Married by Mistake

The crowd went wild—and they did again when, at the end of the brief ceremony, Steve and Brodie-Ann shared a kiss that raised the temperature in the studio by several degrees. Then the new Mr. and Mrs. Pemberton joined Trisha and her husband on the studio couch.

“TELL ME THIS ISN’T CRAP,” Adam demanded of his good friend Dave Dubois, who was standing next to him at the back of the control room. As a freelance programming consultant, Dave occasionally worked with Channel Eight. He hadn’t been involved with this show. But he was keen to see it. In front of them, the show’s director focused intently on a wide, multi-window screen. The footage currently being broadcast played out in the large center window. Smaller windows around it displayed feeds from the other cameras. Adam could see Casey, the last bride, in one of those windows.

“It sure isn’t your normal kind of show.” Dave’s response lacked the contempt Adam would have welcomed.

“It’s no one’s normal kind of show. It’s my cousin Henry’s kind of show.”

The director said into his headset, “Ready, two, with a close-up on bride three. Standby mics and cue.” Camera two obediently zoomed in on Casey, ready for her to take center screen. Her jaw appeared to be clenched so tightly she risked breaking a tooth.

“Look.” Dave pointed to the image feed from camera three. The studio audience was apparently enthralled by the whole tacky proceedings. To Adam’s irritation, his friend evaded the opportunity to savage Henry, settling for an ambiguous, “You’re still the boss around here, right?”

“If you mean does my charming family still see me as the bad guy, you bet. If you mean does fear of me stop Henry creating idiotic new shows while I’m out of town…”

“Hmm,” Dave said. “Any progress on the legal front?”

Just what Adam wanted to think about right now. He sent his friend a withering look.

Dave said hastily, “Y’know, this show’s not bad. And the reality market is still booming, no matter what the doom-sayers predict.”

If he’d intended to distract Adam from thoughts of the lawsuit that Henry and his mother had instigated against Adam, he’d picked the wrong topic. Adam fixed him with a black look.

“Okay, so it’s not the last word in good taste,” Dave admitted. “But it’s got pretty women—that third bride is a real babe. It’s got romance and happy endings. Though I do think something’s missing.”

“A dancing girl bearing Henry’s head on a platter?”

Dave gave the suggestion due consideration. “You’re on the right track. The whole thing needs more tension. More drama.”

ANOTHER COMMERCIAL BREAK, then they were back on air. Casey licked her dry lips, feeling very alone at center stage. She looked around for Adam, but couldn’t find him.

“Folks, this is Casey Greene. She’s come all the way from Parkvale for today’s show,” Sally announced.

The crowd cheered, expecting great things from another Parkvale girl.

“Casey is twenty-five. She’s a journalist and a psychology student, and she wants to be a novelist,” Sally continued. “What do you want to write, Casey?”

“Books,” she answered numbly.

“And your fiancé is Joe Elliott,” Sally added brightly. “Tell us about you and Joe.”

“We met in high school, and we got engaged at graduation.” If she’d been any more wooden, they’d call her Pinocchio. Relax. Casey exhaled slowly through her nose.

“How’s that, folks? High school sweethearts!” Sally tried to rally some enthusiasm from the crowd, but their applause was muted. They must have sensed this wasn’t the love story of the decade. “Casey, tell us what you love about Joe.”

Casey’s mind went blank. “Uh, he’s, uh…”

Sally’s smile froze.

“He’s so honest,” Casey said at last. “So handsome.” Silence. For Pete’s sake, they wanted more? “I’ve known him forever. And…I can’t imagine being with anyone else.”

At least she couldn’t until about an hour ago, when a stranger had left the imprint of his lips on her hand. She glanced quickly down at her fingers—of course there was no sign of Adam’s kiss. “I really want to get married,” she said, and added, with an emphasis that was too loud and too late, “to Joe.”

At last the interview was over. The strains of “Here Comes the Bride” filled the studio. Across the stage, Joe appeared. He stopped dead, looked around, saw the other two couples on the couch, heard the audience chanting, “Joe, Joe, Joe,” and, finally, looked at Casey. A dragging inevitability slowed his progress across the stage.

