Gamble Everything For Love

Chapter One

Lucy woke up groggy, squinting as the sunlight came shining through the curtains and assaulted her eyes. After a few moments her eyes adjusted to the light and she wondered how late it must be for the sun to be so bright. She looked to the side table next to the bed but didn't see a clock. With a heavy sigh, she rolled on to her back. That's when she felt and saw it.

Draped across her bare midsection was a man's arm.

It took every ounce of willpower in her body not to scream as she racked her brain to figure out why there was a man in her bed. Her memory of the night before was fuzzy. She remembered with absolute clarity coming to Las Vegas for the medical conference. All of the lectures she went to were engrained in her memory. The last thing she remembered clearly was getting dressed to go to the mixer in hotel ballroom.

There was no denying it though. There was definitely a man sleeping on his stomach with his arm draped around her. His face was turned the other way so all she could see was a mop of messy brown hair. She knew he didn't have a shirt on, but couldn't see if he had any kind of pants. She knew from the way the sheets felt against her skin that the only thing she had on was a bra and underwear.

After her last breakup before she started her residency, life got hectic and dating was last on her list of priorities. It seemed like too much trouble for such a small reward. But she had slept with a handful of guys in the past several years, preferring to keep relationships physical but not emotional. And she didn't stay the night, so waking up next to a man was surprising to her.

She tried to remember who she had apparently slept with last night. It only took a few moments to recall.

John Carter.

He was an ER doctor from Chicago…one of the county funded hospitals if she remembered correctly. They met at the mixer in the lobby of the hotel last night.

She toyed with the idea of trying to get out of bed without waking him but before she could make up her mind, he started to stir. He moved his arm off of her body and she watched as he turned his head to face her. She thought she saw a look of surprise on his face for a moment before it was masked with a blank stare.

"Good morning." She said, unable to think of anything witty or clever to say.

"Um, well I guess that remains to be seen." He replied with a chuckle, sitting up in the bed. The bed sheets pooled around his midsection but he made no effort to cover his chest.

It was definitely a well-defined, muscular chest. He wasn't a body builder and he didn't have a six pack of abs, but he was toned in all of the right places. There was only a little patch of chest hair in the middle of his chest, leading downward.

Suddenly she was bombarded by a memory of last night.

They kissed. When they pulled apart, she pushed him so that he fell back on to the bed. She straddled his lap and grinned at him.

"What are you doing?" He asked with a chuckle.

"You'll see." She answered as she started unbuttoning his white dress shirt. Every time she unbuttoned one of the buttons she would pull apart the shirt and kiss the bare skin she had exposed.

"You're beautiful Mrs. Carter." He said, putting his finger under her chin and bringing her eyes up to meet his.

"You're not so bad yourself Mr. Carter." She giggled.

Her eyes got wide as saucers. That wasn't right. She had to have been imagining that part. That couldn't have been a memory. Unless…

She brought her left hand up and was horrified to find a shiny gold band on her ring finger. "What…what the hell did we do last night?" She flipped her hand so he could see the band on her finger.

His eyes got wide as he slowly brought his left hand up. He laughed loudly. "Huh. I guess we have a matching set."

"This isn't funny." She scolded him. "Did we really get married?

"Why else would we have wedding rings on?"

"Oh my God." She wrapped the sheets around her body tightly. Not only did she sleep with someone she barely knew, she also married him.

"What do you remember about last night?" He asked.

"Not much." She shook her head. "What about you?"

"Same." He sighed. "What time is it?"

"It's almost 7." She said after looking at the clock.

He got up off the bed, not worrying about taking the sheet with him. She got an eyeful as she realized he was naked under the sheet. She tried to avert her eyes as he walked around the hotel room to collect his clothes but couldn't seem to stop staring. He seemed oblivious to her ogling.

"We have another full day of boring lectures today that start in two hours." He reminded her.

"Yeah." She sighed.

"Do you want to shower first?" He asked.

"You go ahead." She replied, realizing for the first time that they were in his hotel room.

"Alright." He said, disappearing into the bathroom.

She couldn't believe he was being so calm about this. She was freaking out but he was fine about the fact that they were married. She got up from the bed once she heard the water turn on in the bathroom. Her clothes had been strewn across the room the same as his. It didn't take her long to find them all and put them on. The sooner she got her clothes on, the sooner she could go back to her own room and take a hot shower.

She found her purse on the table in front of the window and picked it up, only to find a photo and a piece of paper underneath. The picture was of them. His arm was wrapped around her waist and he was staring intently at her face with a smile on his face. She had her head thrown back in a fit of laughter and her arm was around his neck. She flipped the photo over and saw the logo for A Little White Wedding Chapel.

