“No.” She shook her head vehemently. Both her hands landed on the Formica tabletop, adding emphasis to her words. “It’s impossible. We were on a morning flight, arrived in Vegas around midday, took a Lyft to the hotel and checked in. We dropped our suitcases in the room, and then Kevin hustled me out the door. He’d booked a special spa day for me. Herbal wrap, massage”—she counted off on her fingers—“facial, and mani-pedi. I didn’t get dressed and back to our room until six fifteen, six twenty p.m. at the earliest.” She leaned back, dazed. “I’m not married,” she repeated. “I didn’t apply for a license at city hall, so there’s no way. Wait. Unless”—she stilled, looking at him, the worry back in her eyes—“only one of us had to go to city hall? Because Kevin would have had time to.”

“I don’t think so.” Mick’s mind flipped through what he thought was true. However, he didn’t want to give her false hope. “Let me check.” He plucked his phone off the table and tapped it on. He opened the Las Vegas City Hall website, tapped on Permits & Licenses, selected Marriage Licenses, and read. He could feel Sarah’s eyes boring into him as if all of her focused energy would bring forth the answer she wanted. He skimmed through the information again to make sure he’d gotten it right. Then looked at her straight on. “Nope. Both parties must appear in person with proof of identity. Government-issued photo ID.”

“Oh my Lord,” she whispered. “I’m free.” She looked almost like she would weep, so deep was her joy, her relief. Her husband must have been a piece of work to get this kind of response, Mick thought as he watched emotions dancing across her face like fast-moving clouds. “It’s hard to take in. My mind is spinning. He has no rights to me, then? I’m free? Like, I’m truly free?” The expression on her face was almost that of a child discovering that no monster actually lived under their bed. In that split second she looked so vulnerable and heartbreakingly innocent that it caused something inside him to ping. Something sort of like love, if he’d believed in that kind of thing. Which he didn’t, of course. Growing up in a brothel would do that to a man.

“Before you get too excited.” He hated how brutally brusque his voice came out. “We’ll need to go to Vegas to confirm. Go to city hall. They must have records of all the marriage licenses issued that day. We’ll go to the chapel the ceremony was held at, check their records—”

“We’ll . . . ?”

“Stop looking at me like that,” he growled.

“Like what?” she said softly.