Page 25 of The Marriage Blunder

And he was, by every legal standard, my husband.

The marriage certificate was still on my phone, filed in the PDF graveyard where contracts went to die. I had opened it three times this morning, convinced there would be a typo or a missing signature or, at the very least, a loophole so obvious even an exhausted judge would spot it.

There was not.

I had spent the better part of a decade making my name synonymous with reliability. I did not take risks that weren’t insured, hedged, or otherwise bulletproofed. I did not get married to men in Las Vegas, I did not fall for quiet, witty weirdos who spent their best years fading into the backdrop at other people’s parties, and I did not, as a rule, let anyone know when I was in over my head.

But here I was, and there he was, and the distance between us felt like both a test and a challenge.

I finished the coffee, now cold enough to qualify as a statement. I set the cup down on the island, next to the reminders. I picked up the phone, thought about the call I was supposed to make, and didn’t dial.

Instead, I opened a blank note, typed out the first thing that came to mind, and deleted it. Then I did it again. I wanted to say something clever, something that would make the morning less awkward and the previous night less insane. I wanted to be the man who had planned this all along, not the man who had lost control and liked it.

But Jude didn’t need clever. He didn’t need a script. He needed the truth.

Which was that I was in trouble, the kind of trouble that doesn’t wash off in a shower, doesn’t fade with time, doesn’t become less urgent the longer you ignore it. The kind that only gets worse, or better, depending on which way you look at it.

I closed the note. I looked out at the city, and for the first time since I’d moved in, I let myself feel the size of it.

Forty-two floors up, the world was small, and every risk seemed manageable, but I was falling.

And if I hit, it would be with both eyes open.

At 8:01 a.m., I dialed Miles Cranston, and old frat brother from my university days. He answered on the second ring. I could picture him exactly: in his midtown office, pinstriped, perfectly balanced at the edge of his Aeron chair, a day’s worth of work already mapped in his head.

“Ken,” he said, voice so even it could have been the voice of God if God billed by the tenth of an hour.

“Miles.” I let my own voice drop to the register reserved for boardroom ultimatums and funerals. “I have a hypothetical for you.”

The pause was perfectly calibrated. “Shoot.”

“Suppose a man—let’s call him ‘K’—wakes up in Las Vegas with a marriage certificate. No recollection of signing it, but the paperwork looks legitimate.”

There was a sound in the background—heels clicking on stone, a door closing, then silence again. “Was there a witness?”

“Yes. Two.”

“Was the officiant state-licensed?”

“I checked. Valid.”

He inhaled, just once. “You’re legally married, then. Nevada doesn’t care if you remember it.”

“What’s the window for annulment?”

“Sixty days if there’s fraud or duress. Otherwise, you’re looking at a standard dissolution.”

The word fraud hung in the air, but I let it pass. “And jurisdiction?”

“If one or both parties claim residency, you’re married everywhere. New York will recognize it.”

I nodded, even though he couldn’t see it. “What about enforcement? Assets, rights of inheritance, all that?”

“Full faith and credit. If you want to untangle it, you’ll need to file in Nevada. Or, if you want to keep it quiet, I can draft something airtight here.”

He made it sound like an oil change.

I said, “I’ll let you know.”