“Joe,” Sally cooed. “Welcome to Kiss the Bride, the show where you marry the woman of your dreams.” She gestured to Casey. “Doesn’t she look gorgeous?”

Joe opened his mouth, but it took him a couple of tries to get any words out. “She does,” he managed to answer at last.

Relief washed over Casey, restoring her heart to its normal rhythm. It’s going to be all right.

“Joe, this is your big moment,” Sally said. “All you have to do is pop the question, and you can marry Casey right here.” Her brilliant smile encouraged him.

Joe hesitated. Casey gave him what she intended to be a loving smile, though she feared it might have emerged as pleading. Still he hesitated.

“Joe, aren’t you going to ask Casey to marry you?” Sally sounded like a mother addressing a recalcitrant child.

Joe spoke, loud and clear this time.

“No, I’m not.”

CHAPTER TWO

“YES!” DAVE DUBOIS PUNCHED the air with his fist. “You did it, buddy. This is much better than Henry’s head on a plate.”

Adam cursed as the center screen flipped from one camera feed to the next as the director searched for something other than frozen expressions and hanging jaws. So much for convincing New Visage Cosmetics that Channel Eight could mount a professional, sophisticated production.

With Dave on his heels, he rushed out of the control room and into the studio, where stunned silence had given way to a hubbub of excited chatter.

On the set, Sally Summers’s famous smile had evaporated. Joe stepped toward Casey, and the microphone clipped to his shirt picked up what he said, despite his low voice.

“I’m sorry, Casey, but I don’t want to marry you—I don’t love you that way anymore. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings….” He stopped, perhaps aware his words were being broadcast around Tennessee.

Make that the entire U.S.A.

As Adam headed to the front of the studio he noticed Channel Eight’s PR manager had pulled out her cell phone and was talking in urgent tones. She’d be instructing her assistants to get this story on the late news. By tomorrow, she’d have sold the program nationwide. Casey’s disaster was great TV.

Joe said again, “I’m sorry.” Then he turned and—as if he hadn’t done enough damage—all but ran offstage. Sally patted Casey’s hand in what might have been intended as a gesture of comfort, but looked perfunctory.

Adam headed for his cousin Henry, next to camera three. To reach him, he had to pass the New Visage executives, huddled in anxious consultation in their front-row seats.

“Adam.” Henry’s round face was flushed with panic. He grabbed Adam’s arm. “I had no idea this would happen, I swear.”

Damn, that meant there was no contingency plan.

Henry jerked his head toward the stage. “Do you think she’s going to faint?”

Adam looked up at Casey, swaying on her stool, blinking rapidly.

Behind him, the chatter of the studio audience swelled to an unruly level. He shut out the sound, focused on what needed to be done. One, restore order to the studio. Two, salvage the show so New Visage doesn’t pull the plug. Three, get Casey out of here before she decides to sue Carmichael Broadcasting for public humiliation.

“Tell the crew to follow my lead on this,” he told Henry. His cousin began issuing hurried instructions to the floor director, who was in radio contact with the director in the control room. To Dave, Adam said, “How good an actor are you?”

“I played a tree in The Wizard of Oz in fifth grade.”

“I hope you were a damn good one,” Adam said. “Wait here until I tell you to come up on stage. Then do as I say.”

The security people let Adam through and he stepped up onto the stage. Sally became aware of his presence. She turned and took a few hesitant steps in his direction.

“Mr. Carmichael,” she said, then remembered to flash her dazzling smile. “Welcome to Kiss the Bride, the show where—”

He stalked up to her and motioned to her to mute her mic. When he was sure no one would hear him, he said, “We need to fix this—now.”

“How do you propose we do that?” she hissed.

“That bride—” he nodded toward Casey “—is going to have a wedding.” He added grimly, “Even if I have to marry her myself.”

“You can’t do—”

“You’re going to help.”

Sally flicked a yearning glance over his shoulder at her teleprompter. When no script appeared, she started to shake her head.

“Right now, Sally.” Adam dropped his voice to a menacing murmur. “Your contract negotiations are due at the end of the quarter.”

Sally Summers was nothing if not pragmatic. Adam could almost see the dollar signs in her eyes as she turned to the audience wearing a wide smile that only the two of them knew was false. She switched her mic back on and stepped forward.

