The Forever Vow (The Forever #3)

1. DAMAGES

CHLOE

It was certainly not the letter I’d been hoping for. Hey Chloe, texted Elena, the madam who’d hired me. Bryce’s attorney hand-delivered a message this morning. You better read this ASAP.

I sighed as I re-read the attachment.

Dear Mrs. Windsor:

Your husband, Bryce Windsor, has retained us as counsel. I have attached a copy of your post-nuptial contract for your records.

Please be advised that pursuant to Section 72-F of your agreement, you are hereby in default.

Our client is exercising his right to demand specific performance of the contract terms within forty-eight (48) hours from today.

Failure to perform constitutes a breach on your part, which will result in our client seeking damages, up to and including punitive ones.

An associate from our office will be following up shortly.

Sincerely,

Jim Wright, Senior Partner

Kellogg, Kramer and Wright LLP

My phone buzzed—my attorney, Akira Zhang, was calling again. I’d already sent her to voicemail three times, but she didn’t give up easily. “Hey, Akira.”

“What the fuck , Chloe?” she hollered into my ear. “Jim Wright hand-delivered a letter to AccommoDating this morning! Do you know what he charges? Three thousand dollars an hour ! Elena said he freaking walked there! That’s a fifteen-hundred dollar walk.”

“So what?” I asked, careful to keep my voice down.

My younger brother, Noah, was asleep in the bed next to mine.

“Bryce can afford it.” My estranged husband, Bryce Windsor, was a billionaire.

His family was one of the wealthiest in the United States.

If anyone could afford three thousand dollars an hour, it was Bryce.

“You don’t get it. Bryce is coming after you hard.” She sounded agitated. “His law firm mentioned punitive damages. Do you know what that means?”

“No.”

“It means he’s going to sue you for everything you’ve got! And he’s going to sue Elena, AccommoDating, and probably me because he’s pissed and has piles of money to burn. It means you need to go back to the island and finish your contract within forty-eight hours—or you’re screwed.”

Bryce was my husband, but our marriage was hardly traditional. We’d signed a contract before we wed. He paid me money—lots of it—to be his bride. Things had been great for a while…until he fired me.

Bryce had offered me another contract for even more money if I agreed to return.

I accepted, but things had gone wrong. Terribly wrong.

So I’d left him, and now everything was a mess.

He was threatening to sue me, I was hiding in a crappy motel with my brother, and Akira Zhang was yelling at me to go back to my husband.

But I couldn’t. And I couldn’t tell her why.

I swallowed hard. “I thought you said you could help me,” I reminded her. “You said you could get me out of this if I wanted. Remember? Back when you were saying this was a messed-up arrangement?”

“Oh, I remember.” Akira’s voice rose. “Do you remember that I told you this contract was—if I recall my words correctly—some ‘seriously fucked-up shit?’”

“Yes.” If only I’d listened to her.

“Can you tell me that Bryce did something bad?” Her tone turned hopeful. “Because if he hurt you or Noah, we’re going to be the ones seeking damages. Just say the word.”

I sighed. “He didn’t do anything wrong.” Except make me fall in love with him.

“Then why won’t you go back?” she asked.

“I just… I don’t want to. I can’t.”

Akira groaned, then stress-counseled me about breach of contract, Jim Wright’s exorbitant hourly rate, and what might happen if I didn’t return to my marriage.

But I couldn’t follow her words. All I could think about was Bryce.

I shouldn’t blame him for what happened—for how my heart was broken.

Our wedding had been arranged. It was supposed to be contractual, strictly business.

He paid me to say ‘I do’ because he needed to be married in order to vest in his family business.

I’d eagerly taken the money. It was enough to change my life.

It would’ve kept my brother safe for years, maybe for forever.

I glanced over at Noah, who was still sleeping. He was not happy with me right now; I didn’t blame him. So many things had changed since I’d married Bryce—my poor brother must have whiplash. We’d gone from living in a crappy motel to residing in an ocean-front mansion and then back again.

Earlier that summer, Bryce had fired me.

Then he’d lured me back with the promise of even more money.

We hadn’t made it very far before we parted ways again.

This time around, I was the one who’d broken things off.

I’d run off with Noah in the middle of the night.

We’d left our clothes, our friends, and Noah’s new puppy.

I’d walked away from the money, too.

Not to mention my husband.

But in the end, it wasn’t the dollars that mattered. It wasn’t the promise of wealth that had undone me. It was Bryce himself. I’d fallen madly in love with him—not a smart thing for a girl from the wrong side of the tracks. And it was my love for him that forced me to break my contract.

“They’re going to back you into a wall,” Akira continued.

Boy, did I know how that felt.

Bryce’s father, Gene Windsor, was the reason I’d left.

He’d never approved of me. He wanted Bryce to marry his ex-girlfriend, Felicia Jones, an American heiress—or someone rich like her.

Not someone like me, from the crappy part of East Boston, trash who came from trash.

Gene had been very clear: he wanted me gone.

