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  Both the local Seattle and national media watched everything Jus did. Before he'd "married" me, he'd been one of Seattle's hottest bachelors, the cute, nerdy one. The billionaire every girl wanted. If I divorced him for two seconds the fortune hunters would circle and the rumors would fly. No, divorce and remarriage were out as a viable option. If only there were a way to make the marriage happen. Wouldn't that be the perfect Christmas present?

  And speaking of Christmas, we were stuck in the middle of a holiday tug-of-war between the parents. Having both sets in the same area complicated things. We'd just had two Thanksgiving meals, if you could call them that. Now the parents were fighting over who got us for Christmas Day and who got Christmas Eve. Or would both days be split evenly between families?

  As was tradition for his parents, they were heading out to the Bahamas late Christmas Day to run yet another rugby tournament. They owned and ran a company that ran tournaments and camps during summer and holidays for high school and college rugby players worldwide. So they, naturally, wanted us on Christmas Eve. Even though they were staunch open-presents-Christmas-morning people. Their plan was for us to drop by my parents for dinner and then come spend the night with them.

  My parents opened presents Christmas Eve, got up to Christmas socks Christmas morning, then had the extended family over for brunch. So, conflict. Sigh. And, of course, everything was predicated on my dad not getting called to an emergency.

  The doorbell rang. Ah! There was my delivery guy. I smiled at the thought of Jus getting his present.

  2

  Kayla

  At noon, I met my friend Kelly in Bellevue for lunch. She was one of my few friends who wasn't in retail and slammed with peak. Kelly and I were sorority sisters in college. She'd been the president of the house my senior year. She worked in Bellevue not too far from our penthouse. If Jus and I had still been living there I could have walked to lunch.

  I arrived at the wine bar and café just a few minutes late. Kelly was her usual self. Still thin and beautifully poised and confident. She was seated at a table near the window, waiting for me. She waved and popped to her feet when she spotted me come in. We teepee hugged because of my baby bump.

  "You look fantastic!" Her gaze fell to my stomach.

  "Liar!" I laughed. "You're the one who looks great, as always. I feel like a beached whale."

  "Do you? You don't look it." She shook her head, with a twinkle in her eyes. "You look more like you swallowed a beach ball than whale-like at all.

  I laughed. As I sat, my stomach bumped the table. "I'm clumsy, too! My body keeps forgetting how much it sticks out in front now. It still thinks I'm skinny and misjudges distances. Like how far I should pull out my chair. The correct answer? Into the next room!" I shook my head at myself. "You should see the small spaces I've tried to squeeze through and failed."

  Kelly grinned as she pulled in her chair and sat. "You may feel big, but you look great. From the back, you can't even tell you're pregnant. It's only when you turn around, and then, wow! Stomach." She put her napkin on her lap. "So. How's life with Justin?"

  Kelly had known Jus when we were in college, too. He used to hang around the sorority house when I would let him. At the time, I'd been dating Eric, a hot, popular frat guy. Kelly had been as stunned as everyone else when Eric and I broke up and Jus and I married suddenly.

  "You mean without Jus?" The baby kicked, taking my breath away. I winced.

  Kelly's mouth fell open. She got that embarrassed look people get when they think they've just stepped in it.

  "Oh, not like that!" I hoped no one else had overheard and gotten the wrong idea, too. If they had, it would be all over the news by six.

  "We're fine," I said a little too loudly. Which came off sounding desperate. Completely opposite of what I wanted.

  "And, by the way, don't ever believe the tabloids. They're always claiming to have the scoop on our breakup." I laughed, trying to appear casual and carefree, and explained about peak.

  "I haven't seen Jus since Thursday afternoon. I'm eternally grateful to you for distracting me from Cyber Monday. With any luck, he'll be home in the wee hours of the morning tonight."

  I paused. "That doesn't make any sense, does it?" I laughed again. "He'll be home in the early hours of tomorrow morning? Late tonight? After midnight when Cyber Monday officially becomes Tuesday?" I sighed. "Something like that, anyway."