“Well, folks, the course of true love never runs smooth, and who knows that better than Casey? But tonight, one man’s loss might be another man’s gain. It turns out Casey has another admirer here in the studio, a man waiting in the wings—literally —for his chance at love.”

Adam winced at the stream of clichés. But Sally was headed in the right direction, however painful the route she took to get there.

“Folks—” she was warming to her task and by now had some real enthusiasm in her voice “—meet Adam Carmichael, Memphis’s most eligible bachelor. And, if she’ll have him, Casey Greene’s bridegroom!”

The audience broke into a cheer, which Adam suspected was more out of confusion than celebration. He strode over to where Casey clung dazedly to her stool, and took both her hands in his. She clutched them as if he’d thrown her a lifeline.

“Casey—” he spoke loudly so his words would carry to the audience without a mic “—will you marry me?”

He heard a shriek from someone in the crowd. Casey stared at him. He leaned forward, and his lips skimmed the soft skin of her cheek as he whispered in her ear, “We’re going to fake a wedding.”

He stepped back and said again, for the benefit of the crowd, “Casey, will you marry me? Please?”

He wondered if she’d understood, she sat there, unresponsive, for so long. Then she expelled a slow breath and smiled radiantly, her gray-green eyes full of trust. “Yes, Adam, I will.”

For a second, he felt a tightness in his chest, as if he’d just seriously proposed marriage to the woman he loved. Whatever that might feel like. A din exploded around them, the audience cheering, Sally yelling to make herself heard. Someone called for a commercial break.

Five minutes later, the clerk had issued a marriage license. Under Tennessee law there was no waiting period, no blood test. Adam announced he would use his own marriage celebrant, and beckoned to Dave. His friend looked around, then twigged that Adam meant him. He bounded forward, and by the time he reached the set his face was a study in solemnity. If you discounted the gleam in his eyes.

Dave patted his pockets, then turned to the ousted minister. “I seem to have forgotten my vows. Could I borrow yours?”

Just as they went back on air he clipped on a microphone. He began laboring through the “wedding.”

“Adam James Carmichael, do you take—” He slanted Casey a questioning look.

“Casey Eleanor Greene,” she supplied.

“Casey Eleanor Greene to be your wife? To have and to hold, for—”

“I do,” Adam said.

“Right.” Dave moved down the page. “Casey Eleanor Greene, do you—”

“I do,” Casey said.

“—take Adam James Carmichael to be your husband?”

“She said she does,” Adam snapped.

At the same moment, Casey repeated desperately, “I do!”

Dave got the message and started to wrap things up. “Then, uh—” he lost his place and improvised “—it’s a deal. You’re married, husband and wife. You may—”

“Kiss the bride!” the audience yelled on cue.

Why not? They’d gone through all the other motions of a wedding. Adam turned to Casey and found she’d lifted her face expectantly.

One kiss and this nightmare would be over, Casey told herself. She could escape the scene of her utter humiliation, and barricade herself in the house in Parkvale for the next hundred years.

Going after your dreams was vastly overrated.

She leaned toward Adam, went up on tiptoe to make it easier for him to seal this sham. Just kiss the guy and we can all go home.

She wasn’t prepared for the same current of electricity that had left her fingers tingling earlier to multiply tenfold as their mouths met.

Shaken, she grasped his upper arms to steady herself, and encountered the steel of masculine strength through the fine wool of his jacket. His hands went to her waist and he pulled her closer. The shock of awareness that somewhere deep within her a flame of desire had been kindled snapped Casey’s eyes open. She met Adam’s gaze full on, saw mirrored in it her own realization that this was about to get embarrassing. Even more embarrassing.

Slowly, he pulled back.

The audience hooted in appreciation. Casey blushed.

“Folks, none of us expected this when we came on stage an hour ago, but there you have it. Casey Greene married Adam Carmichael, right here on Kiss the Bride.” Sally ad-libbed with ease, now that time was almost up. “These three lovely couples will head off on their honeymoons, courtesy of Channel Eight. Don’t miss next week’s show—anything can happen on Kiss the Bride!”

Casey and Adam didn’t wait around for the inevitable interrogation. By unspoken agreement, they headed offstage and back to the boardroom where they’d met—could it really have been just two hours ago?

