Page 96 of The Paid Wife: A Lesbian Romance
She never wanted me to be an artist.”
“Why not? She’s one.”
“I know. I guess that’s why. She has this idea that you have
to sell your soul to succeed.”
Dani’s forehead furrowed. “Do you?”
“I don’t know. It makes me think she did something or had
something done to her in order to…I don’t know.”
“Like how people sleep with a director to get in a movie?”
“Jesus. I hope not.”
“Do you think that’s what happened? She had to sleep with
someone she didn’t want to?”
Emily dug up another handful of sand. She’d never actually
thought about that before. Her mom had always alluded to
something bad in the way she talked, but Emily didn’t think it
was that bad. “I’ve never thought about that before.”
“If you asked her, would she tell you?”
“Never. She never talks about anything that happened
before she met my dad. It never would have happened after
that. She’s too good of a wife to let anything like that go down.
It makes me wonder. Why does she never talk about that?
Before my dad? I know almost nothing.”
Dani didn’t respond since it was a rhetorical question. She
bit off another bite of apple and chewed. “What about your
mom’s parents?”
“My grandparents? They’re all prim and proper. They’d
disown her if they knew about something happening like that.
If it did, she never would have told them.”
“So, do your parents love each other or what?”
Emily shrugged. “I think it’s more of an or what. They’ve
been married for a long time. They have zero spark left.”
