2. Stefan
TWO
Stefan
A s dinner wound down, the kids cried and begged to stay longer because they hadn’t used the chocolate fountain enough or seen all the fish in the koi pond. I badly wanted to ask Bella not to cry because we would return on her birthday. Except, I couldn’t make such promises.
Kai wasn’t bothered by their pleas. He left the table to talk the restaurant into staying open longer and soothed Bella with the information. She was overjoyed and threw her arms around his neck. Then he proceeded to faux wrestle with the twins as they grabbed onto his legs.
The twins and Bella had been wary of outsiders since our parents’ death. It wasn’t a hyperbole. Once, Bella screamed for two minutes because she thought the Amazon delivery man posed the risk of stranger danger. Yet, Kai had won them over, and they acted familiar around him. With the power of money, he had erased their past trauma. What child would have crippling anxiety in a setting this soothing?
Amelie was relaxed as well. With a glass of wine in hand and her head leaning back, she listened to the background music. When was the last time my wife had a few minutes to unwind with fine wine?
I was the only one on edge.
I shouldn’t have brought my family here and teased them with an experience I couldn’t replicate. The thought left me depressed and feeling like a failure. I resented my responsibilities, but what I resented most was my inability to give them everything their hearts desired.
When Bella insisted on taking Amelie to the tepee for story time, Kai strolled back in his perfect black suit and white smile. He seemed happy after his time with the children, entirely ignorant of what the end of tonight meant for me. It meant we would never see Kai Cavendish again or partake in his lavish lifestyle. There was no reason to reunite now that he had repaid my wife’s kindness.
Suddenly, it seemed crucial to forge a connection between us to remain in his world. I would be lying if I said this was just about providing my family luxury experiences. There was more to it. There was also my own desire to be at the center of this lifestyle. His lifestyle. One I could never be a part of once this dinner ended.
With determination, I rose from my seat to welcome him back to the table like he was royalty, which I supposed he was in my mind.
The server returned to the table to offer us a nightcap. I chose a cognac, while he opted for brandy. With Amelie tending to the kids, we were alone for the first time. Time was running out, and I needed to invest in his interests to be on his good side.
“You never told us what your unconventional plan was.”
“I’m glad you asked,” he said with a triumphant smirk as if all roads had led to this moment.
Why did it feel like he had set a trap, and I had walked right into it?
“My plan is to acquire a wife and a family.”
I laughed but zipped my lips upon noticing his grave expression. A man like him didn’t say things unless he was stone-cold serious.
“I’m at the point of my life where coming home to an empty house is… well, empty. Seeing your family tonight, I realized what my home is missing—a family.”
I frowned. “What do you mean by acquiring a family? Like falling in love, getting married, and starting one?”
“Marrying for love is outdated. There are other reasons to get married.”
It was a trap, I was sure of it, but I was desperate to connect with this man. “Sure. People marry for lots of reasons. Are you referring to an arranged marriage or a contractual one?”
“Neither. I’m thinking more of a desire-based marriage. Take the two of us, for instance. We both have something the other desires.”
I stilled, the glass of cognac inches from my lips. “I beg your pardon.”
“I did some digging into your life. It seems you’re in a pretty big financial hole.”
My blood ran cold. What the hell? “You had me investigated?” I asked incredulously.
“I had your whole family investigated,” he replied unapologetically. “Any good businessman would do their due diligence before diving into a venture. Wouldn’t you agree?”
My eyes narrowed. I had entered the lion’s den wholly unprepared. “What do I have that you could possibly want?”
“I told you, your wife and family.”
The glass in my hand dropped, but Kai caught it smoothly with his free hand before it hit the floor and shattered. The reflex told me he had predicted my reaction. Exactly how long had he been investigating me?
“Everything tonight was premeditated, wasn’t it?” I surmised. “You intentionally bumped into me at Amelie’s work. You invited us to dinner because you knew we had no other way of celebrating the twins’ birthday.”
He dropped the pretenses and disarmed me with his honesty. “Yes.”
Ice settled in my chest. “I think it’s time to call it a night.” I glanced at the tepee, hoping Amelie and the kids would come out.
“Tell me, Stefan,” he said calmly, ignoring my indignance. “Between picking up and dropping off the kids at school, soccer, after-school programs, birthday parties, and sleepovers, when was the last time you had an evening to yourself or came home to a clean house?”
