Stealing Her (Covet 1)

And I was angry.

And I was sad.

And so many other tumultuous emotions that I couldn’t define or even begin to swallow, because above all else . . . I, Isobel Cunningham, felt relieved.

Relieved!

Tears stung the back of my throat as I paced the hospital hallway. Nobody would let me see Julian, and only family was allowed in, which I technically wasn’t since I hadn’t said I do.

I was a nobody, with no family other than the man I’d just broken up with who was currently fighting for his life. I realized then how heavily I’d relied on him for everything in my life.

He didn’t want me to work, so I volunteered at this very hospital, in the children’s cancer wing. He paid for our home, my clothes. My life revolved around him.

And despite facing his possible death.

I still felt . . . relief.

Was I a monster?

Did I deserve to burn in hell? Because all I kept thinking was that it was over. I was torn between mourning for a man I didn’t recognize anymore and berating myself for feeling this weight lifting off my chest.

I refused to think about all my reasons for needing the approval of both Julian and his father, but the minute they accepted me, I had somehow started to accept myself, until I realized that their acceptance was just another fancy word for control.

We accept you, but you need to wear that designer for us.

We love you, but love takes place on the Tennyson family watch.

We’ll fight for you, unless it makes us look weak, and then you’re on your own and you get punished with silence, or worse, cheating.

Maybe I’d been around the Tennysons too long, maybe the worst had happened and I’d accepted that my life was going to be fake smiles in public, silent tears in private.

In college, things had been so simple, so easy. Julian’s father was too busy to see him during the school year, and visits during the holidays had been like something out of a Hallmark movie. It was like living in this Hollywood dream . . . and then we graduated.

And Julian’s exact words were “Time to grow up.”

As if we’d been faking it all that time.

That’s when the rules started.

No job. My only job was to be ready to be a Tennyson wife, learn how to plan a dinner menu, get my nails done on a weekly basis, wear my hair a certain way, wear certain designers and colors, and make sure I shopped enough to keep up appearances in the media.

At first, I did these things because I loved him and he teased me about how silly they all were, but he also said it was what his dad expected; ergo, we played by his father’s rules.

Besides, what did I know about being part of a powerful family constantly in the limelight? The rules made sense. Then they started to get tedious, and when I tried to discuss my feelings with Julian, he waved me off. The distance between us grew just like his long hours at the office, then six months ago, everything finally came crashing down around us. I’d assumed once we were engaged things would return to normal; instead, I came home to a fiancé who smelled like someone else’s perfume and wouldn’t look me in the eyes, and when he finally did said, “It’s nothing, just business.”

He brushed me off, he brushed us off.

The very same week he was working late at the office and I went to surprise him only to find his stepmom standing too close, touching his back and laughing.

I caused a scene.

I yelled.

Julian told me I was seeing things.

The very next day he said we should set a date for the wedding.

And I once again believed that things would get better, that he was just under stress, that maybe I really was seeing things.

Stupid. How could I let myself be controlled so perfectly by this family? By this name?

“It doesn’t matter where you come from,” Julian whispered against my neck as we danced beneath the stars during our senior year of college at Duke. “Just that you’ll be with me, by my side, forever. I need someone strong like you, someone who gets the sacrifice.”

Tears stung my eyes.

He was perfect.

Everything a girl could dream of.

Until the dream came crashing down around me by way of greed, pride, selfishness, and too many secrets to count. He was the perfect combination of compliments and manipulations. He gave me just enough to keep me and then made me feel guilty for not being thankful for every single morsel of attention.

Soon after I saw him with his stepmom, he came home drunk, with lipstick on his cheek.

It was the final straw. We were just passing ships in the night unless his ship needed mine to do something for him. And any trust I had in him was broken, despite what he said about his actions.