It wasn't until they stood before the imposing bronze doors of City Hall that Addie finally paused to take a good look at the man she had essentially "kidnapped."
He was well over six feet tall, dressed in a dusty gray-blue work uniform, his face still smudged with grime from the construction site. But beneath the dirt, a pair of ink-black eyes regarded her with an unsettling steadiness.
Hurley Slate. It was a good, strong name.
A wave of regret washed over her. "I dragged you here to get married. Why didn't you put up a fight?"
Hurley looked at her with an expression of genuine disbelief. "I'm the victim here, aren't I? You physically pulled me away from my job. I just lost half a month's wages for walking off site without permission. I haven't blamed you for anything, and now you're blaming me?"
Guilt hit Addie immediately. She rifled through her bag, pulled out a thick stack of cash, and pressed it toward him, her voice carrying a note of pleading. "I'll pay you back for the lost wages. Could you please... just go through with this? Marry me?"
Hurley glanced at the money in her hand but made no move to take it.
"Getting married—that was your decision alone. But divorce? That takes two people." His voice was level, but there was an edge beneath it. "I've never even held a girl's hand before. Now, out of nowhere, I'm about to become a divorced man. Who am I supposed to complain to about that?"
What he didn't say aloud was what truly made the situation absurd.
Here he was—the shadow ruler of Chicago's financial underworld, the man behind the Vanguard empire, and he had been spending a few weeks undercover on a construction site, quietly investigating safety violations and substandard materials, only to be ambushed into marriage by a complete stranger.
Of all the things that could have happened during this undercover operation, this was not on the list.
But Addie wasn't listening to his complaints. Her mind was already racing ahead to the consequences of what she had done.
She had torn up her relationship with Jennings in the most public, humiliating way possible. There was no going back. And Jennings, vindictive, controlling Jennings, would absolutely use their broken engagement as a weapon against her. He would twist the story. He would make her the villain. And her parents...
Her stomach tightened. Her parents trusted Jennings completely. Her family's company, Sterling & Associates, had been propped up by Hayes Corp funding for so long that it had become entirely dependent on him. Even if she told them the truth, even if she showed them proof of his infidelity, they might still side with him.
The business came first. It always had.
A marriage certificate. That was her shield. A legal, binding document that would make her completely and irrevocably unavailable.
Jennings couldn't drag her back into a wedding if she was already someone else's wife.
She was still frowning, lost in thought, when the man's voice sounded above her again.
"Still," he said, his tone shifting. "Maybe we can give it a try."
Before she could react, he took her hand in his, his grip warm and calloused and surprisingly gentle, and began leading her up the wide stone steps toward the entrance.
"We're both first-timers at this," he said, a ghost of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. "Let's figure it out as we go."
Addie stared at their intertwined fingers, then up at his profile. Something about the quiet confidence in his voice made her pulse skip.