An image of toys scattered around the living room popped into my mind, distracting me from making a snippy comeback. He had vetted us and was manipulating me with things that hit home. Back in the day, I used to be a neat freak. Since taking over the guardianship of my brothers and sister, I hadn’t come home to a clean kitchen. Clutter left me with anxiety and despondency, but there was nothing I could do about it. Kids made messes, and that was my life.
“Imagine if you had a nanny and a housekeeper to take care of those things. It would change your life.”
My silence told him he had struck gold.
He sat back on his chair and slowly sipped on the amber-colored liquid in his glass. “I’ve always been rich and never had to worry about such things,” he continued.
Obviously, he came from old money. Look at how he carried himself.
“However, it wasn’t until later in life that I became wealthy—and I’m talking unimaginable type of money.”
Was he still trying to daze me with his riches?
“After I became wealthy, everyone wanted to be my best friend. Long-lost relatives and old friends started reaching out for favors money couldn’t buy but status could. Suddenly, everyone had an agenda, and I got accustomed to keeping people at arm’s length.”
He lowered the glass and watched me. More like he was sizing me up.
“Until your wife, I had become pessimistic about humanity’s greed. She didn’t know who I was and still took care of me outside the scope of her job. She read to me, wrote for me when I couldn’t hold a pen, and even fed me. It was the first time I experienced genuine affection. It was addicting because it was rare.”
Dammit, Amelie. Why did you have to be so compassionate? Other patients had given her similar feedback, she went above and beyond her job description. “If you want a nurse, you can hire one on Care.com. Nurse and wife isn’t the same thing.”
“I’d say Amelie is an even better wife than she is a nurse. I can’t imagine it’s easy for a twenty-three-year-old to raise her husband’s brothers and sister, but she acts like a mother to them. Who wouldn’t want to acquire such a wife?”
The nerve of this man! “My wife isn’t for sale,” I said, barely keeping the ire out of my voice, and that was only because if I offended him, he might refuse to pay our portion of the bill. We couldn’t afford one item on the menu, let alone everything we consumed.
He sensed the shift in energy and my rising agitation. “No need to get offended. I’m not a lecherous person, as has been made clear by my Google searches. I have no interest in breaking up your family, and I wouldn’t want to. You clearly love each other very much, and Amelie would never leave you. No, Stefan, you don’t lack love in your life. If anything, you resent your family’s endless love because it obligates you to provide for them when you don’t have financial freedom. I don’t lack money. If anything, I have too much of it, and it poses a problem. Women approach me with dollar signs in their eyes or for what I can do for them. Authencity, like the one I experienced in Amelie’s care and with your family tonight, is impossible for someone of my stature to find. What if we reached an agreement where we both gain the things we lack and part ways with the things we have in excess?”
Kai had figured me out. He sensed my hunger for limitless resources and my resentment at feeling stuck. He teased me with things his world had to offer, and only after I was desperate to remain in it he used my vulnerability to proposition me.
The worst part? It was working. Rather than leave, I was hearing him out, and I hated myself for it.
My heart raced. “What exactly do you want?”
“I want a lively family like yours. I want a compassionate wife like yours. However, my demanding schedule makes it difficult to be dedicated to a full-time family. I can’t give up my work, but I’m tired of coming home to an empty house. Business is stressful enough without factoring in other people’s feelings. If I need to leave for Africa at the drop of a hat, I can’t be bothered with fighting my wife over the unprecedented business trip, and I wouldn’t have to if there was someone else to pick up the pieces. I’m not proposing to take your family away but rather add to it.”
I sat back in my chair. It finally dawned on me what he wanted. Kai Cavendish wanted to play house without the responsibilities of the real thing. He wasn’t asking to marry my wife, but rather marry into my family.
He was suggesting bigamy.
When you had Kai’s type of wealth, regular thrills became boring. He sought a bigger target for entertainment, exploiting our lives, problems, and desires to make a mockery of marriage.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Why not?” he asked boldly in the face of my disgust. “I want a wife and kids with flexible commitment; you want financial freedom. If I marry Amelie and become her second husband, we can live together like one big happy unit. In exchange for welcoming me into your family, you’ll receive a million dollars for every year we’re married, along with the endless benefits of being one of my family members. Vacation homes, jets, helicopters, country club memberships, the sky’s the limit.”
It was an audacious compliment.
He had appraised my wife and valued her at a million dollars a year. Had any man ever been so offended? Had any man ever been so flattered?
