Page 68 of The Marriage Bid
“I’ve never met people at your workplace. How is it there?”
She chuckled nervously, her shifty eyes darting to Tyler. “You know how students are. It can get hectic sometimes, but it’s fine.”
“That’s funny. I just called there to ask if I could speak to you, and they said you’ve never worked there.”
She balked. Caught in the trap. “What? You must have been confused. Did you call Rosmere Finishing Institute and not Rosmere Institution? Many people confuse the finishing school with the investment bank.”
“I called the finishing school.” My voice was dead, my hackles rising.
“That’s odd. Maybe someone is playing a prank on me.”
Tyler’s grip tightened around my hand. “Give it up, Pamela. We know you’ve been the one blackmailing me.”
“Black—blackmail? What are you talking about? Why would I blackmail somebody!” She chuckled nervously. “Let alone you!”
“We know you withdrew the money Tyler sent you recently. The money you probably used to buy those Chanel shoes you threw in the kitchen.”
She guffawed, making her best attempt at appearing surprised, but she was an awful actress. “Mind you, if you must know, I got that as a gift. I don’t have any money, unlike you with your billionaire husband.”
I ignored the jab. “But I thought you said you bought it yourself?”
“We know the money I sent went into your pockets,” Tyler said calmly. “I have proof of your shell accounts. Your bank statements, everything. And if you check your safe, you’ll see that the pathetic documents you were holding on to are gone.”
Her eyes widened. She shot up and went to her bedroom. I heard a scream and then, a few moments later, she came back in a rage. “How dare you! Did you break into my place without my consent? That’s a crime! I am calling the police!”
Tyler smirked. “And tell them what? That the information you’ve been using to blackmail someone else is gone?”
Her eyes narrowed as she focused on me. “You did this.” She pointed a finger at me. “You gave it to him, you stupid bitch.”
“So it is true.” This was the ultimate confirmation. I didn’t expect it to hit so hard. For years she’d been pretending to be afflicted by her lack of funds when she had a money tap and didn’t need to work at all. “How could you?”
“Oh, grow up. Your husband didn’t miss that money. It belonged to us anyway. You didn’t want to use it, so I did. You’vealways valued working like a workhorse instead of enjoying the life you deserve as a Channing. Well, I am not like you.”
“I can’t believe this.” My chest was hot. The room shrank. I took deep breaths to calm myself down. Noises dimmed, but I heard a faint laugh. Pamela. Was she laughing at me? I looked up to see her shaking her head.
“Pathetic,” she said.
“I’ve seen enough,” I said to Tyler. “Let’s go.”
Tyler rubbed his hand behind my back. “Are you okay?”
I nodded.
He helped me up. “Pity,” he said to Pamela, “if you had simply asked, I would have helped you, but your family only knows how to do things the wrong way.”
“Spare me,” she spat. “You’re a Hawthorne. Your family is dirtier than mine.”
We left her place soon after. I don’t know how I made it downstairs and into Tyler’s car and back at his place. It was all a haze. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. She was just like my father. She acted as though she were different, but she was just like my father.
“At least she didn’t sell you at an auction,” Tyler replied, and I realized I had said the last word out loud.
We were back in his apartment, and I simply sat on the same couch where he had shown me the papers. My flesh was weak, and my bones were weary. When I got up, I stumbled, and Tyler caught me before I could fall. “Let me get you upstairs.”
He carried me to his bedroom, where I fell into a deep stupor. When I woke up, it was the next day. Morning light was streaming in from the floor-to-ceiling windows, warming my cheek. The bed was empty, but there was a depression on Tyler’s side to show he had slept in the same bed. I turned to the other side to see him coming from the bathroom. He smiled at me ashe stood a few feet away from the bed. He was shirtless except for his trunks.
“Did I sleep for that long?” My voice was groggy.
“Yeah.” He came to sit beside me on the bed. I sat up straight and noticed he must have put his t-shirt on me while I slept.
