Updated Mar 13, 2026 • ~11 min read
Holden’s lawyer looks like he’s trying very hard not to laugh.
We’re sitting in his office—some sleek high-rise in downtown—and Sawyer Chen is reading our marriage certificate for the third time with his lips pressed together like he’s physically restraining himself from cackling.
“So,” he says finally, setting down the paper. “Elvis.”
“Yes,” Holden says tightly.
“Elvis Presley. Certified impersonator.”
“We’ve established that.”
“And you—” Sawyer looks at me. “You’re an event planner.”
“I don’t see how that’s relevant.”
“It’s just ironic. You plan weddings for a living, and your own wedding was—”
“Officiated by a man in a rhinestone jumpsuit?” I finish. “Trust me, I’m aware of the irony.”
It’s Monday morning. I’ve had exactly one day to process the fact that I married Holden Reid in Vegas. One day to panic, scream into a pillow, consider faking my own death and moving to Canada.
One day of Holden texting me every few hours: “Lawyer appointment at 9.”
“Don’t be late.”
“Seriously, Tessa, if you’re late I’m leaving without you.”
So here I am. Sitting in a lawyer’s office at 9 AM, wearing my most professional dress, pretending my entire life isn’t falling apart.
Holden sits beside me in a suit that probably costs more than my rent. He hasn’t looked at me once since I walked in. Just stared straight ahead with his jaw clenched like he’s at a funeral.
In a way, I guess he is. The funeral of his dignity.
Same, honestly.
Sawyer leans back in his chair. “Okay. So annulment. You want an annulment.”
“Obviously,” Holden and I say at the same time.
We glance at each other. Look away.
“That’s going to be a problem,” Sawyer says.
My stomach drops. “What kind of problem?”
“Well.” He pulls out another document. This one looks even more official than the marriage certificate. “It seems that when you got married, you also filed a joint tax return.”
The room goes very quiet.
“I’m sorry,” I say slowly. “A what?”
“A joint tax return. Filed with the state of Nevada and the IRS. Both your names. Both your social security numbers. Officially declaring you as a married couple for tax purposes.”
Holden’s face has gone pale. “How is that possible? We were drunk.”
“Apparently Elvis is also a certified tax consultant.”
“WHAT?”
“It’s Vegas.” Sawyer shrugs. “People have side hustles.”
I can’t breathe. This can’t be happening. This cannot actually be happening.
“Okay,” Holden says, his voice very controlled. “So we made a mistake. We file an amendment. Correct the paperwork. Problem solved.”
Sawyer makes a face. “Not… exactly.”
“What does ‘not exactly’ mean?”
“It means that if you file for annulment immediately after filing a joint tax return, it raises red flags with the IRS.”
“Red flags,” I repeat.
“Big ones. The kind that trigger investigations into potential fraud.”
The word fraud hangs in the air like a bomb.
“Fraud,” Holden says flatly. “You think we committed tax fraud.”
“I don’t think anything. But the IRS might. Especially since—” Sawyer checks his notes. “—you both claimed significant deductions on this return. Deductions you wouldn’t qualify for if you were filing separately.”
“What deductions?” I demand. “I didn’t claim any deductions! I was unconscious!”
“According to this, you claimed a home office deduction, charitable contributions, and… hmm.” Sawyer squints at the document. “A llama?”
Holden closes his eyes. “Please tell me we didn’t buy a llama.”
“No, you claimed a llama as a business expense. For… emotional support?”
I’m going to pass out. I’m actually going to pass out right here in this lawyer’s office.
“This is insane,” I manage. “We can just explain. We were drunk. We made a mistake. The IRS will understand.”
Sawyer gives me a look that suggests I’m incredibly naive. “The IRS doesn’t really ‘understand’ mistakes that involve filing false tax documents. They tend to prefer prosecution.”
“Prosecution?!”
“Worst case scenario,” he adds quickly. “But possible. Especially if you immediately annul the marriage. That makes it look like you got married specifically to claim joint tax benefits, then split as soon as you got them.”