I shouldn't be surprised. In my humble opinion, Amelie was the most exceptional woman on earth. I pursued her relentlessly in high school. She refused to cave, citing I was the nominal jock who would break her heart. I didn’t back down, and once she agreed, I never let her go. If I had given anyone else an opening, they would have swooped in and done what I did—never let her go.
However, according to Kai, he had met another woman who was similarly exceptional.
“You can have any woman. Why did you target my wife; why not someone unmarried or the woman you spoke of earlier? You could’ve approached her husband with this plan.”
“Their financial situation wasn’t as dire as yours,” he replied without remorse.
Meaning her husband wasn’t desperate enough to listen to his preposterous scheme. It always came down to money, didn’t it? I had to suffer this humiliation because I didn’t have any, and he had it in abundance.
I picked up the drink he had salvaged. I should do something dramatic, like throw the glass against the wall. But Kai was acting suave amid this climactic point. His calmness made me feel like I was the childish one for wanting to throw a fit over his unsavory suggestion. How could he act like he was the gentleman while talking about fucking my wife?
“I’m offering us the best of both worlds,” he continued. “One where you only have to share rather than give anything up.”
“You mean, share my wife with you.”
He nodded. “I want the marriage to be real in every way, that includes an intimate relationship and legal paperwork. But it doesn’t mean anything has to change between the two of you. You’ll be divorced on paper but remain married in every other way. You can have children with her, too, and it’s at her discretion if she wants one with me.”
I sneered. “Oh. I didn’t realize Amelie even had a say in this.”
“Why wouldn’t she agree? Amelie has nothing to lose in this arrangement.”
“How about her dignity?” A pit in my stomach appeared at the image of them in bed.
The smile on his face stretched. “I have immense respect for your wife and won’t let her suffer any indignities. I’m not a promiscuous man and won’t stray from my marriage. So, diseases and other women will never be a concern. But if you’re referring to our intimate relationship, I’ll clarify. Yes, I want us to be a real couple and sleep in the same bed, but sex will be consensual.”
“You’ll spend a million dollars a year to stay married to my wife, and she doesn’t have to sleep with you?”
“As long as she makes an honest effort in the marriage—spends a set number of nights with me, has meals together, accompanies me as my date, everything a wife does—I’m willing to wait.”
“What if she never changes her mind?”
“All good things require patience. But I won’t force her even if we’re incompatible in the bedroom. It’ll be at my discretion whether she made a genuine effort, and if I conclude she did her part to make the marriage work, you’ll still get paid for the year. I’m willing to put that in writing.”
His confession gave me pause. He was willing to put it in writing that he wouldn’t coerce her. With sex off the table, this was just about a rich man wanting to play house with us. That wasn’t so bad, was it?
Shit. Did I just entertain letting another man into our marriage? My invaluable love for Amelie suddenly felt cheap.
I desperately wanted the life he offered, but this cost was too high. I couldn’t sully our epic love story.
A humorless laugh came out of me. “You underestimate how much I love my wife. The reason I want financial freedom is to take care of her. What’s the point of money if I have to share Amelie’s love?”
“Without money, you won’t have Amelie’s love. She wants children of her own, but your dead-end job can barely support the three you have. A woman like her will find someone else to start a family with, someone financially secure. By then, my offer would be off the table, and you would’ve lost her anyway. All you would accomplish was depriving your family of a golden opportunity.”
Panic flared inside my rib cage. The thought had crossed my mind; one day, Amelie would tire of living paycheck to paycheck and return to her glamorous life with a man of equal stature. The possibility seemed more real now that he had said it out loud. For God’s sake, Kai Cavendish was willing to settle for being her second husband. Who was a better prospect than him?
“If you’re so confident she wants financial security, why did you approach me and not Amelie?” I asked.
“Because for things to transition smoothly, you must agree first, then help her consider the benefits.”
“Meaning, you want me to convince my wife to marry you.”
“Why wouldn’t you want me to? From every angle, you come out a winner,” he insisted. “Our marriage won’t cancel yours. Everything will remain the same between the two of you.”
I scoffed. “Except the sanctity of our marriage.”
He sighed as if explaining something elementary to an adult. “The sanctity of marriage is defined by those in the marriage and their values. Old-school Mormons still practice polygamy. Sister-wives work toward their shared goal of a big family and restore balance by dividing the household tasks. The sanctity of marriage isn’t lost on them. If anything, their devotion to family values, such as having a lot of children, is the foundation of their marriage.”
“What kind of marriage requires you to share your spouse?”
“The kind that places more importance on growing a family than monogamy. Similarly, our needs for financial freedom and a family are more important than monogamy. If women can come together for the sake of the big picture, why is it so unthinkable for men to do the same?”
