Page 67 of An Inconvenient Marriage
Her eyes shone with tears on the verge of falling. I needed them to stay away a little longer because I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing her cry. Not now when she was about to let me in.
“The articles, the photos. It’s all staged. None of it happened.” Sniffling, she studied her hands folded in her lap. “Everlee’s boyfriend is a photographer, and the two of them helped me set everything up. In return, he gets paid by whichever gossip magazine or website that wants photos of the scandalous hotel heiress.”
I knew she’d been hiding something, but never in my wildest thoughts would I have imaginedthis.My good name was without a doubt my most valuable possession. Tarnishing it wasn’t something I’d do willingly. “You ruined your reputation on purpose. Why?”
Natalie’s head was still lowered, but I didn’t miss its small shake or the way her hands tightly wrung together. Nor did I miss the slight tremor that ran through her body or the sniffle she tried to hide.
This was difficult for her. And as much as I wanted her to be comfortable, I needed the answer to my question more.
“Natalie.” I raised my voice a bit. “Why?”
Tear-filled eyes shot to mine. “Because of my father. He’s not what everyone believes him to be. Control is his favorite word, and he’s asserted his over me my entire life. I knew this, and still it shocked me whenhedecided it was time for me to marry.”
Her tears fell freely now, and fighting the urge to go to her was a lot harder than I expected it to be.
“I had no say in the matter.” A humorless laugh bounced off the walls and sliced into my chest. “I had no say inanything. I couldn’t work, couldn’t study, and the one time I tried to run away and have my own life…” Swallowing her words, she wiped her eyes quickly. “Doesn’t matter.”
“But it does—”
“He started setting up thesedinner dates.” She kept talking as if I hadn’t said a word. “The men who showed up were all rich and powerful and… so much older than me. And every single one of them just so happened to need a wife.”
Her words from before slammed into me with the speed of a damn freight train, filling me with ice-cold dread. “Natalie,” I interrupted and waited for her attention to be one hundred percent on me.
“Earlier you said you’ve only had sex once before…” I couldn’t get the rest of my words out. For as desperately as I needed the answer, I also didn’t want to know if it had happened the way I thought it had.
Swallowing down the bile that had risen in my throat, I took a breath and tried again. “Did your father make you do something you didn’t want to do?” I hadn’t meant to sugarcoat my words, but for whatever reason, my mouth refused to call it what it was.
And when Natalie paled and stared at her hands in her lap, the world got ripped out from beneath my feet. I staggered backward until I hit the wall. Using it as leverage, I held myself upright and forced my heart to slow its wild thundering.
I had no idea how long we stayed like that, but it was Natalie who finally broke the silence.
“One night instead of hosting the dinner like he normally does, my father took me to a hotel to meet up with a potential business partner. Henry Palmer. He wasn’t as old as the previous men we’d had dinner with but he was the most handsy. The man couldn’t go five minutes without touching me in some way. It wasn’t—”
Dark spots seeped in from the corner of my eyes, and my vision blurred. Rage boiled its way through my blood, and the need to spin around and ram my fists into the wall was almost too hard to fight.
The only thing stopping me was Natalie. Scaring her was the absolute last thing I ever wanted to do. With my nails digging into my palms, I stood rooted to the spot and took in everything she said.
“Like I said, it wasn’t sexual, but it still gave me the creeps. And by the time dessert was served, I was only too happy to be done with everything. Until my father and Henry insisted on having a private discussion.”
She shook her head again and tucked a few invisible strands behind her ear. “I didn’t know exactly what they were talking about, but when my father came back and told me to go to Henry’s room, it wasn’t too hard to figure out.”
“Fuck.”
Natalie, who hadn’t met my gaze once, finally lifted her head. And when her red-rimmed eyes met mine, a sharp pain shot through my chest and knocked the breath right out of me. This was wrong, so fucking wrong.
Pushing off the wall, I went to where she was sitting and knelt in front of her. I covered her hands with mine and squeezed. “That should never have happened.”
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “No one says no to my father. Believe me, I tried. When I refused the first time, he threatened to beat me. And when I told him I didn’t care about that, he threatened to harm Everlee’s younger sister.”
She licked her lips. “He’s a terrible man, Zach. He said he’d sell her to the highest bidder and make sure her family was ruined. And I believed him. That’s why I went to Henry’s room and allowed him to touch me. But it was awful, and I never wanted to do it again.”
Just when I thought that excuse of a human couldn’t possibly be any worse, I heard shit like this. Fury made my blood run hot. I was going to fucking wrap my hands around his throat and watch as the life drained out of his miserable eyes.
And I was going to enjoy every glorious second of it.
Unaware of my murderous thoughts, Natalie continued. “After that, and the way Henry spoke not only to me but about me, I knew men like him—men who only wanted trophy wives—wouldn’t look twice at a spoiled, little rich whore. It wouldn’t be good for their reputations.”
She scrunched her nose and raised her brows. “I was right, of course. After the first few articles surfaced, my father was livid and made sure I knew it too. But that didn't matter when his friends suddenly showed up at dinner with dates on their arms.”