The paper underneath the photo was a marriage license. She looked closer and found that it was for them. They had gotten it last night and then gotten married at one of the wedding chapels on the strip. She was now Lucy Carter instead of Lucy Knight.

"Oh my God." She closed her eyes and shook her head. "This is a nightmare."

She had to get out of there before she lost it so she grabbed her purse, the photo and the license. Then she practically sprinted out the door.

Carter came out of the bathroom after his shower with his towel hanging around his hips. He was hoping that Lucy would still be there and was disappointed when she wasn't in the room. Although he told her that he didn't remember much, he actually remembered pretty much everything.

"C'mon Carter, let's go." Peter Benton rolled his eyes.

"Ok." He sighed. While he would have liked to skip the mixer, it didn't seem like Peter was going to let him. They had arrived late last night for the trauma medical conference. All day he had been going from lecture hall to lecture hall and hearing countless other doctors or surgeons drone on about topics relating to emergency trauma techniques.

Some of the lectures were actually fairly interesting, but the majority of them were boring. He had met several of the other participants and they were all boring too.

Peter wouldn't let him skip the mixer and told him this morning that going to everything on the agenda was his duty since County somehow managed to scrape together the money to send them both this year.

In all honesty though he would have been happier staying in his hotel room and ordering room service.

When they got to the entrance of the ballroom, where the mixer was being held, Peter looked at him. "Ok, go mingle."

"We're not mingling together?" He chuckled.

"No, Carter, we're not." Peter smirked. "Now go on. Talk to some people and make some new friends."

Carter shook his head and immediately headed to the bar. "Scotch please."

"Make it two if you don't mind." Came a voice from beside him.

He looked over and saw a beautiful blonde in a dark blue cocktail dress. "I don't think we have met. My name is John Carter."

"Lucy Knight." She held out her hand.

"Lucy, I don't know a lot of women who drink scotch." He smiled, shaking her hand.

"Then you aren't meeting the right kind of women." She smirked. "I'm here from St. Louis."

"I'm from Chicago, County General Hospital."

"Let me guess." She paused. "I'm good at guessing these things. You're here representing the emergency medicine side?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "Though I started in surgery first."

"Really? Why did you change?"

He shrugged. "I liked surgery. I was ok at it, but it wasn't something I was passionate about and it wasn't something I felt like I could be exceptional at long term. Being in the ER though…that I was passionate about and I seemed to have more of an aptitude for it. So I switched. How did you guess that I was emergency medicine?"

"Just a useless little talent I have." She laughed.

"Ok." He chuckled, looking around for Peter. "How about we test your little talent? I'll point to someone else and you tell me what you think they are."

"You're on." She grinned. "Who are you going to pick?"

He found Peter standing halfway across the room talking to a group of women. "Ok. See that guy in the black shirt talking to those women?"

"Yeah." She nodded.

"What do you think he is?"

"Surgeon." She replied immediately. "No doubt about it."

"You're right." Carter chuckled. "That's quite an interesting skill. So are you a surgeon or an emergency medicine doctor?"

"I'm a surgeon." She answered.

"You're a very cute surgeon." He told her, watching her blush.

She smiled at him and took her drink. "Well it was nice to meet you Dr. Carter."

"Wait!" He called out. "You aren't leaving me, are you?"

"I was planning on it." She smirked.

"I was hoping we could talk more. Please stay."

She looked like she was contemplating something. It took a few moments before she answered.

"I guess I can stay for a little while longer."

"Excellent." He smiled. He led her to a nearby table and they sat down. "So how are you enjoying the conference so far?"

She smirked. "Everyone has clearly put in a lot of effort into their presentations, but…"

"You find them boring too?" He guessed.

"Yeah." She laughed. "I try to pay attention and learn something that I can take back to work but it's really difficult. Where do they find some of these people?"

"I don't know." He laughed. "I'm just glad I'm not the only one who feels that way."

"Oh you definitely aren't!" She assured him.

"So aside from being a doctor, drinking scotch and looking great in dresses, what else should I know about Lucy Knight?"

"You're a bit of a flirt, aren't you?" She smirked.

"Only with beautiful women who drink scotch." He admitted.

"Well you should know that Lucy Knight didn't want to come to this mixer and is looking for any reason to leave." She explained.

"That's a pretty huge coincidence because John Carter didn't want to come here tonight either and was hoping for a good excuse to leave." He told her.

"Interesting." She smiled.

"You know, we're in Las Vegas, we're young, and there isn't any reason why we couldn't duck out of here now and go have some fun on the strip." He suggested.

He watched as she downed the rest of her scotch and then placed the glass back on the table.

"Why not?" She shrugged. "Let's go."

He quickly drank the rest of his drink and then stood up, offering his arm for her to take.

