All I know is what Bolt told me, and that only included me pretending to be his wife. There were no other instructions or expectations, just me on his arm as his wife.
There’s more?
Yale’s quiet, flirting a smirk across his face. “Are you serious right now?”
“What plan are you talking about?” My voice is curt, my eyes dead set on his. “I want the truth. What do you know that I don’t?”
His smile thickens as a pleased look sweeps across his face. He’s happy to tell me the details, to let me in on the little secret he knows and I don’t.
“The only reason Bolt asked you to do any of this was to embarrass his father, that’s why he chose you. This fake marriage is just to humiliate Vincent. That’s your real role here.”
“What?” My voice cracks as tears bubble over my eyes. I’m doing everything I can to hold them back because I really don’t want to cry in front of him. “He used me to embarrass his father?”
Yale lets out a chuckle and opens his eyes wide. “Are you kidding me? You really thought his parents would accept you?” Snickering, he shakes his head as if I should have known all this to begin with. “You’re not one of them, you’ll never be one of them. You would never be accepted by his parents, not ever. They’re wealthy from the North Side, you’re a low level girl from the Village. It would never work; you have to know that.”
It feels like my heart is being torn out from inside my chest and stomped into the concrete. I can’t breathe. It stings every time I try to take in air, and feels like I’m inhaling hot needles. “I don’t believe you. You’re lying. Why would he use me like that?”
“Starla, honey,” Yale says, making his voice pronounced and clear. “Vincent wants something Bolt doesn’t, and he’s using money to get it. Bolt played his little game, he picked a girl his father would hate, a girl who is better kept a secret than become a name in the family. He chose you, a blue collar girl, from a blue collar family, with blue collar money. Bolt’s father is going to demand you guys get a divorce. Shit, he’s probably telling Bolt that right now. And when he does, Bolt can use this whole thing to keep his money, keep the business, and stay single. It’s a win win.”
Tears start to roll down my cheeks, and there’s nothing I can do to stop them. I feel stupid and used. I should have seen this; I should have known that there was more to this scam than just a simple pretend marriage.
And I was stupid enough to think Bolt actually liked me. I thought he respected me. I thought we fit together perfectly.
I was wrong.
Was everything between us just an act?
The laughs, the smiles, the sex? Was it all as fake as our marriage?
Bolt took who he thought I was and twisted it to manipulate his own father. The thought makes me sick. It makes me hate everything about him. I resent sharing one piece of my life with that jerk. How could I be so stupid to let him this close to me?
I took down my walls. I brought him home, into my world, to meet the people I loved and cherished. I opened my heart.
I fucked up.
“I can’t believe I didn’t see this. I thought there was something between us.”
Yale fiddles with the paper in his hand, his eyes softening. “You didn’t stand a chance from the beginning. This was never going to go anywhere. He’s not a kept man, sweetheart, and he never will be.”
Tears are slipping freely over my cheeks, the cement around my feet is spotted in tiny droplets. I know once I move the sun will hit my fallen tears and dry them instantly. A part of me wants to watch them disappear, hoping that if I see the sun erase them, everything I feel inside will vanish too.
But I know that won’t happen. The sun can’t reach the tangled web of pain clenching my stomach and suffocating my lungs. Staring down at the deep gray plops, my legs are trembling and my hands are shaking.
I want to go home. This was a mistake.
I’m a fucking idiot.
“Bolt would never actually marry a girl like you. You have nothing to offer him.” The last few words come out of his mouth for no other reason than to insult me. The twitch at the corner of his lip, the way his lids crinkle into the smirk creeping up his face, it infuriates me instantly.
Before I can stop myself, I slap Yale across the face with an open palm. Shaking my head, I wipe my eyes and try to pull myself together. “Fuck you, Yale, and fuck this family.” Walking swiftly back to my chair, I stuff my towel into my bag, and throw it over my shoulder. “I’m fucking done with this shit.”