Page 23 of The Marriage Agreement
“So how old is Lake?”
She hesitates and then says, “He turned seven this April.”
“Seven? You had a kid in college?”
She shrugs. “I was not the first person and certainly not the last.”
“And is the father still present? I doubt you’d marry me if you were already married.”
“The father is not present.” Her face is so contorted with anger one would think I have something to do with Lake’s father running out on her. Knowing the Hawthornes, they probablychased the poor fellow out on his ass. “Was the father not suitable enough for Nolan Senior’s perfect little daughter?”
She fumes but doesn’t say little else. That must have been around the same time the Hawthornes kicked me out on my ass after daring to touch their precious daughter with my grubby middle-class hands. I remember the two Nolans’ harsh fury when they saw the Ivy and I in bed. The father angrier than the son. Both hellbent on making me pay. It was bad what I did, that much I’m aware. But I should have known how they would have reacted or I would have never even attended that party.
Nolan senior had demanded an explanation and, just as I was about to craft one, Nolan junior came up with a more sinister version of his own. “You assaulted her.” I was too shocked to protest. I was repulsed when Ivy nodded. Then the most degrading thing that’s ever happened to me occurred. My boss, Nolan Hawthorne Senior, kicked me. Literally kicked me out of bed. I scrambled, naked as the day I was born, for my clothes. For dignity as they chased me out. I feel a tug at my chest. The pain is still raw after all these years.
If my math is correct, Lake’s father seems to have come around before or after Ivy and I’s fateful encounter.I saved myself for you.I almost want to laugh at how easily I had believed that lie. Did they treat him the same way they treated me? If he was not from the right family? Probably. Or maybe he’s one of them. An irresponsible trust fund baby who can’t hold a job and gallivants around the world like her brother Raine. The thought of someone making love to Ivy, thrusting into her and giving her pleasure, drives me irrationally angry. Kissing her. Touching what’s mine.
Mine?What the fuck is that stray thought? “Is that all?” Suddenly, the library feels too small. We’re too secluded from the rest of the party.
Ivy’s anger at me has not dissipated. She still has her arms crossed and looks like she would rather kill herself than spend more time with me. I feel like I have failed some test I didn’t know I was taking. “Yes. And if you don’t mind, I would like to rejoin the party.”
Her mood is confusing. I close the space between us, feeling magnetically drawn to her. “You’re the one who brought me here.”
She steps back.
“Did I do anything wrong?”
She stares at me for a moment. Looks like she’s about to say more, but then shakes her head and says, “No.”
Ivy opens the door and we both leave the library.The rest of her brothers have arrived by the time we get back to the drawing room. We greet Tyler and Sebastian first. Or, as they’re commonly called, Ty and Seb. Ty is a little more serious than Seb and closer in age than all the other siblings. They’ve always done things together when they were young and when they got older, they opened an architectural firm together. A pretty solid one as well. The two have surprised the world by not only being able to conjure interesting buildings but also able to build them at a low cost, making their firm one the most sought-after in the Real Estate world.
And then there’s Nolan. Eight years of feuding and this is the first time we’re seeing each other in person. The last time we spoke, it was about Ivy. Instead of asking for my side of the story, he had instead interrogated me. I went to his office the Monday after the incident to explain myself, and he gave me a letter. “Sign this and maybe you’ll get a decent severance,” he had said. It was a resignation letter. He fired me and made it seem as if he was doing me a favor. Despite my ability to explain myself, when he uttered the words, “I took you in and you betrayed me,” it became the final straw. I thought we were friends, but he neversaw me as such. I was like a servant to him. Some poor boy who needed the generosity of the Hawthornes and I should have been pleased with what I got.We will never be equal to them. Isn’t that what my mother told me? I thought she was wrong, and in a way, she was. What she should have said was, we’ll never be equal to themin their eyes. But I am fucking equal to these motherfuckers and I have their precious girl on my arm to prove it.
“Damien.” Nolan’s greeting sounds more like a declaration of my presence. Unlike his brothers, he came alone and, from what I have read in the papers, is currently single. He’s still the same handsome, cold son of a bitch I thought I once knew. He can display zero emotion with ease and whenever he wants, which is quite admirable. If he wasn’t running a billion-dollar fashion retail company, he would have been a fantastic poker player.
“Nolan.” I hook Ivy’s arm under mine, a gesture that doesn’t go unnoticed by Nolan. I wonder if he has worked it out yet. The real reason I married his sister. Or is it like Ivy said? They aren’t aware of the clause in the trust? If he was, he would have shoved me out of this place and would have immediately enacted a poison pill strategy. The knowledge of their obliviousness is enough to help me endure this farce.
The room had gone quiet when Ivy and I rejoined. A cough cracks through the silence. “Hi,” Ty extends his hand, “You must be our arch enemy. I’m Ty.”
I shake his hand. “I remember you. You wanted to be a DJ when you were a kid.”
“Please don’t remind me of my embarrassing days of yore. What I want to know is why you’re with our sister. We’re very protective of her.”
“I’m curious as well,” the other brother says. “Seb, by the way,” he says, offering me his hand.
“He didn’t steal me away,” Ivy says. “I just wanted to get married without all the fuss.”
Seb frowns. “I would bet my shirt you wanted a giant wedding. Weren’t you the one who was always talking about a three-day vacation wedding?”
“When I was sixteen.”
“So you went the more drastic and opposite direction?” Nolan butts in.
Ivy looks like she would rather change the subject than answer any more questions. “People change. No one stays sixteen forever.”
“But—” Ty tries to interject and is instead nudged into shutting up by Seb.
The room goes back to that awkward state of silence that we induced when we came in. It’s clear from their faces that they don’t believe our story. But I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something I’m missing in their penetrative looks. Some secret they’re aware of that I’m not.
