Chapter 14 #2
“I’ve been better,” she says briskly, and I begin to sweat, despite the chill swirling through the lecture hall.
While she was present during my interviews, this is our first real conversation about something other than my future employment prospects.
“I’m sure you’re aware as to why I’m calling.
Your father has brought some things to my attention. ”
“My father?” I sound like I’ve swallowed rocks. “Judge Landry, before you say anything, I’d like to state I take complete responsibility for my regrettable actions, and I’m happy to make a statement to that effect. Whatever my father has said, I urge you to—”
“While I appreciate the sentiment, unfortunately, our role requires the utmost professionalism from its employees to maintain an impeccable reputation with the public. As such, I’ve decided it will be best for now to go our separate ways.
Your father is a man I highly respect. You’d do well to consult him on this matter. ”
“Right,” I whisper. The irony isn’t lost on me.
“Human resources will be in touch with the requisite paperwork.” There’s a pause, and she sighs. “It’s a pity. I thought you were going to be a fantastic asset.”
She hangs up before I can respond.
“Did you really slap Aiden O’Connor at your wedding reception?” one of my classmates demands a few minutes after I hang up from my call with Judge Landry. “That’s him, right? Lucky. I gotta tell you, smacking him around would have been the last thing on my mind if he were my husband.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I say, as I glance up to one of the girls who’d been smirking and giggling throughout the lecture, to find her pointing at the door—where O’Connor waits with a shoulder against the doorframe.
Seeing him again has my cheeks flaming. Because of what I’d done… and my call with Judge Landry. If I’d been thinking clearly and not on edge from my short, unproductive conversation with Devin, I wouldn’t have let my guard down in the first place.
Since the reception, I haven’t seen O’Connor for more than a few minutes in passing, by design. I couldn’t imagine looking at him, knowing the things he’d said to me had a thread of truth.
“Well?” Vanessa pushes. She’s not the first to stop me this week, wondering what happened to cause the pictures that had been splashed everywhere. “I’ve been dying to ask you about the videos.”
Ignoring her, I push my way past and resign myself to interacting with him. It should surprise me to find him here, but I’m not. He’s been trying to get me alone since the reception.
He looks out of place among the leggings and oversized T-shirts, and business-casual attire in his crisp suit. It should be against the law for a man to look this good.
The rest of the class filters by him, and he turns sideways to squeeze his way inside, his eyes on me the entire time.
If he notices my classmates giving him curious glances, he doesn’t pay them any mind.
Vanessa tries to catch his eye, but finally gives up when she realizes he won’t look away from me.
By the time I get to him, the girls who’d been gawking at me all week long are blessedly gone.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, glancing around him to confirm the hallway beyond is empty.
O’Connor rocks back on his heels. “What? I can’t want to see my wife?”
“Yeah, right.” I shift from foot to foot as I hold my bag in front of me like a shield. “Is something wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I’ve been trying to speak with you all week, but you’ve been hiding since the reception, so you left me no choice but to corner you here. I don’t mind, though. You know I like the chase.”
I run a hand through my hair. “Is there something wrong with you? If you need someone to annoy you, I have two I can recommend. They love nothing more than to follow people around.”
“But the only one I want to annoy me is you. Besides, we have unfinished business.”
“What unfinished business?” Naturally, my thoughts flash back to the night of the reception. The tension that had flared to life between us. That’s not what he’s talking about… right?
“I’d love to know where your thoughts went just now. The way you’re staring at me is interesting. But we don’t have time. If we don’t leave now, we’re going to be late.”
Without giving me an answer, he guides me out of the classroom with a proprietary hand on my lower back and keeps it there as we navigate through campus.
My mouth opens and closes, unsure whether I want to see him follow through or lodge a more vehement protest. The indecision lasts me most of the walk to his car and the drive across town.
On the sidewalk, he lifts an arm to guide me to a brick building with ivy growing up one side and a fancy sign trimmed in gold that reads Global Wealth Management in a discreet, understated way that I know, from experience, means expensive.
Why would he bring me here after what happened at the reception?
Any other man would be serving me with divorce papers, not giving me access to his fortune.