Holden runs a hand through his hair. He does that when he’s stressed. I know because I’ve spent eleven years watching him run his hands through his hair whenever Noah beats him at basketball, or when his team loses a big client, or—apparently—when he finds out he might go to jail for accidental tax fraud.
“So what do we do?” he asks.
Sawyer taps his pen against the desk. “Honestly? You stay married.”
“WHAT?” we both yell.
“Hear me out.” He holds up a hand. “You stay married for at least six months. File as a married couple this year. Establish a legitimate paper trail. Then next year, you file for divorce quietly. The IRS sees you made a genuine attempt at marriage, there’s no fraud investigation, everyone moves on with their lives.”
I stare at him. “You want us to stay married. For six months.”
“Minimum.”
“That’s insane.”
“That’s the safest option.”
“There has to be another way,” Holden says.
“Sure. You can file for annulment today, trigger an IRS investigation, potentially face charges for filing a false joint return, and spend the next year dealing with audits and legal fees.” Sawyer smiles pleasantly. “But I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Holden and I look at each other.
Really look at each other.
And I can see the same panic I feel reflected in his dark eyes.
Six months. He wants us to stay married for six months.
That’s half a year. Twenty-six weeks. One hundred and eighty-two days of being legally bound to Holden Reid.
I’d rather eat glass.
“This is your professional legal opinion?” Holden asks quietly.
“It is.”
“There’s no other option.”
“Not one that doesn’t involve potential federal charges, no.”
Holden’s jaw works. He’s furious. I can tell because his left eye does this little twitch thing when he’s really, truly angry. It’s twitching now.
“Fine,” he bites out. “Six months.”
“FINE?” I whirl on him. “You’re just agreeing to this? Just like that?”
“Do you have a better idea, Tessa?”
“I have LOTS of better ideas! We could—” I falter. Try to think of literally any alternative. Come up blank. “We could—”
“Commit tax fraud?”
“I wasn’t going to say that.”
“But you were thinking it.”
“I was NOT—” I cut myself off. Take a breath. Look at Sawyer. “Is he right? Is this really the only option?”
Sawyer nods. “Unless you want to risk the investigation.”
I slump back in my chair. Stare at the ceiling. Try to figure out how my life became a bad rom-com in the span of forty-eight hours.
This can’t be real. This is a nightmare. I’m going to wake up any second and discover I’m still in Vegas, still drunk, and none of this ever happened.
Any second now.
Any. Second.
“Tessa,” Holden says.
I don’t look at him.
“Tessa, we have to decide.”
“I know.”
“Now.”
“I KNOW.”
He’s right. As much as I hate it, he’s right. We can’t risk an investigation. We can’t risk fraud charges. We definitely can’t let Noah find out about any of this.
Which means we have exactly one option.
Stay married to Holden Reid for the next six months.
God help me.
“Okay,” I say quietly. “Okay. Six months.”
Sawyer claps his hands together like he’s just closed a business deal. “Excellent! Now, you two are going to need to make this look legitimate.”
“Define legitimate,” Holden says slowly.
“Well, you can’t just file the paperwork and ignore each other. If the IRS does audit you—which is unlikely, but possible—they’ll look for evidence that you were actually living as a married couple. Joint bank accounts. Shared residence. That kind of thing.”
The room starts spinning.
“Wait,” I say. “Shared residence? As in—”
“You’ll need to live together, yes.”
“ABSOLUTELY NOT.”
“It’s just for six months—”
“I don’t care if it’s for six minutes! I am not living with him!”
“Wow, tell me how you really feel,” Holden mutters.
“Oh, I’M SORRY, am I hurting your feelings? You’re the one who made that stupid bet—”
“You ACCEPTED the bet—”
“Because you said I’d cry at a poker table!”
“You DID cry at Uno!”
“THAT WAS DIFFERENT—”
“Okay!” Sawyer cuts in loudly. “I can see you two have… a dynamic. But legally speaking, you need to establish residency together. At least on paper.”
“On paper,” I repeat. “So we could technically not actually live together?”