Casey sank onto the leather couch, trying to control the shaking that had set in now she was out of the public eye.

Her savior scrutinized her as if she might be dangerous. “Are you okay?”

She heard a wild quality in her laugh—no wonder he looked nervous. She took a deep, calming breath. “I’ve had better days.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have told you to go ahead with the wedding.”

“I probably would have done it anyway.” She ran a hand down her face, suddenly exhausted. “I’m the fool for agreeing to go on the program in the first place.”

“I should have cancelled that stupid show the minute I heard of it.”

A gruff voice said, “When you two have stopped arguing over who’s to blame for this mess, you might want to think about how you’re going to get out of it.”

A middle-aged man, tall and trim, dressed conservatively in a dark suit and tie, had entered the room. Adam introduced him as Sam Magill, Channel Eight’s in-house legal counsel and Adam’s own attorney. The lawyer’s sharp eyes narrowed to a point where Casey thought they might disappear.

“What you do in your private life is your business, Adam,” he said. “But I’m amazed you’d get married without a prenup.” “Hey!” So what if it hadn’t been a real wedding? Casey resented the implication she was after Adam’s fortune, which presumably, since Sally Summers had described him as Memphis’s most eligible bachelor, was considerable. “I’m not that kind of girl.”

“Missy, everyone’s that kind of girl when there’s enough money involved,” the lawyer said. “I don’t like what happened to you back there, but if you plan on taking advantage of this situation to feather your own nest, I’m warning you—”

“That’s enough, Sam,” Adam said sharply. “That wasn’t a real wedding, and as soon as Casey has a chance to work out where she’s going next, I’ll make an announcement to that effect.”

The lawyer’s jaw dropped. Then he broke into the wheezy laugh of a chronic smoker, a laugh that sent a tremor of unease through Casey.

“What’s so funny?” Adam demanded.

It took a moment for Sam to regain his sober countenance. “Am I wrong, or was that David Dubois who performed that little ceremony out there?”

Adam nodded.

“The same David Dubois who served as a commissioner in Fayette County a couple of years back?”

Adam nodded again. “I believe he did.”

“Then, my friend, I have news for you. The state of Tennessee allows marriages to be performed by any current or former county executive, as well as ministers, judges and the like.” The lawyer cast his eyes to the ceiling as he spoke, as if reciting directly from Tennessee Code. “And unlike most other states, the executive doesn’t have to have served in the county where the marriage is performed.”

He brought his gaze back to Adam, a smile hovering on his lips. “For the rest of his life, your pal Dubois can legally marry anyone anywhere in Tennessee, as long as they have a marriage license.” He paused, then delivered the coup de grâce. “You did get a license, didn’t you?”

The wheezy laugh started again, and Casey knew the sound would haunt her for the rest of her days.

LEGALLY MARRIED. To a woman I don’t know.

The irony wasn’t lost on Adam as he held Casey’s hand, waiting for the press conference to start. His reluctance to rush into marriage had opened the door to his relatives’ lawsuit against him. If it was possible to laugh from beyond the grave, right now Adam’s father would be in stitches.

Sorry, Dad, but this one won’t last. The sooner Adam extricated them from this mess, and got his focus back on his real problems, the better. Sam Magill had already left to start working on an annulment.

“Keep Casey with you until you hear back from me,” he had said on his way out the door. He was probably worried she would sneak off and open a joint checking account.

Adam had agreed, mainly because he’d been forced to scrap his plan of smuggling her out of the building, which was surrounded on all sides by media. Fortunately, Dave had slipped out before the press arrived.

Casey hadn’t argued with the lawyer. She looked as if she was in shock, Adam thought. Her face, flushed with embarrassment in the studio, had paled to the same shade as her dress.

As many journalists as could fit were crammed into the Channel Eight lobby. Adam cursed the fact it was silly season—midsummer, when there wasn’t enough news to fill the papers—which meant their wedding had attracted far more attention than it should have. He’d agreed to the press conference on the condition the journalists would allow them to leave privately afterward.