O’Connor leads me inside, and the beautiful assistant at the entrance offers a cheerful grin when she sees him. “Mr. O’Connor. Right on time. I’m Anne, and I’ll show you where you’re going. Mr. Bennett is waiting for you in the conference room. I’ll take you right back.”
“Now? You want to do this now?” I hiss at his back.
“No time like the present.”
“What kind of game are you playing? Have you seen what they’re saying about us? Why would you still want to—”
He looks over his shoulder with a killer smile. “Anne, if you’ll give us a minute, please.”
The assistant brushes her hand over hair the color of aged copper and glances curiously from O’Connor to me and back again. My brows furrow, and I do the same, to find O’Connor smiling at me like he has a secret. A thrill of anticipation rolls through me like I’ve touched a live wire.
“Of course, Mr. O’Connor. Mr. Bennett is waiting for you here when you’re ready.”
“I’m leaving.” Letting him bring me here was a mistake. If I hadn’t been so distracted by the call from Judge Landry, I never would have let him. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“Didn’t I tell you the first time we met, I’d never hurt you?”
I freeze.
“Didn’t I?” He moves closer, his warmth searing a path throughout my system. “You flinched. Thought I was going to hurt you. I may be a lot of things, Catriona, but I would never raise a hand to you.” A huffed breath ruffles my hair. “At least not in ways you wouldn’t like.”
“It pains me to say this, I hope you know that. But I shouldn’t have hit you. It was—”
“If I wanted your apologies, I’d ask for them. But if you really need my forgiveness, then go to this meeting with me, sign all the papers, and don’t put up a fuss. Otherwise…”
“Otherwise, what?”
“Otherwise, you’ll have to come up with another way to make it up to me.”
Fat chance that’s going to happen. I study his face, trying to read him, but his expression is carefully neutral.
At my silence, O’Connor takes my hand, and we move down a brightly lit hallway to a conference room in the middle of the floor surrounded by glass.
It reminds me of a giant fishbowl. A man with carefully cropped white hair and a groomed beard gets to his feet as Anne leads us into the room.
He’s rotund, with glasses and rosy-pink cheeks.
“Mr. Bennett, Mr. and Mrs. O’Connor are here.”
“O’Connor,” Mr. Bennett says in a booming voice. “Lovely to see you. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mrs. O’Connor. I’m sorry it’s taken so long. We normally don’t like to delay this business so long, but our schedules finally synced up.”
“No problem, David. You have everything we talked about?” O’Connor pulls out a chair for me, and I sit, my eyebrows still raised in astonishment.
He takes the seat next to me, across from Mr. Bennett, and places a proprietary hand on my thigh underneath the table.
I try to discreetly shrug away from his touch, but he resists, clamping down on the muscle as he focuses on whatever paperwork Mr. Bennett slides in front of him.
“Standard contracts we’ve discussed. Life insurance. Wills. Living will. Investment and brokerage accounts. Trusts, etcetera.”
“Excellent.”
“Your lawyer has already gone over everything and sent his approval, Mrs. O’Connor. If it all looks agreeable to you, we’ll just need your signatures on the lines we’ve flagged.”
“Right,” I whisper.
Mr. Bennett clears his throat. “We’ll just need your signature next to Mr. O’Connor’s, please. It’s marked with the tabs.” He pushes a sheaf of papers across the glossy surface of the table to me.
“O-of course,” I stammer. “Shouldn’t we discuss this some more? It seems—” My gaze flicks around the room, but Anne has made a quiet retreat, and Mr. Bennett is arranging the paperwork for me to sign. No one is listening to me.
I put pen to paper.
O’Connor’s hand tightens. Slips higher. I try to push it off, to no avail.
As I go through the paperwork, Mr. Bennett places account summaries and investment plans in front of me, as well as others I don’t fully comprehend.
But the number of zeros on the statement lines makes things pretty fucking transparent.
I nearly swallow my tongue. Aiden’s hand tightens again.
I sign my name. This process repeats several times until we get through the impressive stack.
In the end, I’ve been added as a beneficiary to his retirement and investment accounts, and I've been made a secondary account holder on all his (and there are many) banking accounts. Even if we get divorced, I’ll be a rich woman. Vastly, vastly rich. Even without my mother’s inheritance.
