Once Upon a Marriage

Barbara’s hiring of Elliott had very little to do with Marie. She knew that. It had to do with Barbara. With her own paranoia. Her need to reassure herself.

She’d hired Elliott because she loved her daughter that much. Not because she trusted her that little.

Still, it rankled. And she told herself again that she was going to talk to Barbara about all this.

At some point.

When the rawness wore off the wound.

And this wasn’t about Elliott’s lie to her. Not really. She’d be having the same exact reaction if he’d been exactly who he’d said he was, and she’d married him and then seen him sitting at a fancy dinner with another woman.

As tears threatened, she closed her eyes against them. Squeezing tightly. Holding them in. And imagined that young woman staring up at Elliott. Marie’s husband. Her eyes flew open.

Towels were hanging on the rack. His and hers. Both hers. One had just been used by him.

Was Elliott sitting in the living room upstairs with Liam and Gabi? Or was he alone in his room?

What was he doing?

Had he had dinner?

Had Barbara paid him to marry her?

She sat up, sloshing water on the floor as she reached for her towel. Her robe was next, and then she was in the living room, grabbing her phone out of her purse.

He picked up on the first ring. “Hello?” He never said that. He always answered with his name.

This wasn’t Elliott’s issue. It was hers. Even her father wouldn’t have been so crass as to step out in the first two weeks of marriage. And for what? To attend a governor’s function?

Elliott wasn’t anything like her father. And did not deserve to pay for his sins.

“Marie? You still there?” His voice wasn’t as commanding as usual.

“Yes.”

“Me, too. I’m still here.”

Obviously.

So. She’d called him for a reason.

“Did my mother pay you to marry me?”

“Absolutely not.”

“But she knew, didn’t she? That you were...that we were...”

She remembered the conversation her mother had started in bed that night before her wedding. She’d talked about not being able to live her life as the warden. As she’d have had to do with Marie’s father.

Barbara had been having a hard time with what she’d done—hiring Elliott behind Marie’s back. She got that now.

“I think she suspected that you were falling for me.”

“She gave her blessing?”

“To the contrary. She didn’t want you to fall for me because of the duplicity between us.”

“But she gave you the go-ahead, didn’t she?” She was pushing. But she had to know.