“Technically,” Sawyer says carefully, “if you’re audited and they find out you maintained separate residences, that will look very suspicious.”
I slump back again. This is a nightmare.
“Fine,” Holden says. “She can move into my place.”
“Excuse me?”
“My apartment. It’s bigger. And I actually own it, so there won’t be any lease issues.”
“I’m not moving into your apartment!”
“You got a better idea?”
“We could move into MY apartment!”
“Your apartment is a shoebox.”
“It is not a shoebox!”
“Tessa, I’ve been there. I’ve seen Noah’s spare room. It’s bigger than your whole living room.”
I hate that he’s right about that too.
My apartment is… cozy. It’s a studio in a decent neighborhood, but it’s definitely not big enough for two people. Especially when one of those people is Holden Reid and his massive ego.
“I’ll need time,” I say finally. “To pack. To tell my landlord.”
“How much time?”
“A week?”
“You have two days.”
“That’s not enough—”
“The longer we wait, the more suspicious it looks. You move in by Wednesday or I’m calling this whole thing off and we take our chances with the IRS.”
He’s bluffing. He has to be bluffing.
But when I look at his face, he’s dead serious.
Damn it.
“Fine,” I grit out. “Wednesday.”
“Fine.”
Sawyer looks between us with barely concealed amusement. “You two are going to be an interesting case study.”
“Glad we could entertain you,” I mutter.
He slides a stack of papers across the desk. “These are for a joint bank account. You don’t have to use it for everything, but you should at least run a few transactions through it. Groceries, utilities, that sort of thing. Make it look real.”
I stare at the papers like they’re covered in poison.
A joint bank account. With Holden Reid.
This is actually happening. This is my actual life now.
Holden takes the papers and stands. “Anything else?”
“Just one thing.” Sawyer’s smile fades. “You two need to keep up appearances in public too. If you’re married, act married. People talk. If the IRS comes asking questions and your friends all say you hated each other, that’s not going to look good.”
“So we have to what?” I ask. “Hold hands? Go on dates?”
“Ideally, yes.”
I want to scream.
Instead, I stand. Smooth down my dress. Try to maintain some shred of dignity. “Is that everything?”
“For now.” Sawyer extends his hand. “Congratulations on your marriage.”
Neither of us takes it.
We walk out of the office in silence. Take the elevator down thirty floors without speaking. Step out into the bright Monday morning sunshine.
And then Holden turns to me.
“We need rules,” he says.
“What?”
“If we’re doing this, we need rules. Boundaries. So we don’t kill each other.”
He’s not wrong. Six months of living with Holden Reid with no structure? I’d be arrested for homicide within a week.
“Fine,” I say. “Rules.”
“My place, Wednesday.”
“Your place, Wednesday.”
We stare at each other. Two people who have spent over a decade avoiding each other, about to spend the next six months living as husband and wife.
This is going to be a disaster.
Holden must be thinking the same thing because he says, very quietly, “This stays between us.”
“Obviously.”
“I mean it, Tessa. No one can know. Not Wren. Not my coworkers. And DEFINITELY not Noah.”
“I wasn’t planning on sending out announcements.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
He turns to walk away, then pauses. “For what it’s worth… I’m sorry.”
I blink. “Sorry?”
“That you’re stuck with me. I know I’m probably your worst nightmare.”
Something about the way he says it makes my chest tight. Because he’s right—he IS my worst nightmare. But also…
“You’re not the only one stuck,” I say quietly. “I’m sorry too.”
He nods once. Then he’s gone, disappearing into the crowd of Monday morning commuters.
And I’m left standing on the sidewalk, wearing a wedding ring I can’t take off, married to a man I can’t stand.
For the next six months.
I pull out my phone and call Wren.
She answers on the first ring. “Tell me you got the annulment.”
“About that…” I close my eyes. “I need you to help me pack.”
“Pack? Pack for what?”
“I’m moving in with Holden.”
Silence.
Then: “Tessa Marie Morgan, what the HELL did you just say?”
END OF CHAPTER 2
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