Page 63 of Secrets That Bind Us
I scoff and rub my temples at the migraine forming. Migraines I only seem to get around him. Zoey says he's an overstimulating narcissist. I'm pretty sure she's right. "He's gay and married to Jake. I know more about them and their sexcapades than the scenes I've written."
Micah's dark brows shoot up. "They're married?"
I inwardly groan. Elijah Wolfe has been my agent for the last thirteen years. Almost the entirety of our time here in the Northeast. They’ve been married for three years, which he’d know if he was around or even paid attention to me when I talked. "Look, I'm keeping the house in New Haven.You can have the Beach House. I don't want to upset the kids by moving them in the middle of the semester."
"I'm not signing these." He scoffs.
I look at my husband, the man I never should have married, and shake my head.
“Promise me you won't marry Micah…”
"It doesn't have to get ugly. We can mitigate this through our lawyers, and have an amicable divorce-"
"So what, Verity? So you can go back to him?"
Yes.
"Micah. My life ishere. My publisher is here. My kids' lives are here. I've set roots here."
"And I haven't?"
Oh, he’s definitely set his root everywhere. But I don’t say that. "Is this about money? I know the gallery isn't doing as well as it was-"
The dark chuckle that leaves him sends slow chills up my spine. He didn't use to chuckle like this. Like he's a king, and we're all his jesters in his court. I grip the armrest of the chair I'm sitting on, letting the cool leather ground me. The truth is, I know the gallery is tanking. And thanks to both Elijah and Zoey for convincing me to have a lawyer draw up a prenup and have us both sign before we married, or I would have gone into this marriage with the small town, Southern Baptist mind of "divorce is a sin, marriage is forever, 'til death do we part."
He'll get twenty-five percent of the proceeds from every book I wrote before we were married (which is close to three million) and his debts, which he acquired on his own. The largest one being at a club calledEdenin New York. None of them are in my name (thank God for that small mercy), although he tries to siphon money from my accounts to pay them. I'll let ten thousand go every now and then, so he keeps thinking he gets away with it. Whether he's squandered it or saved it up, is on him. I no longer care. I just want to be free.
"Every sin you've ever committed against me is written in your fucking books. They're all right there. One night stands in clubs, hooking up with strangers, you've written about it all. Our prenup is null. You're fucked. And if you don't want the whole world to know their darling Verity Huntington is a cheating bitch-"
I'm over it. In a way, he's right. Every passionate scene I've ever written in my books has all been memories. But not of hookups or one-night stands. (Except the one before we married.) They're memories branded into the very marrow of my bones, my heart. If I close my eyes just enough, I canfeel his fingertips trailing across my skin like phantom touches. There. Always there, seared beneath my skin forever.
I shouldn't say it. I know I shouldn't. But it comes out of me like vicious projectile word vomit before I can even stop them from spewing out. I stand up and -
"Fuck you. If I ever cheated, it was when I was thinking of him while you were inside me. It was wishing it washimI was marrying. It was regretting you entirely. Every decision, every choice, and having to make it with you! It was suffocating alive, pretending I was happy being stuck here with you! It was having to givemychild your last name!" and then I say the thing to dig a little deeper, to hurt him more - “It was pretending you're more than a mediocrity!”
He moves so quickly I don't even see him coming. Just abangfrom the back of his chair slamming against the wall.
Ear ringing, white hot pain across my cheek and temple, my vision blurred as I blink once. Twice. Recognizing I'm on the ground, staring up at him. At first I think my vision is blurred because I'm crying but... it's blurred because he struck me so hard my glasses flew off. For a moment, I swear I see him standing over me.
Dean. Beautiful, beautiful, so in love with me he said he’d read for me, Dean. My heart lurches.
But then my head clears, and I’m back in this fucking office.
Pain and humiliation radiate through me like bolts of lightning across a tormented sky.
I can hear Micah panting, panic setting in. "Verity, I-"
My eye hurts, and now my temple is really throbbing. I pick myself up, dust off my skirt and fix my hair, pulling it all over one shoulder, squaring them. I feel a trickle down the side of my nose and wipe at it. Blood. Didn’t see that coming. Just like I didn’t see everything else.
“Promise me you won’t marry him, Ver. He won’t make you happy. He won’t love you like I do…”
I shake my head to get rid of Dean's voice, clear my throat so I don’t choke on a sob, and inhale. "The prenup entitles you to three million. I'm giving you the beach house. And I'll pay taxes and utilities on it for one year. We can mitigate custody through our lawyers, which I'll also pay for, or simply give up your rights as a father. While I rather the latter, the choice is yours."
So many times I picked my mother up off the floor. I never thought I'd have to pick myself up. Never. Bile rises in my throat as memories of somany black eyes, so many nights in a hospital beside her bed, having to go back home to Daddy when he was bailed out.
No tears now. No. I cried too many tears over the years for Daddy. So many tears for Mama. Dean. Never for me. I won't start now.
"Verity."
