The General (Professionals 4)

“Is that a bad thing?” I’d asked, confused, knowing his father was a senator and that Teddy ran his company for him. I figured that meant they were close.

“He’s not happy about the engagement. He wanted me to marry the heiress of the Duvall family. He’s not going to like you.”

“Because I come from a poor family?” I asked, feeling a sinking sensation in my stomach.

“Among other things,” he agreed, pouring more, throwing it back.

“But he doesn’t even know me,” I insisted. “I will make you proud, Teddy, I promise,” I told him, thinking of all the ways I could try to impress his father.

“Don’t worry, Jen. It will be fine,” he told me, pressing a kiss to my temple as he moved past me.

But it wasn’t.

He’d been right.

His father didn’t like me. I might not have been as smart as they were, but I knew enough to know when I was being condescended to, when every single thing I was doing or saying was being judged and found wanting.

We’d gotten home after, me feeling dejected, hopeless, him feeling angry and frustrated, taking it out on me with punishing sex that didn’t have any of the warm, primal, pleasing sensations sex had started to have at times.

The next day, he left me for a meeting with his father.

He came home and drank himself into oblivion.

I didn’t have to ask to know that the senator had likely leashed into him, demanded he change his mind.

At the time, I thought he had refused because he loved me so much. In retrospect, I was sure it was pride and maybe a bit of rebellion that made him move forward with the marriage plan.

It was a week before the wedding that he grabbed me hard enough to leave bruises. And, yes, I should have known it was wrong, that even if I had made him angry, he should never get so out of control that he marked me. But I didn’t see it that way at the time. I reminded myself to be more careful when speaking to him, not to pester him right when he came in the door, to be more understanding of the stressors in his life.

Were there red flags, giant blinking warning signs?

Yes.

But I’d been blind to them. I’d been too easily reassured by a few sweet words, a hug or kiss, even the occasional blue-green box full of something pretty and sparkly.

Eighteen-year-old girls were easily persuaded.

I picked out a dress, a color scheme, what kind of veil to wear.

And on the day, I walked down the aisle sure that my feet never even touched the ground, a giant crowd of people there to watch the happiest day of my life, a small group of camera crews out front to snap pictures with Teddy and me, and more importantly, me with the senator who appeared overjoyed to be getting a daughter-in-law.

Then there was the crash, the funeral, the hospital visits. And as if those weren’t enough, there was the senator and his demands, his endless tasks I needed to complete, his constant critiques on my character, my education – or lack thereof -, my looks, my tone of voice.

I was mourning my mother and trying to nurse my father while choking on my guilt, and they put a relentless, knee-weakening pressure on me to become an entirely new person in a matter of weeks.

Teddy got more critical, likely fed an endless stream of things that needed to improve about me.

He made me stop braiding my hair, cut down on my makeup, get rid of my jeans. He snapped at me at the dinner table when I let my elbows rest on the surface, barked about how if I did that while at a charity event that I would humiliate him.

I adjusted. I saw his point. I hadn’t, after all, been raised in his world. I didn’t know all the rules of polite society, basic table manners, what the heck a hostess gift was.

Of course I needed to learn how to exist in his circle.

And, of course, he got angry when I continually fell short of his expectations.

But then it was a Saturday night. I’d spend the whole morning at the hospital, then the next few hours working out, getting into clothes Teddy considered acceptable, reading a few of the study guides that Teddy had given me, telling me that he thought Bertram would appreciate it if I learned a bit more about the inner workings of politics in case anyone ever asked me questions during his next campaign trail.

I was doing everything he wanted me to do no matter how tired I was, how hungry, how bad my head hurt from all the reading and re-reading until I remembered all the details.

I heard the door, put my pages away since Teddy hated a mess, then made my way out to find him staggering into the kitchen, going into the cabinet for yet another drink he clearly didn’t need.