Leaving my dirty clothes, I exited my bedroom and crossed to the window at the end of the long hallway. A chic red car drove along the driveway and parked near the courtyard. A female slid out of the car, tall and poised. Jen.
Ugh.
She made a beeline for the front door. Moments later, I heard voices coming from the foyer. I crept closer to the staircase to shamelessly eavesdrop.
“You haven’t been answering my calls,” Jen clipped.
Standing in front of her, Dane shrugged. “You said your piece earlier over the phone.”
I frowned, having no idea what he was talking about.
“I doubted you had anything new to add.” Dane turned and walked away.
Jen followed him further into the house, disappearing from my view. “Well, you’re wrong,” she said, her voice echoing in the large space. “Look, I shouldn’t have yelled at you, I know that. It was just a shock when I saw the picture you sent to Kent.”
“Hmm,” was his only response.
“You did this to get your hands on your trust fund, didn’t you?”
She was obviously referring to him marrying me. Holding onto the smooth banister, I began to creep down the marble stairs, thankful that I’d kicked off my shoes.
“Does she know that’s why you married her? It’s not fair to her if she doesn’t. She has a right to know, Dane.”
“I didn’t say that was why I married Vienna. You did,” he pointed out.
“Because it’s the only thing that makes sense. For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve never wanted to get married. You were always adamant about it.”
“And I meant it. Then. Now I don’t feel that way anymore.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s irrelevant to me what you do or don’t believe,” he said with such nonchalance I could imagine him giving her that indifferent shrug of his.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs, I silently crossed the foyer and stepped into the wide hallway. From there, I could see that Dane and Jen were standing in the middle of the large den.
She huffed at him, all haughty. “Okay then, if this really isn’t about your trust fund, why did you marry her? Don’t say it’s because you love her. You don’t love anyone, not even yourself. Come on, I want to hear your reason.”
Dane’s eyes turned as cold as a glacial lake. “Let me be very clear on something. You do not get to question my decisions. You do not get to demand answers from me. I don’t owe you explanations. I don’t have to justify shit to you, so don’t walk into my fucking home and come at me like this.”
She licked her lips. “Dane.” It was an entreaty, an attempt to soothe.
“You don’t have to like that I married Vienna—I couldn’t care less either way. I don’t need approval from you or anyone else.” He sank onto the leather sofa and draped his arms over the back of it.
Jen looked down at him. “I just don’t get what it is about her that’s apparently so special,” she said, quiet and subdued. “I might not know her, but I know plenty about her. I did my homework.”
He tensed. “You did, what?”
“I wanted to know more about this person you brought into our family. Did you know she grew up in foster care?”
I almost snorted in derision. She said it like I’d been raised by inbred cannibals.
“She was taken away from her family because her father beat the shit out of her mother right in front of her and then got himself arrested—the mother wasn’t interested in her child.”
The fuck? She really had done her freaking homework, hadn’t she? Nosy little bitch.
“Did you know she was once engaged?” Jen huffed. “I’ll bet she never told you that, did she? Well, I know all about it.”
“So do I,” said Dane. “It’s a boring story, so don’t bother repeating it. You can leave now.”
She didn’t, sadly. I leaned against the doorjamb and folded my arms.
Jen put her hands on her hips. “Doesn’t it concern you that she’s probably just after your money?”
“You would never have even considered that if you knew her,” he said.
“And just how does she feel about marrying a man who’d never sleep in the same room as her?”
I blinked. Wait, what?
His face darkened. “What did you just say?” he asked, a lethal note to his voice.
Jen went as still as prey, and her mouth bopped open and closed. “I just … I mean …”
“What? What did you mean?”
“I once heard Hugh say something to Kent about how he hoped you’d one day get over your aversion to sleeping in the same space as others; he said no wife would want to sleep in her marital bed alone. I worried you might have been molested as a child or something, but Kent said it wasn’t like that. He wouldn’t explain further, though.”