  We ordered and, over lunch, quickly fell into catching up and sharing gossip we'd heard about mutual friends and our fellow sorority sisters.

  When we'd nearly finished our meal, Kelly leaned forward, her eyes lit with mischief and gossip.

  I knew that look. She was about to spill something juicy.

  "Have you heard the latest about Victoria?"

  "No." I leaned forward, too, eager for something salacious. "What has Vicki been up to?"

  Vicki was always up to something. She was unconventional, for a Double Deltsie, and adventurous. That's what everyone liked and admired about her.

  "Can you keep a secret?" Kelly looked at me slyly over the remains of her meal.

  Could I keep a secret? She was talking to the queen of secrets.

  "You know I can. My lips are sealed. I swear on my Double Deltsie pin not to tell anyone."

  She grinned. "Just pulling your chain. I know you're as good as your word." She lowered her voice. "She had a secret marriage!"

  "A secret marriage? What?" My pulse roared in my ears. Or maybe that was just the coffee grinder someone behind the counter had geared up. Anyway, evidently, there were a rash of secret marriages this year. But I wasn't about to tell Kelly the truth of mine.

  "What do you mean?" I said. "Isn't she engaged to Joe? Did she dump him and marry someone else without anyone knowing?"

  Victoria had been living with Joe for over a year. Nice guy. Not terribly ambitious. I hadn't seen anything about a breakup or her marriage on any of my social media. But if the marriage were secret, I wouldn't hear about it, would I?

  Kelly nodded. "Yes, Joe. Who else?"

  "But why in secret?" I was confused. "What about her wedding plans for next summer? I already have the save-the-date card."

  "Exactly." Kelly did the bobblehead thing. "And that's the problem. Joe lost his job in May, and with it, his health insurance. No biggie, right? But you have to have insurance or get fined. And health insurance is expensive. Especially when you don't have a job.

  "So, you know, Victoria. She's pragmatic and likes to flaunt the rules."

  Which was ironic for someone who had been head of our sorority standards board for over a year. The standards board members were the cops of the house, policing policy violations, and acting as judge and jury when an offending member came before them.

  But, as Vicki told me when I expressed shock she was running for the job the first time, if she was head of the board, she could bend the rules to suit her interpretation and spare her friends. She could be the benevolent dictator of the house.

  When she was elected by a landslide, her board became a kind of supreme court that didn't care much for the letter of the law. She was known for turning a blind eye to anything that wasn't completely egregious and blatantly thrown in her face. Her motto had been "I don't care what you do as long as I don't know about it."

  "She and Joe already put nonrefundable deposits down on their venue and catering, so they couldn't move up the wedding date," Kelly said as she sat back in her chair. "Her mom would kill her.

  "So they decided to quietly go to the courthouse and get married in a civil ceremony so Joe could go on her health plan immediately. They thought it would be no problem to have the religious ceremony for her family and friends next summer. No one would be the wiser."

  I shrugged, disappointed in Victoria's so-called scandal. It wasn't nearly as brash and unconventional as mine.

  "What's scandalous about that?" I said. "It sounds like good common sense."

  "It was. But, like I said, she didn't tell her pa
rents because her mom would flip. But not a problem. Why would her mom have to know?

  "Until her mom started insisting she be the one to turn the license in to the state to register the marriage. Suddenly, Vicki needs a second license. Badly. And finds out she can't get a second license in Washington State. It's illegal when you're already married."

  Tell me about it! Nothing new there. I frowned. Vicki's problem seemed minor compared to mine.

  "Turning in the license to register the marriage with the state is the pastor's job." I'd been a maid of honor enough times to know that. "Why doesn't she just tell her mom that?"

  "Because of her older sister." Kelly looked smug. She'd come to the main point now. "Her sister had a big wedding ceremony three years ago. Threw the bouquet. Stuffed cake in her groom's mouth. Went on the honeymoon." Kelly paused. "Here's the kicker—she never signed the license. Or turned it in. Disappeared for a while after the ceremony with the groom so it would look like she was doing the signing. Faked everyone out. But it was all a hoax."

