Money Man (King Maker 1)

“And you stayed with Scott even when I could tell you weren’t into him,” she said.

“You know about how conservative my family is?” I said. She didn’t know all of it. There were just some things that remained secret. “My parents wouldn’t have approved of my unmarried sexual relationship with Scott. If they ever found out, I could be… um… I guess the best way to describe it is excommunicated. I would never be allowed home again.”

The first time had been a mistake. I was drunk and needy. Scott had been there, right time, right place.

“You had sex, Bails?” she said in mock horror.

“I was raised to believe that sex was reserved for your husband and no one else. They would see it as me bringing shame to my family. The only way to excuse the behavior is to get married. Somehow in my head, staying with him felt like the compromise between their world and the one I wanted for myself.”

I wasn’t sure she’d understand, but I’d tried my best to explain.

“By dating him, you validated your decision to take the relationship further?” she asked, but it was more of a statement.

“Exactly,” I answered.

“Scott wasn’t your first, though.”

This she knew. “No. Turner was.”

I’d bucked the rules all my life. Though Scott and even Kalen had been an impulse, Turner had been a choice made out of love.

“You grew up with him, right?”

I sipped my coffee, which had started to go lukewarm, then said, “Yes. And if our parents had found out, we would have been married on the spot,” as my eyes fell on the only ring I wore.

“You loved him, right?” she asked, drinking from her own mug.

“Yes, I’ll always love him,” I said, fiddling with the ring. To myself, I added, in ways. “I could have survived being married to him.”

“Did he give you that?” she asked, her hand landing on my finger. I nodded. “What happened?”

This was a part of the story Lizzy had never pushed before. We were usually too busy talking about her failed relationships and my doomed one to dive deeper.

“I would have eventually married him if I’d stayed,” I began.

“Did he give you that ring?”

She stared pointedly at the ring I hadn’t been able to take off.

I thought about the day Turner had given me the ring. “Yes.”

“Is it an engagement ring? Wait, I thought you said they didn’t know about the sex?” she asked, switching gears mid-stream.

“They didn’t. Not then at least. We were paired, or what you might call betrothed, I guess, for lack of a better word. His family and mine had been in discussion about our future marriage. But then, my dad caught us. He assumed Turner would tell his parents and they would see me as a suitable wife. Not the first one at least.”

Her eyes widened, reminding me of my father’s shock at catching us. His anger had scared me that day.

“First wife?”

I shrugged. “It isn’t uncommon for men in our community to take on more than one wife. Though they aren’t truly married to the others, as that’s not legal.”

“Your father?” she asked.

“No, he didn’t. More for my mother. He loved her enough not to.”

She nodded. “You didn’t marry him, though.”

Him, being Turner.

“No.” I thought for a moment before I spoke. “My mom told me to pursue my dreams and go to college. She didn’t want me to get stuck when she got that it wouldn’t make me happy. It was the first time I’d been given the option of true freedom. I left him behind because I didn’t think he’d be willing to leave. He loved his life there and I loved him enough to not make him choose. His place was there.”

“Wow. Where is he now?”

Her question seemed redundant. But I guess in her mind lots of time had passed and possibly things had changed. “He’s still there as far as I know. The last time I visited, he was with someone else.”

Yet, that knowledge had not gotten me to toss away his ring like how I’d easily done with Scott’s. And that ring had been far more valuable than the steel ring Turner had forged for me.

“That was years ago,” she said.

“Yes, and I’ll admit it hurt knowing he moved on. I couldn’t go back after that.”

“And then you met Scott.”

It was a point I hadn’t considered. Matt had been a safe crush because he hadn’t been available. Turner seemingly happy with someone else had inadvertently left me vulnerable. Scott was there to take advantage, though he wasn’t some sort of predator. It just put things into prospective.

I shook my head. “I was hurt and needed…”

“Physical contact.”

I nodded.

“I don’t blame you. If I ever saw Mason again, I’m not sure what I’d do.”

Mason was Lizzy’s first love and first everything, though he turned out to be a grade A asshole. “They stick with you.”