The next several papers in the file were related to school. Recommendations he’d sent that I hadn't known about, items related to the internship from my master’s program. We went through every single document, Donovan explaining each connection and his reasoning for interfering. Every time, it had been for my own good. As though he’d been my secret fairy godfather, showering me with the best opportunities at every turn.
"If you were this determined to butt in," I said after learning that the article I'd been asked to write for University Today had been suggested to the editor by him, "why didn't you just bring me back to Harvard? I was certainly trying hard enough to get there. Couldn't you have pulled strings there?"
He stared at me with a dull expression. "I'm flattered that you think so highly of my influence. It was Harvard, Sabrina. I can pull strings, but I'm not a miracle worker."
On and on it went through piles of invoices, receipts, copies of contracts, and school papers and essays I'd written. The headhunter I used to find a job in California had worked for Donovan. The management company that had overseen my first apartment was owned by Donovan. The new security system that had been installed in my second apartment hadn't been paid for by the landlord as I'd believed. It was all Donovan.
Memories reshaped and took on new form. It was like when I learned that Santa Claus wasn't real; that all those gifts I'd been given had really been from my parents instead of some magical being. Now I was learning that situations I had always attributed to good luck or good fortune, other situations that I hadn't even thought more than two seconds about, all had been gifted to me by Donovan.
I couldn't help but ask over and over, "Why? Why? Why?"
And always, always it was the same answer. "For you."
We'd been at it for a couple of hours when I came across a paper that didn't make any sense. "Why is there an employment contract for Brady Murphy in here?" I hadn’t noticed it the first time I’d been through the file.
Brady Murphy had been someone I’d dated for a short time while working in California. The relationship had never been very serious, but I'd been more serious about him than most of the guys I dated. He was too nice maybe. Too soft in bed. But a good guy. We might've stayed together longer than the four months that we had if he hadn’t gotten a job offer from an up-and-coming tech firm in Japan.
…and suddenly I had a feeling I knew the answer.
"Brady Murphy was never right for you and you know it," Donovan said in answer to my question.
"So you got him a job that took him out of the country?" I didn't bother keeping the incredulity out of my voice.
Donovan shrugged. "If I’d found him a job in the states, there was too great a chance that you would have moved with him. And you needed to break up."
Indignation fumed inside me. "You sent my boyfriend away so that we would break up? Oh my God. I can't fucking believe you!"
"It would have been too easy for you to settle down with him. And that's exactly what you would have been doing—settling. It was for your own good."
I spoke over him, my words landing in unison with his. "Don't tell me it was for my own good. You didn’t do that for me. That was for you. You were jealous."
Donovan gave me his version of an eye roll, a slight shift of his gaze. "Oh please. There is nothing to be jealous of about Brady Murphy. He's a weak, whiny sap. I was looking out for you."
I didn't believe him. "You didn't want me with another man.” I was almost more flattered than I was mad. Or something deeper than flattered. Just like his jealousy was primitive—because he was jealous no matter how much he denied it—the emotion it ignited in me was equally primal. Equally base. It turned me on. It aroused me.
“How many other relationships did you meddle with?” My mind started to race through all the other boyfriends I’d had, the other men I'd casually dated. Donovan had messed with Weston and I by arranging for him to be part of this fake marriage with Elizabeth Dyer. I knew that. It only made sense that he would've interfered with others.
"Roger Griffin?" I asked. "His grandmother wasn’t really sick, was she?"
"Are you accusing me of luring a man away from you with a fake sick grandmother?" Donovan stared at me unblinking.
"Okay. I didn't really think that one through."
"But if his grandmother hadn't gotten sick, I did have an arrangement in the works," he admitted.
My interest was piqued. "What kind of arrangement?"
"Turns out Roger had a weakness for high-priced call girls."
I scowled. "I don't even want to know how you knew that." I chewed on my lip, taking in this new information. It wasn't as if any of my previous relationships had really been ones that I’d wanted to continue. Every man I'd been with before Donovan had just been a placeholder, someone to fill my time while I waited and wondered if anyone could ever truly know and love me.
And all along there had been someone.
He just never bothered to tell me, instead choosing to watch quietly from the wings.
It took another hour to finish going through the rest of the folder. Close to the end, there were papers that showed he’d paid to move me to New York, that he’d negotiated the extra benefits in my employee contract. I was becoming numb to it by this point. I wasn’t shocked anymore by new discoveries. I was overwhelmed, but no longer surprised.
Then I reached the final slim stack of papers that addressed Theodore Sheridan. I'd saved them for last on purpose. There was a narrative I had created about these documents, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to find out my story wasn't true.
I slid the pile across the table to Donovan. "Tell me about these."
"Those are the court papers for the trial against Theo Sheridan,” Donovan said, gliding the pages right back to me. “He’s currently serving time in a prison in upstate New York. He was sentenced to seven years. He's got four left."
A mystery that had been unsolved since college found its answer.
"You framed him at Harvard." It was an accusation, but it didn’t carry judgment.
After Theo had assaulted me, he’d been arrested for possession of drugs with intent to sell. He’d had to drop out that semester. I'd never found out what had happened after that, though I’d searched online from Denver. I'd always had a feeling that Theo’s arrest seemed too convenient. Too easy. But I hadn’t ever really thought Donovan was involved.
"Those charges didn't stick," Donovan said dismissively, confirming my suspicion by not denying it.
"And so you set him up for a sexual assault charge seven years later instead?" I couldn't hide the hostility in my voice. I appreciated the intent. It was a sweet gesture, noble even. Of course he’d done it as revenge for me. But I had serious problems with sending a man to jail on trumped-up charges. I told him so.
Donovan tilted his head and stared at me with a strange expression on his face. "Those weren't trumped-up charges," he said slowly. "Theodore Sheridan raped Liz Stein."
And that was exactly what I didn't want to know.
"No," I said, shaking my head back and forth vehemently. I didn't want to believe it. I grasped for other possibilities. "You found someone, paid someone to say these things. For me. To get him back for what he did to me."