Chapter 34
Carey
I CAME BAC k home to an empty apartment. I wanted to be mad. In fact, I was mad for a few days. Drinking myself blind, throwing things in the apartment. Angry at my staff. Angry at her. How could she make love to me like that, only to leave me? This was her game, I thought. But getting angry wasn't enough to fill the void in my heart. After I calmed down, I called her. She didn't respond. I sent her texts. The first ones were harsh. I might have called her a bitch in one. The later ones were pleading, asking her to come back. I called again. She didn't answer. Then her number became unavailable. She had blocked me.
I threw myself into my work, hoping to forget about her, but it was futile. She would pop in my head whenever I was in boring meetings. I would hear a woman laugh and think it's her. Someone mentioned risotto the other day and my thoughts immediately went to that time, Thalia and I burned some.
It was getting hard to continue like this when Harrison called me asking for a meeting regarding divorce proceedings. I had forgotten about that. Harrison came into my office later that afternoon.
"What have you got?" I asked him as soon as he sat down.
"I did a little digging into your soon to be ex wife and her finances."
I sighed. I wasn't sure I wanted to do this. "Yeah?"
"First of, that's quite a generous allowance you give her. Second, she has a million dollar debt she needs to pay off her business partner."
"Darcy?"
"That's probably why she asked for the million dollars. And besides that, there's nothing else. I still don't get why she wants no more from the prenup. She's going to be broke in a couple of years if the business doesn't take off, now that her allowance will run dry."
"What about the money my father gave her?"
Harrison frowned and opened the laptop he came in with. He typed a few words and said, "I don't see anything that went from or to your father."
"Your PI must be shit, then. I know for a fact she got money from my father when she agreed to marry me."
Harrison raised his eyebrows, but said nothing else. He typed a few more times and then said, "Well, her mother did get her healthcare bills paid. The family was racking up medical debt before… before you know, and your father paid all of it as well as for an experimental treatment that didn't work. I thought you knew."
"Medical debt?" I felt like the dumbest tool in the toolbox. The reason is before your eyes. And I refused to see it. Her mother had even stayed with us in her last days and I didn't even care to find out how she was paying for all of that expensive medical care. No insurance was that good. "Fuck. Her mother. It was her mother."
"Uh yeah. But other than that, there's no money flowing from your father to her."
"Shit Harrison. Thanks. You're fired."
Harrison blinked twice. "Uh… did I do something wrong?"
"I no longer need your representation." I got up from my chair and grabbed my jacket. "Halt the divorce proceedings."
"Oh?"
"I am no longer getting one." I searched around for my phone and found it on my desk. Immediately, I looked through my contacts for Darcy's number.
"Dude, are you sure?" Harrison remained seated as he watched me scramble from my desk to the door. "Never been so sure about anything in my life." My assistant was at her desk typing away when I told her I won't be in the office for the rest of the day. No matter what, I was going to find my wife.
Darcy wasn't answering my calls, but I was persistent. After the fifth call, she picked up. "What the fuck do you want?"
"Where is she, Darcy?"
" She doesn't want to talk to you. She's busy getting her back blown out by a stud." I gripped my phone so hard it could break. "Do you have her new address?"
"I do. But not going to give it to you."
"Darcy, you and I have known each other for a long time, and you know I don't play when it comes to getting what I want. So give me her address. Now."
"Who says she's there? She could be at work with me right now."
"Is that where she is?"
Darcy sighed. "No." It sounded like the truth. "But she doesn't want to talk to you, anyway."
"You know, I could still make your case difficult. I could easily rescind that favour and you'll be charged with grand larceny within an hour."
She scoffed. "And risk sending Thalia to jail. I don't think so."
Fuck. That was my only bluff, and she had seen right through it. I tried a different tack. "Can you please give me her address? I need to talk to her? I want to apologize."
"For fucking Gemma. Too late booboo."
"I did not sleep with Gemma!"
"And I am Santa Claus."
Damn, she was getting on my nerves. "What would it take for me to convince you?"
I spend the next thirty minutes riding around in a town car making a group call between Gemma, Darcy and I, explaining to her that Gemma is not and never has been my girlfriend. It took some cajoling, but Darcy eventually believed us. Satisfied, she gave me Thalia's address.
