“No. I can't!”
When I pull away, Franklin pulls me closer. He tries to kiss me again and I can't pull away.
“You're gonna say no on our wedding night?”
I shrug my shoulders.
“This is how you want to start out a marriage?”
“No. I don't, but the thing is that I'm not really feeling it. I mean, I know that we're married but what is this really? I mean, do you actually love me?”
“Yes, I do,” he says, staring deep into my eyes.
“No, you don't. If you did, then we wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t be making me do something that I desperately don't want to do.”
I watch him breathe in and out, with great effort.
I watch him think.
I wait for him to try to kiss me again but he surprises me. Instead, he pulls away.
Without saying another word, he gets up, closes his robe, and walks out. He shuts the French doors behind him and turns on the television. I can hear the muffled sounds through the door.
I sit back down on the bed and wrap my arms around my knees.
“What are you doing?” I whisper.
These questions and about a hundred more swirl around in my mind until my head starts to pound. I go to the bathroom and fill a glass with water all the way to the rim and drink it without stopping. When it's empty, I fill it up again, only managing to drink about half.
I hadn't realized just how thirsty I was until this very moment. My headache seems to disperse a little and my thoughts become clearer.
Maybe he left me alone for now because he does actually care about me?
Maybe he's trying to be my friend?
Maybe he's trying to be a good husband?
I wash my face in the sink and search for the tube of moisturizer in my purse, I glance down at my phone instead.
Four missed calls.
They're all from Henry. There are also a number of messages. I stop myself from listening to the voice mail and from reading any of the messages.
My fingers itch to see what he has written.
I haven't talked to him since I was too much of a coward to tell him the truth of what happened at my father’s house.
I left him a note and told him that I would love him forever and that part was true. I did all that to protect him and I thought that that would push him away.
Luckily, it hasn’t.
Still, tonight, I don't allow myself to hear his voice or to read his words.
I stop myself, not because I don't want to hear it but because it feels like the right thing to do at the moment.
Franklin didn’t force himself on me and I feel an allegiance toward him, no matter how slim.
Of course, how low are my standards that I am actually thankful that my husband didn’t rape me? Be that as it may, I appreciate the gesture and I return it in kind.
3
Aurora
The week after the wedding, we host a dinner party. Franklin has postponed our honeymoon to Bora Bora for a month or two, until all of the paperwork and negotiations with him taking over Tate Media are complete. Secretly, I'm relieved. I want him to be as busy as possible because then he might not notice me snooping around. If he's occupied, then maybe he'll be too tired to make a move on me at night.
I officially move into his palatial penthouse and though we are supposed to share the master bedroom, he allocates a room for me. It has its own en suite bathroom and courtyard as well as plenty of built-in bookshelves for all of my work.
I join the dinner party a little bit after the initial few guests arrive but they are mostly Franklin’s single male friends who work in startups. He introduces me to everyone and their names and professional titles come in one ear and go out the other.
I try to be pleasant and friendly but I take every opportunity to keep to myself. Luckily, the room is full of strangers who are only interested in congratulating me on our wedding and little else. They know that I'm not involved in the business of Tate Media and therefore I'm just window dressing.
I take my time ordering a drink and then slip out onto the balcony. I find a nook behind a large plant and hope that no one will spot me here.
Next time, I say to myself, I'm going to invite a friend or two to this thing. At least then I'll have someone pleasant to talk to.
A loud burst of laughter startles me and I press myself against the wall. The voices belong to a man and a woman but I don't recognize them.
“Are you sure that you're not cold?” the man asks. “You can have my jacket.”
“No,” the woman says. “I'm fine. I've had a little bit too much to drink so I'm good.”
“I've never been here before,” he says.
“I haven't either. I can't believe that I actually got an invitation.”
“I know, right?”
“This place is insane,” the guy says. “Have you ever been to an apartment this big?”
I start to feel very cold and debate whether I should just sneak out and go back inside but I have missed my chance. My only hope now is that they don't stay out here for much longer.
The voices get muffled for a moment but then they turn back toward the door.
I hear the woman ask, “So, do you think that's true?”
“What?”
“You know,” she whispers, “the whole thing about Franklin being into young girls.”
“I guess so,” the guy says.
My mouth drops open. What is she talking about?
“Aren't you surprised?” she asks.
“I mean, we all knew that he was really into women, right?”
“Of course! Normally, I’d just say that Aurora is an idiot for marrying him if she thinks that he’s not going to cheat on her but, come on, fifteen year olds? That’s just not right.”
“Wait, what?” he asks.
“You didn't know about that?” she asks.
“No! I thought that you were talking about him just sleeping around with, you know, women his own age or at least legal age.”
“No, that is not what I heard.”
As they go back-and-forth about whether or not this is true, my mind starts to race. I caught Franklin in bed with another woman but she was not underage. She was well into her twenties and she knew exactly what she was doing.
Could this be true? Could he really be coercing underage girls?
“How do you know about any of this?” the guy asks.
“Cynthia Lazaro told me. Her older sister worked as a maid for him last year at his property in the Hamptons. There were all sorts of rumors swirling around there.”
“Why didn't she go to the cops?”
“You know why,” the woman says. “She didn’t want to lose her job. She was getting paid really well, a lot more than she ever got paid working at the Marriott and she had to clean a lot less.”
The door to the balcony swings open, casting light on my face. I inch further behind the bush to stay hidden.
“What are you two doing out here?” someone asks.
His voice is deeper, older, and clearly annoyed. “I'm paying you to work and circulate, not flirt. Get back inside!”
When the couple leaves, I let out a sigh of relief and rest my back against the wall. Did I really just hear all of that?