“I’ll do the talking,” he told Casey. His plan was to say as little as possible, to be noncommittal about their future until they knew where they stood legally. They would lie low for the weekend, and with any luck the fuss would have died down by Monday. Hopefully, by the end of next week the announcement of their annulment would be absorbed by viewers over morning coffee, and his and Casey’s brief alliance would soon be forgotten.

“Kiss the Bride is the hottest show in the land,” the PR woman crowed to the media. “We’re expecting huge demand from networks around the country….”

When she’d finished her spiel, she read out a hastily prepared statement from New Visage, which claimed to be delighted with the show and confident its relationship with Channel Eight would be both long and mutually beneficial.

That succeeded where nothing else could in putting a smile on Adam’s face as he and Casey faced the barrage of camera flashes and the questions hurled at them.

“Mr. Carmichael, is this a ratings stunt?”

“Casey, why did you say yes?”

“Adam, how long do you give this marriage?”

“Are you in love?”

“Casey, what will your family think?”

At this last question, he felt the tremor of her fingers in his grasp. She looked imploringly at him. He held up a hand for silence.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “as you’ve probably realized, tonight didn’t go according to plan for either of us.” Chuckles from the crowd told him they were on his side. All he had to do was give them enough to satisfy their immediate need for a story, without exposing Casey to further humiliation and without actually lying. “We’re asking you to respect our privacy beyond what we tell you now. I can reveal that Casey and I knew each other before this evening’s show—” only an hour before, admittedly “—and that for as long as I’ve known her I’ve considered her a very special lady.”

Any grown woman who could cling to her dream of being adored had to be special.

He looked down at Casey, noting that a few tendrils of honey-colored hair had escaped her veil. Gratitude warmed her eyes, and her lips curved in a tremulous smile. He turned back to the waiting media. “Can you blame me for seizing the chance to marry her?”

Applause broke out among the journalists. Pleased at the success of his speech, Adam grinned at Casey. She smiled back, obviously relieved.

“Hey, Mr. C.” It was one of the older hacks. “How about you kiss the bride?”

Photographers readied their cameras in a flurry of motion.

Adam raised his eyebrows in silent question to Casey. She gave a barely perceptible shrug, then a nod.

Once again, their lips met.

Like last time, he intended a brief kiss, one that would allow the cameras to get their shot.

Like last time, he found himself drawn to her.

Despite the crowd around them, he couldn’t resist the temptation to test the softness of her lower lip with his tongue. Her indrawn breath told him she was just as intrigued by the exploration.

The catcalls of the journalists pulled them both back to reality.

“Okay, folks, that’s all.” Mainly with the power of his glare, but using his elbows where necessary, Adam parted the throng and ushered Casey out the front of the building and into a waiting limo. She scrambled across to the far side, gathering her skirts about her to make room for him.

“Where to now?” Casey asked. The last half hour had passed in a blur, and she couldn’t imagine what might come next. All she knew was it couldn’t be worse than what had happened in the studio.

Adam’s half smile held equal measures of cynicism and resignation. “Our honeymoon.”

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS TEN O’CLOCK at night—her wedding night— by the time they got to the Romeo and Juliet Suite at Memphis’s famous Peabody Hotel.

Casey—or Mrs. Carmichael, as the hotel receptionist had called her—roamed around the room, while Adam tipped the porter. The original honeymoon Channel Eight offered hadn’t included the suite, which Casey suspected went for several hundred dollars a night. But a standard hotel room wasn’t going to work for a newly married couple who had no intention of sharing a bedroom, let alone a bed.

Judging by the crowd of reporters who’d followed them from the TV station, and were now being held at bay by the Peabody’s doorman—so much for their promise to respect the newlyweds’ privacy—Casey and Adam wouldn’t be leaving the hotel in a hurry, so the bigger the suite the better. Casey climbed the curving staircase to the bedroom. The king-size bed was a sea of snowy-white covers and elaborately arranged pillows. Surely a real honeymoon couple would want something cozier?

There was a bathroom off the bedroom, in addition to the one she’d seen adjoining the living room. More white—marble and porcelain—offset by highly polished stainless steel fittings.

“Casey?” Adam called from downstairs.

Dreading having to sit down and hash out the legal implications of what they’d done, she joined him in the living room. How was she going to explain this to her family? How would she respond when they demanded her immediate return to Parkvale?