“You’re a feminist now?”
“I’m a realist. I’m merely providing you with a different definition of the sanctity of marriage. I heard Amelie keeps a grueling work schedule and passed out a few months ago after an eighteen-hour shift. Can you guarantee it won’t happen again and next time it won’t be worse? She’d never suffer if we became a family. Are you willing to take that away from her so that you can hold on to monogamy? Prioritizing your desire not to share her isn’t honoring the sanctity of marriage. It’s breaking it.”
I wanted to rise from my chair, but something kept me seated. He was a lunatic, yet, somehow, he made sense. That was the problem. His knack for simplifying complicated matters was difficult to deny. There was a morsel of logic in the ethical dilemma he had posed.
Which upheld the sanctity of marriage better: monogamy or prioritizing my wife’s health?
“Consider my offer a transactional one based on our shared needs. I’ll have a loving family to come home to without sacrificing my fast-paced work life. Amelie won’t have to work graveyard shifts. The kids can attend private schools, and I’ll set up trust funds for them. You can leave your job and travel the world for photography. When was the last time you picked up a camera?”
My chest constricted. I put away my camera a long time ago and my dreams along with it. The sore topic drained my remaining energy.
“I love her,” I said weakly, with barely any force behind my words. “And she loves me, too, more than anything. Amelie would never agree to such a thing.”
“Perhaps she’s in love right now, but what happens after the novelty wears off?” he asked without faltering at the declaration of my undying love. “You’re not a fool; you saw how men reacted when she walked through the door tonight. Do you think she’s lacking in options?”
“Doesn’t mean she’ll agree to a poly marriage.”
He shrugged. “The only way to find out is by bringing it up to her, though I’ll rely on you to convince her.”
“Why me?”
“Because you’ll do anything to keep Amelie. But you can’t afford to start a family with her until your siblings are adults. She’ll get fed up and leave you for a stable man before she misses her window to be a mother altogether. What’s worse, sharing her or not having her at all?”
Kai had me wavering, and it showed, judging by the satisfaction on his face. Gun to my head, I would share Amelie rather than lose her altogether. I couldn’t live without her.
Just like that, the unimaginable idea had become imaginable.
“Everyone’s fate rests in your decision, so choose wisely,” Kai pressed. He sensed I was considering his offer, weighing it against what I would be giving up. Was I okay with another man becoming my wife’s legal husband as long as I got to keep her, too?
Despite my best efforts, Kai had found the cracks in my marriage, and I was an accomplice to his sordid proposal because I chose to hear him out. Instead of punching him for insulting my marriage, I made the mistake of maintaining my poise. The hesitation gave away my insecurities, and he wasted no time exploiting them.
He was more calculating than I had imagined. He had set me up from the start: the run-in at the hospital, the dinner invitation, the kids’ section, hitting my sore spots. He even knew Bella would cling to Amelie toward the end of the night, giving him an opening for this conversation.
The suave, gentlemanly act was part of the trap, too. He knew I didn’t come from an affluent family. How he normalized the unsavory topic, I was convinced elites routinely discussed the monetary worth of other men’s wives and expected them to be civil about it. He preemptively subdued me by showing me how a ‘gentleman’ behaved, knowing that my desire to belong would compel me to mimic his demeanors.
I saw myself as inferior because of my lowly background and didn’t want him to think I was a savage. Despite everything, I was still fascinated with his life, which was unsettling. He had made me dance like a monkey.
I felt utterly insignificant because he made me waver with good points. Amelie was young. The novelty of our love hadn’t worn off, but it would when she realized we couldn’t start a family for twelve more years. She had endless options and would eventually leave me, and I was powerless to stop her.
Everyone’s fate rested in my hands. There were two roads ahead. With the easy one, our struggle would end tomorrow, and I would have peace of mind that my wife wouldn’t leave me. There was also the chaste path, where the only thing I would walk away with was my dignity.
I started to feel stifled, though the air conditioning was blasting at full speed. The clamminess and discomfort in my clothes made me want to rip them off. I felt weak and short of breath. Each inhale seemed like it could be my last, accompanied by chills, blurred vision, and trembling. I was shaking and tried to conceal it from him, but he was smiling because he had won.
I put up one last-ditch attempt to stop this from happening. “Just think about what you’re asking of me. You’re asking me to share the woman I love.”
“No,” he replied calmly. “I’m asking you to give the woman you love everything she deserves.”