“That’ll be it then,” Mr. Bennett says when all is done.
My hands are numb, and there’s a ringing in my ears that won’t quite go away.
This… this entangles us in a way more permanent than marriage.
Money is sticky. Messy. It can ruin you.
I could take everything from him, yet he’s… giving it to me. It doesn’t make sense.
As I’m puzzling through it, O’Connor finally lets go of my thigh to push to his feet and clasp Mr. Bennett’s hand in a firm handshake. They exchange slaps on the back and small talk while I have a mini panic attack about what I’ve just done.
“Of course, take all the time you need,” Mr. Bennett is saying when I tune back in. He nods at me with a congenial smile before pushing away from the table and leaving.
I flick my gaze around the fishbowl conference room, but no one seems to pay any attention to us even though there are open office doors and cubicles less than ten feet away. My heart beats a frantic rhythm in my throat, chest, and ears.
“I shouldn’t let you do this,” I say on a shuddering breath.
“Let me?” he scoffs. “Are you going to stop me?”
“Yes. This is insane. You’re insane. We’ve only been married for a few days.”
“Almost two weeks.”
I roll my eyes, ignoring the way my cheeks heat.
Has he been counting? “Fine, two weeks, but that doesn’t help your case.
You don’t know me well enough to trust me with this.
I can’t in good conscience agree to taking half of your money.
O’Connor, you’re a billionaire. That’s a lot of fucking money. ”
“I can make more, pet. Besides, I like the thought of you wearing things I’ve bought for you. Of you flaunting my money in your father’s face. If it helps, you can think of it that way.”
My breath catches in my throat. “I don’t—”
“You don’t have to worry about it. I know what I’m doing.”
“You can have me added to your accounts all you want, but it doesn’t mean anything,” I reason.
“Of course not. But you’re welcome to use it. Go on a shopping spree. Donate it to your favorite charities. Renovate the estate or buy another one. Blow it at the tables.”
“Maybe I’ll donate it all.” I try to sound confident, but I’m certain he can hear the way my voice quavers.
“Do it,” he insists. “Which charity? Should I have Mara show you to her favorite designers? I’m sure she’d love to indulge you.”
“I’m a little afraid of Mara, if we’re being honest. When she helped with my dress for the reception, she told me she’d kill me if I fucked things up for you.”
A smile tugs at O’Connor’s lips. “Trust me, that’s practically her saying she loves you.”
“Your friends are strange.”
“So we’ll start with charities. We're organizing a charity gala. Why don’t you give a generous donation in our name?”
“A gala?”
He nods, relaxing into a wide-limbed sprawl. “Plated, black-tie, you know.”
“All too well.”
“It would be a great opportunity to clear up our image after the reception.”
Wincing, I say, “Right. Of course.”
“I’m going to have to spoil you like this more often. It’s worth giving away my fortune to see you this speechless.”
I narrow my eyes to slits. “Don’t get used to it.
Anyone would be shocked by being offered that amount of money.
But I get to keep my mom’s inheritance, not that it would mean anything to you.
And everything I make on my own.” It makes me feel greedy, but while he may be eager to give away everything he owns, I feel like I need to hold on to it with everything I have.
“Whatever’s yours remains yours. I would never take it from you.” He leans close and palms my hair, his hand coming to rest on my shoulder. “So you’re just going to have to deal with receiving for now.”
“What about what my father owes Cian?”
A sad smile. “I told you I’ve taken care of it.”
“I should slap you more often. You aren’t planning to do anything dangerous, are you?
Out of the norm, I mean? This isn’t a dying-wish situation, is it?
” The thought grabs me by the throat. Has Cian said something?
Done something? It hasn’t occurred to me until this moment that there may be men out there who want to do to O’Connor what he does to others. Christ, what have I gotten myself into?
“No, Catriona,” he says, the words colored by a smile, which he presses into my hair. It shocks me so much that I don’t react, and then it’s over before I can. “Nothing out of the usual, anyway.”
“Screw law school, I should have just become a findomme.”
He tilts his head. “A what?”
“A findomme. Financial dominatrix. A woman who dominates men for money.”
Shoving to his feet, he clenches, unclenches his jaw again. “Let’s get out of here.”