“What else? I’m sensing it escalated.”
“She’d bite me hard enough to mark. Slap my face and yank my hair. Pull knives on me. Sneak into my room while I was sleeping and cut my hair or pee on my bed so that I’d get the blame. That sort of thing.”
“You never told anyone?”
“At first, I wasn’t talking at all. Then when I was, well, she said I’d be sent away if I told anyone what was happening.” Sent to a children’s home where I’d be beaten, starved, and disallowed to have clothes.
“What made it all stop?”
I hesitated, flexing my fingers. “She and two of her friends …”
“What?” he pushed.
“They locked me in the trunk of Wyatt’s car. With her pet rat.” The latter might not have mattered so much if it hadn’t brought back memories of my life with my mother.
I swallowed hard, remembering how I’d begged them to let me out. They’d only laughed. “Melinda and Wyatt were at a party. Heather and her friends waited for the babysitter to fall asleep and then smuggled me out of the backdoor. They carried me to the driveway at the front of the house, shoved me in the trunk, and then left me there. I screamed and kicked, but no one heard me. Not until Melinda and Wyatt stumbled out of a cab at two in the morning, drunk.”
Dane spat a vicious curse. “Then what?”
“They sat me down and demanded to know what had happened. I told them … and everything else that had gone on just tumbled out of me. They were devastated. Shocked. Furious. They asked me if I wanted to leave, but I said no. They came down on Heather hard, and she never touched me again. They were never the same with her after that. They’d sometimes look at her like they didn’t know her.” I sighed. “So now you know.”
He kept watching me with those piercing eyes, holding himself unnaturally still. “Right now, the thing I want most is to make a few phone calls that will shatter her life until she has nothing,” he said, his voice low and loaded with anger. “But I made you a deal, and I’ll stick to it.” He went nose to nose with me. “Don’t threaten to walk out on me again, Vienna. Ever.” Before I could say another word, he stalked out of the room.
I let out a shaky breath, feeling as though I’d dodged a bullet. For a minute there, I hadn’t thought I’d be able to talk him down. But he’d relented when I made him a deal—I’d have to remember that. I might need to utilize such a tactic if we ever again found ourselves clashing over something. Which we would, because he was a pain in my ass.
Returning to the plush chair, I plopped into it. The man was going to drive me to drink at some point—I was sure of it.
Standing at my office desk a few days later, I flashed a falsely apologetic smile at Hope and Travis. “Sorry, Dane’s not here; he’s making his rounds to other departments.”
He liked to catch up with the teams, be visible, and keep his finger on the pulse of whatever was happening within the company. I just hoped he wasn’t firing people left, right, and center. He’d been in a major funk since our little argument in the library. Today, however, he was in a seriously foul mood, and his level of tolerance was currently paper-thin.
I’d asked if he wanted to talk about whatever was bothering him but, of course, he’d blown me off—and rather rudely, at which point I’d flipped him off and told him to go jump up his ass. “He’ll probably be another half hour or so,” I added.
“That’s okay,” said Travis, scratching his chin. “We really wanted to speak to you, actually.”
Lord, deliver me. “You’ve come to apologize for calling me a liar?” I doubted it.
His brow furrowed. “A liar?”
“Yup.”
“When did I accuse you of being a liar?”
“When Dane confronted you about cornering me outside my old apartment,” I said, sounding as bored as I felt. “You told him I lied about what got said and then you accused me of trying to drive a wedge between the two of you.”
Travis shook his head fast. “That’s bullshit. He and I argued, sure. He didn’t like that I’d told you certain things—Dane likes his secrets. But at no point did I call you a liar.”
“Whatever. If you’re not here to offer any apologies, why are you here?”
He exchanged a look with his wife and then said, “Last time you and I spoke, I warned you what Dane was like, Vienna. You obviously decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. I would have respected that and let it alone. But then you married him and …” Travis sighed. “It’s going to be hard for you to hear this, but we’re all in agreement that you deserve to know.”
“All?” I echoed. “Who’s all?”
Hope lifted her chin. “Me, Travis, and Jen. We talked about it, and we all decided that you needed to hear this.”
Oh, this was going to be good. I folded my arms across my chest. “Okay. What is it that I so badly need to hear?”
“Dane … he’s using you, Vienna,” said Travis.
I raised a brow. “Using me?”
“Our uncle set up a trust fund for each of us. We have to be married before we can access it, and we have to do that before we turn thirty-eight. Otherwise, no trust fund.”
I let out a low whistle. “Apparently Hugh was a man who was a big believer in marriage.”
Travis snickered. “Not quite. He hadn’t experienced it for himself, but he wanted to ensure that we all did. He meant well, really. But Dane’s never seen it that way. He’s always been adamant that he’d never get married; that he’d never be ‘brought to heel by a dead man.’ You know yourself that he’s a huge commitment-phobe. Funny how that’s abruptly changed, isn’t it?”
I pursed my lips. “I wouldn’t say he was ever a commitment-phobe. He just didn’t seem interested in a relationship.”
“Until now,” said Hope. “All of a sudden, after four years of knowing you, he’s eloping with you. And it just so happens that he’s doing so at the age of thirty-seven.”
I cocked my head. “You think he married me purely so he can access his trust fund?”
She nodded. “I’m sorry, Vienna, but yes, I do. You don’t think it’s strange how he so abruptly came around to the idea of marriage? Look at how everything moved so quickly between you. I’m not saying he feels nothing for you, just that he didn’t marry you for the right reason.”
“He obviously didn’t mention the trust fund to you,” said Travis. “Don’t you wonder why?”
I sighed. “Look—”
“He needs to be married to you for an entire year before he can touch it.” Travis planted his hands on my desk. “That’s all you’ll have with him. A year. After that, you’ll have nothing. I mean, if you two divorce, there’s no way you’ll keep working here, is there? No. That means you’ll be out of a job. You’ll also lose your home. And where are you going to go? You’ve already given up your apartment for him.”
Hope nodded. “Oh, sure, you’ve probably signed a prenup that states you’ll get a nice cushy settlement in the event of a divorce. But I’ll bet he put a ‘wife gets nothing if she cheats’ clause in there. He’ll manufacture some ‘evidence’ that you had an affair, ensuring you don’t get a single cent of his money when you divorce.”