He knew it wasn't nice to lie to her about remembering last night, but he could tell she was freaked out. This was his way of keeping her from freaking out even more.

She looked like she was panicking earlier. In any other circumstance, he probably would be panicking too. If someone had told him he would marry someone he had known for less than twelve hours, he would have laughed in their face. He knew they were both drunk last night, but it had been the best night of his life. There was something about her that he was already crazy about. He didn't want to get an annulment and then never see her again.

Maybe it was crazy to think that she might be the right woman for him after one drunken night…but it was a possibility. And he wanted a chance to find out. He had tried dating in Chicago with no luck. But the time he spent with her, even before they got drunk, made him happy and he felt free when he was with her. Looking at the clock, he realized he needed to get ready for the day. Peter would kill him if he missed any of the lectures today.

Lucy picked up her phone, tapping on recent calls and calling the top number. She knew that even though it was 8am in Las Vegas, it would be 10am in St Louis and Melissa, her best friend, would be awake.

"Hey. How is Las Vegas?" She greeted.

"Mel, I've made a big mistake." Lucy told her.

Mel laughed. "What did you do? Get married or something?"

"Actually…"

"Shut up!" Mel screamed. "Lucy, you actually got married? I was just kidding!"

"I got drunk last night and married a doctor that I met at the mixer." Lucy explained.

"Is he cute?"

"Mel!"

"What?" She chuckled.

"His looks are irrelevant." Lucy said, even though she didn't believe it herself. He was very attractive.

"It's a valid question."

"I have a picture from the wedding chapel. I'll text it you to you." She knew that if she didn't text it to Mel, she would be asked a million times about it. She put the phone on speaker and launched the photo app. Then she took a picture of their wedding photo and sent it. "Ok. Did you get it?"

"Yeah." Mel said. "Hold on."

There was silence for a couple of moments.

"Lucy…way to go! He is a hottie!" Mel complimented. "Is he good in bed?"

"Mel!"

"I'll take that as a yes. You never want to tell me about the good ones."

Lucy couldn't help but laugh. "What am I going to do?"

"What do you want to do?"

"Scream into a pillow." Lucy replied immediately. "I can't believe I was that irresponsible. I let myself get drunk and ended up married."

"You aren't the first one to do it." Mel pointed out. "And you won't be the last one either."

"We probably should get an annulment. I mean, he lives in Chicago…"

"What's his name?"

"John Carter." Lucy told her.

"And he is a doctor in Chicago?" Mel asked.

"Yeah. Why?"

"I'm googling him." Mel answered.

Lucy laughed. There was no way to stop her friend from googling him. So she let her go. "Ok. What does it say about him?"

"Um…you're never going to believe this."

"What?" Lucy chuckled. "Is he already married, making our marriage null and void?"

"Nope. He was completely single." Mel replied. "But he is a part of the Carter family."

"So?" Lucy asked. "I'm part of the Knight family and you're part of the Peele family."

"No, you don't get it. He is a part of the Carter family…the Carter family that is one of the wealthiest families in all of Illinois. They donate millions to medical and fine arts causes all around Chicago every year."

"Stop!" Lucy chuckled. "You're making that up."

"I'm not!"

"So you're saying that I married…"

"A hottie doctor with a super rich family." Mel interrupted. "You hit the jackpot!"

"You know I don't care about money though." Lucy defended herself because Mel was making it sound like she was a gold-digger.

"I know that!" Mel told her. "But I'm just saying that even though you didn't try to, you landed the number one most eligible bachelor from Illinois according to Illinois Monthly. And he's won that title for the past four years. Though next year he might not be able to say that anymore if you stay married."

"Seriously?" Lucy couldn't believe that.

"I sent you the link in your email." Mel told her.

She quickly checked her email and pulled up the news article. It was titled "Healer of Hearts: John Carter is Chicago's Most Eligible Bachelor. She skimmed the first few paragraphs. "Wow."

"He's a good catch." Mel quipped.

"I didn't mean to catch him."

"I know. But maybe you should keep him instead of throwing him back."

"No, I think an annulment is the best way to handle this."

"Ok." Mel sighed. "It's your life. I think you're wrong through."

"I'll note your objection." Lucy snorted. "I should get ready for the day."

"Let me know how Dr. Carter takes the news of the impending annulment!" Mel said before hanging up.

Lucy threw her phone onto the bed and sighed. She had to wonder why he was still single. He was good looking, a doctor and his family was powerful. He probably attracted women to him everywhere he went. Why would he be unfazed by the fact that he was suddenly married?

She knew her own reasons for freaking out. She had grown used to not forming attachments to men and not depending on them for her happiness. It was a lot easier to just move on when things got weird or complicated. This whole thing was a mess. The only thing she knew for certain was that she needed to talk to him.