  Crap. I knew about hoaxes, all too well.

  "She 'got married' just to please her parents," Kelly said. "Now Vicki's mom doesn't trust Vicki. Like dishonesty is somehow genetic and she's predestined to pull the same trick. If Vicki's mom is going to pay for a big ceremony again this time, she wants to make sure it's actually a legal marriage, not a fake."

  "Wow," I said, warming to the magnitude of the scandal. "Audacious."

  Kelly nodded. "And unfortunate for Victoria. Vicki and Joe can't afford a big wedding on their own. A rational adult would simply tell a rational set of parents her very logical reason for doing what she did. Because she loves Joe, she wants him covered in case he gets sick. But that isn't going to fly with her family. Not after what her sister did."

  Okay. So Victoria's problems were beginning to look similar to mine. But at least she'd really married her guy.

  "Now she's scrambling to find some way to get a legal second license her mom can file. She's done a ton of research." Kelly paused, giving gravity to the situation. "It's an obscure issue. Only New York State will allow and issue a legal second license. If the authority performing the ceremony demands it.

  "Unfortunately for Victoria, you have to get married in New York to use it. Which is out. Her venue is here in Washington."

  My heart stopped. I almost choked on my coffee. Kelly kept talking but I didn't hear what she was saying. My mind was whirling.

  Kelly frowned. "Kayla? Are you okay?"

  I nodded and took a sip of water. "I choke easily these day. New York, did you say?"

  She nodded. "Yeah, if you know the right search terms to use, you can Google it. Try secret wedding. That's how she found it. There are forums that discuss secret weddings, believe it or not."

  Why hadn't I thought of that? Suddenly, I was grinning. Jus, I just found your Christmas present. And mine, too. A secret New York second—or first, as our case may be—wedding. What could be more perfect?

  3

  Kayla

  As we parted, I hugged Kelly goodbye with more enthusiasm than she expected. Little did she know she'd just solved a major problem for Jus and me. Merry Christmas, Kayla and Jus!

  I played Christmas music all the way home, listening to songs extolling the virtues of love, faith, and loyalty making great gifts. Didn't I know it! That was what I was aiming for.

  By the time I walked in the door of home, I was as ebullient as a round, jolly, old elf like Saint Nick. I hummed the latest in Christmas music and practically danced my way into the entry. The scent of fresh fir trees perfumed the air, along with a faint hint of cinnamon and ginger, giving a real feeling of Christmas to the place. Magda had probably been baking earlier.

  It was only a little after three, but Magda had gone for the day. She'd left me a note and dinner in the fridge, with instructions on how to heat it up. These solo dinners were getting monotonous. It was no use texting Jus to see if he'd be home for dinner. He wouldn't.

  I frowned. No text from him, either. I hoped he'd gotten my advent calendar delivery.

  Oh, well. Nothing dimmed my good cheer. In fact, for the moment, I relished my time alone. Now I had plenty of time to plan my surprise wedding. I pulled off my coat and boots, hung my coat in the closet, and padded off to my office to begin my research.

  Outside, the clouds had cleared and the sun was peeking out, low in the sky. The sun set before five now. It was threatening a beautiful sunset. My office faced west, like the kitchen and as much of the house as could possibly manage it. Most of the west side of the house was view windows. The views were all to the west across the lake. To the east was a hill. So not much of an exciting view there except for the driveway and the gardens. Nice, but not the same as lake, mountains, and cityscape.

  My iMac booted up and within minutes I'd found exactly what Kelly had promised—the forums. With links to the New York State official website with all the official rules and regulations for obtaining licenses and getting married. Why hadn't I thought of this earlier?

  I guessed I hadn't believed it was possible. And to be fair to Jus and me, like Kelly had said, it was obscure. Only one state in the country allowed for a second license when you were already married. The original mention of the second license was buried in a forum discussing problems with secret weddings and in-laws.