He’d threatened me, he’d threatened Noah, and he’d threatened Bryce’s position with the company if I didn’t do what he asked, which was leave for good.

Gene Windsor had ruined my chance at a happy life with the man I loved.

And now Bryce was about to sue me because he wanted me back. But Gene would hurt my brother and my husband if I returned. I couldn’t tell anyone the truth. Gene would come after me if I did.

So what the hell was I supposed to do?

“What if I say no?” I interrupted Akira’s tirade. “What happens if I refuse to go back?” I needed to make a decision quick.

“They’ll probably file an emergency motion seeking injunctive relief. The way the contract is set up, there would be a private arbitration process.”

“Can you say that in English, please?” Akira’s lawyer-speak was sometimes over my head.

She sighed. “Injunctive relief means they’ll ask an arbiter—a private judge—to make you perform the contract.”

“And what if I refuse?”

“They’ll ask that you pay contractual damages. And if you can’t pay them, you might have to go to jail.”

“Seriously?” I glanced over at my brother, who was blissfully asleep. If I went to jail, he would have no one except my father and my drunk-ass stepmother. Which was almost worse than no one...

“It’s a stretch to ask for jail time in a private matter, but we’re talking about a lot of money. And the Windsors have a crap-ton of political connections. They make donations. They have everything stacked in their favor.”

“So what do I do?”

Akira was quiet for a minute. Probably her brain was going into overdrive, making assessments and calculations. “You should meet with Jim Wright. Tell him that you’re willing to listen.”

“Can you be on the call, too?” I asked.

“Of course, Chloe. I’ll be with you every step of the way.” But she made it sound like we might be walking the plank. “I’ll reach out to him and set up a meeting. My guess is he’ll want to do it soon—Bryce is probably his biggest client.”

I sighed again. “Of course he is.”

“You might want to call Elena when you have a second,” Akira said. “She’s kind of freaking out.”

“Ugh.”

“Ugh is the nice word for it.” Akira hung up.

I sighed and texted Elena. Can you talk?

My phone immediately rang.

“Please tell me you’re going to make this right.” Elena blew out a deep breath. “I can’t deplete my girls’ college funds because of a lawsuit. Do you know how much college costs these days?”

“No, I don’t.” Continuing education wasn’t exactly part of my life plan after my mother died. “And I’m sorry for the trouble.”

“Listen, I know this has been a difficult assignment,” the madam said. “It was a big ask, having you marry someone sight-unseen and packing you off to live with him on a remote island. But the thing is, Chloe, you did it. You made it work. So why now? You still haven’t told me what happened.”

“It’s complicated.”

“I know you got drunk and got into a fight at Caroline Vale’s wedding. That’s not like you, Chloe. I thought you’d never had a drink.”

“I hadn’t. Not until that night. Then I had three shots of tequila.” I grimaced—it hadn’t been my finest hour.

“What were you thinking?” Elena sounded more like a mother than a madam. “And the fight with Felicia. The pictures are God-awful!”

I winced. The most famous shot was of me on top of Felicia Jones, straddling her, my teeth bared as I pulled her hair. I’d been wearing that revealing red dress, the one Gene Windsor had picked out. The fight had been his idea; he’d wanted me to publicly humiliate myself.

“I was upset,” I said. “She was still texting Bryce. She was nasty to me. So I got drunk and did something stupid. You can understand that, can’t you?”

“Sure,” Elena said, surprising me. “Sometimes you have to tell people to back off. But that doesn’t explain why you left. You must have real feelings for Bryce if she got under your skin. So why leave? And we both know you desperately need the money.”

“I left because I do have real feelings for him, Elena.” I sucked at lying, so it was best to stick as close to the truth as possible.

“That’s why. I embarrassed him. His family won’t ever accept me.

And now he’s going to be acting CEO of the company, and with his father’s trial coming up, Bryce is going to be all over the media. I can’t drag him down like that.”

“I understand what you’re saying, but there’s an important piece to this that you’re not acknowledging.”

“What’s that?”

“Him,” she said. “He wants you back, Chloe. There are always two people in a marriage, even one that’s arranged.

You can’t forget that he’s his own person and capable of making decisions for himself.

Don’t take that away from him. If you want to leave for you —because this isn’t what you want and you can’t do it anymore—fine.

Pay the damages, go to jail, drain my girls’ college funds, whatever.

I will support you if that’s what you really want.

But if you’re not going back because you think you know what’s best for him, check yourself. ”

She went quiet for a moment. “Bryce Windsor is his own man. So let him make his choice. And you need to make yours. Call me when you decide, okay? I’ll probably be busy moving my assets to an off-shore account, but I’ll always take your call.”

“Ha,” I said, but I had a sinking feeling she wasn’t kidding. “I’ll think about it, okay?”

“Okay, Chloe.”

But when she hung up, I knew the truth: nothing was okay.

Bryce Windsor is his own man. That was also the truth.

But where did that leave me?