, my voice had attracted the attention of a few people around us and they were all watching me.
Aidan smiled at the girl and then grabbed my arm.
“And you need to stop drinking,” he snarled in my ear.
I tried to get away from him but Aidan had a pretty solid grip on me and he took me to a different part of the casino. Clearly to get me away from my brothers because he didn’t want them to see me like this. At one point, I just relented and let him lead me away.
Then he handed me a bottle of water from a table nearby.
“Drink this.”
“You’re asking me to hydrate?” I said with a laugh.
“No. I’m telling you.”
He watched as I drank half the bottle. Against my will.
I wasn’t going to admit to him that I actually felt good from it.
“Are you going to explain why you have a ring on your finger?” he asked next.
Shit.
I’d forgotten to take the cheap-ass ring off my finger. I flung the bottle of water away and fiddled with the ring but it wouldn’t come off.
A smile curled on Aidan’s lips.
“Is it what I think it is?”
I couldn’t look him in the eye. I looked everywhere else but at him, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation for wearing a fucking ring on my finger.
“Is that why you disappeared for so long? You went and married that chick from last night?” Aidan’s voice was a mixture of pure shock and unbridled laughter.
“Fuck off,” I growled at him and tried to walk away.
Then he grabbed me by my shoulders and pulled me back.
“You listen to me, Colin. This is Killian’s weekend. This is supposed to be about him and not your idiotic drunken story from last night.”
I jerked his hands away from me and smoothened the front of my shirt.
“It’s like you’re looking for trouble on purpose. You want to make a scene and piss everyone off? Do it. But you’ll regret it tomorrow. We are not in New York right now. Stop picking fights. You know better than that.”
Aidan was serious as he spoke. His eyes were narrowed at me and I had to admit he was right. He was right about everything.
I didn’t even know what was making me so mad.
The fact that I’d done something stupid or because Marley wasn’t there with me?
Aidan waited a few beats before he spoke again.
“‘You ready to talk?” he asked.
I ran a hand through my hair and breathed out slowly.
“There’s nothing to say. You’ve guessed it. I got drunk and married the girl I banged last night.”
Aidan shrugged.
“Okay. So fuckin’ what? This is Las Vegas. Everyone does it here,” he said.
Aidan didn’t get it. He watched me with a fuckin’ grin on his face that I wanted to wipe off.
I felt like I was losing my mind.
“What’s the big deal, man? You get it annulled. Forget about it. And if you’re lucky, you’ll never have to see her again.”
I leaned against the table and stared up at the ceiling like I was watching stars.