  There was only a scant paragraph about it on the official New York State website, as if it were an afterthought by some overworked official. A situation that pertained to only a few, niche marriage situations unlikely to be of interest to the general marrying public. But to those of us who needed it, it was gold.

  Jus and my relationship had evolved. Maybe it was like boiling a frog, that's why we hadn't tumbled to this solution. We'd just slowly gotten used to faking the marriage. We'd been too busy with a million other high-priority things to give it much thought.

  Our marriage started out as a business contract that was scheduled to end in divorce at the one-year mark. Jus had promised me a ten-million-dollar payout for my trouble. Before our expiration date, long before, we fell in love. And hit more than a few snags before we both admitted our love for each other and decided to stay together and turn this fake marriage into the genuine thing.

  And then peak hit with a vengeance. And Jus got distracted. And why sweat it, anyway? To our family and friends, and most importantly, in the eyes of the state, we were legally married.

  And now here I was, with the perfect present dumped into my lap as I listened to Christmas music and my heart filled with joy.

  If I hadn't had lunch with Kelly, my marriage to Jus might have stayed the way it was—instituted by an imposter, faked for the rest of our lives by us. At least I'd learned a lesson—challenge your assumptions from time to time. Think outside the box. And never be satisfied when the status quo could be better.

  When I was excited, I had the tendency to be impatient and energetic. I could barely stay in my chair. I kept wanting to bounce out. My eyes skimmed the page. Partly as a protection mechanism. I didn't want to find anything in the rules and regulations for New York that would upset the happy wedding plans dancing in my head like sugarplums.

  I had to force my eyes to stop racing down the screen. All that stupid training in elementary school to read faster was a nuisance at times. I took a deep breath, trying to calm my heart. Take it slow and easy, girl. One word at a time.

  Here were the pertinent rules:

  We did not have to be a resident of New York State to be married there! Thank goodness for that. I didn't have time to establish residency, and I could just imagine the questioning I would get from Jus if I suggested buying, or renting, another house, one in New York.

  We needed both a photo ID (driver's license or passport) and a proof of age (birth certificate). No problem there.

  Both of us had to appear at the office of the town or city clerk in person, together, and at the same time. That could be arranged.

  There was a twenty-four-hour wa
iting period after applying. Okay, a few days of vacation time in New York! Which meant we'd have to do this after the first of the year and peak was over. Jus had half of Christmas Eve off and Christmas Day. Theoretically, anyway. In reality? Eh. He'd be back in the office preparing for the day after as soon as dinner was over and his parents were on their plane for the Bahamas.

  I was six months pregnant, so I still had a couple of months before I got into the no-fly zone. It would have been romantic to get married on Valentine's Day. That way, we could buy each other presents and cards and celebrate our love with no one catching on we were really celebrating our genuine anniversary. But that was pushing things a little late. If we got married by the end of January, we would be fine.

  If we had to marry before the twenty-four-hour waiting period was over, we could request a judicial waiver from the county clerk in the county (borough) where we obtained our marriage license. That shouldn't be necessary.

  No blood test or physical exam required.

  No proxy marriages. But you could marry your cousin. What?

  The license was valid for sixty days and could be used anywhere within New York State. But not outside its bounds.

  I forced myself to keep reading, holding my breath when I came to the heading for witnesses. Many states, like Washington, required two…

  But New York required only one! Way to go New York. Whew!

  Only two other people in the world knew the truth about our marriage—my cousin Dex and our lawyer Harry Lawrence. Dex was finishing his master's degree in some tech geeky thing across the state. I could bribe him to be our witness with a private jet trip to New York for a weekend and the promise of an adventure. And cold, hard cash if necessary. And Harry could work any legal angles that needed ironing out. Perfect!

  And here was the key point—for a second or subsequent ceremony, the officiant (what a pompous, governmental word) of the subsequent ceremony may require a license be presented before performing the ceremony. In that case, a couple already legally married may apply for a second or subsequent license. As is the case with the first ceremony, the issuing town or city will once again issue a Certificate of Marriage Registration.