Marriage For One

“That’s the only thing I agree with you on. I had no right, but I did it anyway. He is nothing but a con man, Rose. I was trying to help you.”

“Who asked for your help? I didn’t even know you. Before the day you brought me into your office, I didn’t even know you. He broke up with me days—weeks before that.”

“I told you I met you before.”

“And I told you I don’t remember!” she yelled back. I supposed we had both lost our patience. I didn’t care if the entire firm came to listen; all I cared about was that Rose was still there. As pissed off as she was, she was still listening. Maybe she wasn’t hearing everything I was saying, but she was listening, and for that moment, it was enough.

“Doesn’t change the fact that I remember. I met you at that party, briefly. I understand why you wouldn’t remember—you saw no one but him.”

The son of a bitch who had been planning to break her heart, information I had only learned later.

And I was just another bastard with a different name who had done the same, who had accepted the fact that this day would eventually come from before we even said I do.

She bit her lip as if trying to keep her pain inside, her eyes shimmering with more tears. “Tell me what you did, Jack. Tell me exactly what you did.”

“I couldn’t get you out of my mind after I met you. I was interested, but when I learned he was your boyfriend, I backed off, thought maybe in the future if things didn’t work I could reintrodu—it doesn’t matter what I thought. Sometime later Gary mentioned you had gotten engaged and that he had signed a contract with you. It was added into the will like every other contract, but he’d added a stipulation. When I read it, I found it to be odd that he wasn’t just giving the place to you, so I had Joshua investigated. I was only curious.”

“Why?” she cried out, lifting her arms high at her sides and then dropping them. “Why would you do something like that?”

“Because I wanted to learn more about him. I wanted to know how serious you two were. Take your pick.” I waited for her to ask me what I had learned, but she didn’t even blink. “I used the investigator we have here. He found out that he never went to Harvard. He had stolen from three other women. It had started with small amounts, but he’d escalated over time. No one pressed charges because they were ashamed, and one of them was afraid of her husband finding out about the affair. Those three women he found out about in just a week. I didn’t have the investigator look further into him because your uncle had passed away. We knew what he was and there was no time to do much of anything. I knew why he was with you.”

“Why wouldn’t you just tell me? Why?”

“Would you believe me? I was a stranger. And there was no time to do much of anything. Before he could learn about the will, I paid him to go away.”

Rose took a shaky breath and backed away until her legs hit the couch and she sat down. Her head bent, eyes closed, she was pressing her fingers to her temple.

I approached her. “Are you okay? Are you feeling dizzy?”

“Stop it,” she ordered in a broken voice, looking up at me with red and swollen but dry eyes. “Stop acting like you care.”

“I don’t care?” I asked, my voice mocking. “You think I don’t care and that’s why I paid him to leave you alone? That’s why I married you? Because I don’t care?”

“Do you think caring for someone is forcing them to marry you?”

My body locked. “I didn’t force you to do anything, Rose.”

“But you didn’t leave me any choice, did you, Jack? Everything was just so perfectly set up for you to play your game. You’re no better than him.”

I crouched in front of her, my hands itching to touch her, to make sure she was okay.

“You know that isn’t true,” I whispered, her words slicing my heart deeper than I’d expected. “Tell me you know that isn’t true. He didn’t know he’d get the property when I paid him to break up with you. He took the money without question, Rose. He told me he wasn’t going to marry you anyway, that he was just trying to make the best of the situation and see if he could get something from Gary by getting more serious with you. Are you even hearing what I’m saying? When your uncle passed away and he heard about the stipulation in the will, he came back to ask for more money. I paid him more than once, more than twice. When he realized I’d cheated him out of the property, he came back to ask for more money. He only came to you now because I told him we were done after he showed up at your place the last time. I didn’t think he’d do it. I thought I scared him off. He wasn’t with you because he loved you. I’m not like him.”