She was staying in a modest apartment not too far away from where I was. It was not shabby, but it wasn't the luxurious space I would have expected. As though she's getting accustomed to no longer living with money. I thought the concierge was going to turn me away, but Thalia agreed to buzz me up, and that gave me hope. That hope was soon dashed when hunky Jack came out of her apartment while I was coming out of the elevator.
She getting her back blown out by a stud. I almost kicked him in the shins until I saw Thalia standing by the door, her arms wrapped around herself. My heart melted. I passed Jack, jostling him just a little as I went to my wife.
"What are you doing here?"
I glared at her, dumbfounded. She looked a little tired. Her eye sockets were hallow and her face was frail. Doesn't mean she still wasn't beautiful. My cock hardened at the sight of her legs clad in daisy dukes and a white t-shirt tied behind her back, exposing her midriff. Then my mind went to the man who had just come out of her apartment. My vision clouded as images of the two of them locked in a passionate embrace flooded my mind.
"Are you fucking Jack?" That wasn't what I wanted to say, but I blurted the first thing on my mind because I was too wrapped up in jealousy to think clearly.
She rolled her eyes and tightened her folded arms, pushing her cleavage up. That only made me harder. "Does it matter who I fuck? We're not together anymore."
"You left without a word. The Bardwells were worried."
That seemed to shake her a little as she bit her lip. "What did they say?" She leaned against the door frame, giving me enough space to enter her apartment."Don't worry, I gave them a sufficient explanation."
"Hey where are you going?"
The apartment was small. There were boxes all around and very little furniture. Only a beanbag, a single couch and a TV mounted on the wall. Were these her old things? The furniture looked worn, so she might not have bought it recently. I'm sure she had enough money to buy a decent set of house items to fill up a place as small as this.
"The deal went through, by the way."
She let out a sigh. "Good. Does that mean the divorce can go through?"
"You have enough money to afford a place better than this," I said, turning around to face her. She had closed the door and was leaning against it. "Why the sparse furnishings?"
"I told you, I am not taking anymore of Hawthorne money except what's owed to me."
"Ah yes, the one million dollars. And when you pay off, Darcy, what are you going to do?"
"I have a business now, you know. I can take care of myself. Are you going to tell me why you're here, or do I need to call building security?" She fished her phone out of her pocket and held it threateningly in her hand.
"My father didn't give you money, did he? He paid for your mother's medical bills. Is that the deal you made with him?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"You wanted to believe the worst of me. When I offered to tell you the night of our honeymoon, you dismissed me. And when my mother was living with us, you didn't even ask where I was getting the money for her care. You showed me you didn't care, so why bother changing the narrative? It's not as though you love me. Our marriage was a convenience, plain and simple."
"I would have understood. If you told me, I wouldn't have…"
"Treated me like I was a gnat you can easily ignore?"
"I've never ignored you."
She rolled her eyes.
"I know you don't believe me, but I was always aware of your presence. I know I have really fucked up things and I would like a chance to redo all of it. Go back to that time when we met again. Before it all went to shit." A smile formed on my lips, but it shattered when I saw how sad she looked.
"Don't you get it. There was never a good time. Even that was tainted. Your father is the one who sent me to you to seduce you. If it weren't for him, we would never have met again."
"Then that's the only good he's done in this world."
She sighed and threw her head back. When she faced me again, she was sadder than before. She looked drained. Like she's going through a rough time. I want to take her pain away. "If you don't have divorce papers, I don't want to talk to you."
"I don't want the divorce."
"You can't force me to stay with you." She raised her voice. She was getting angry. That is not how I wanted this to go at all, but I couldn't stop myself from twisting the knife.
"I can find ways to make it harder for you."
"This again?" She shrugged. "I don't care."
I was feeling desperate. Holding on to a withering rope. "Why are you leaving? Is it because of Jack? Is he your new boyfriend?"
"Oh god? I am not fucking Jack! I am not leaving because of him, but because of you! We have no real relationship! You don't love me! There's nothing between us!"
"That's not true."
"Do you love me?"
I couldn't answer. I've never loved anyone. The concept was a foreign idea to me. Something other people do. Lesser people fall in love, not me. I cared for her. I wanted to be with her. But love? I had no idea what it looked like.
She smirked, but she didn't look self-satisfied. She looked even sadder than before.