Chapter Seventy-Two
Seventy-Two
From Mary and Quaddra’s engagement back in Salzburg, things moved fast – very fast, actually – and it was Quaddra who pushed for a speedy wedding.
His argument was simple – since Mary had said yes, why wait?
What would they be waiting for, anyway? Neither of them wanted a big party, so there was no need to hire a wedding planner or go through months of preparation.
Neither of them was religious, so a church wedding, where they’d have to wait months for a slot at the right church and have to go through countless hours of rehearsals, was also out of the equation.
All they really needed to do was invite the few friends that they wanted to invite, book a date with a justice of the peace, and get married… no muss, no fuss.
Mary didn’t argue with Quaddra’s logic. In truth, the faster that they got married, the faster she could put the rest of her plan into action.
There was only one thing that she needed to do first – sign a prenuptial agreement – and Mary had been the one who had suggested it, on the same night that they got engaged.
‘I love you, honey,’ Mary said, once they got back to their hotel after they got engaged on Markartsteg Bridge. ‘So, so much… and I would marry you tomorrow, if that’s what you wanted… but I’ll only do so if I sign a pre-nuptial agreement.’
Quaddra truly never saw that coming. ‘What? Why?’
‘Exactly because of the reason I just told you,’ Mary explained. ‘I love you, and that’s the reason why I’m going to marry you.’
‘Baby, I know that.’
‘I know you do, but every single one of your friends think that I’m with you because you’re rich.’
‘And since when do I ever care for what others might think, honey,’ Quaddra came back.
‘It’s not about you caring or not for what others might think, honey.
I know that you don’t. This is about the future,’ Mary explained, her performance impeccable.
‘It’s about me not having to forever endure the looks that I know I’ll be getting from everyone, whenever I enter a room, with or without you, simply because I’m your wife.
It’s about the onslaught of criticism that’s about to come my way, as soon as they know we’re engaged.
It’s about all the jokes that people will make…
the behind-the-back comments…the digs.’ She lifted both hands at him.
‘I know that that’s not something personal.
People won’t be doing it just because it’s me, Mary Smith.
Whoever married you would get it. I know that you know that. It comes with being too successful.’
Quaddra did know that. Unless he married someone who was publicly known to be at least as wealthy as he was, there would always be talk of ‘gold digging’.
He gave Mary a sideways nod, accepting her argument. ‘You’re right. People are dicks.’
‘I am marrying you because I’m in love with you,’ Mary said again.
‘But we live in a paranoid society – one where couples actually require a court of law document to prove that they are in love and that they aren’t marrying each other for money.
’ She paused for effect. ‘Please, honey, it will make me feel so much more comfortable knowing that we have it.’
It took Quaddra a couple of seconds before he nodded back at Mary. ‘Sure, my love, if that’s what you want… I’ll get my lawyers to draft a prenup as soon as we’re back.’
‘That’s what I want.’ Mary smiled and kissed his lips again.
‘Then that’s what you’ll have.’
No, Mary wasn’t crazy. On the contrary, she knew exactly what she was doing.
She couldn’t give a flying fuck for what Quaddra’s friends thought of her. That was just what she told him as an excuse. In truth, the prenuptial agreement was to put his mind at ease.
Quaddra was a billionaire, and Mary was just someone who he’d met at an art exhibition.
Not matter what he told her, no matter how much in love he truly was with her, the worry of her being a ‘gold digger’, however small, would always be there, lurking in the background.
That, after all, had been the reason why Quaddra had developed the habit of giving strangers a false name in the first place – to try to avoid the opportunists.
He was a very intelligent man, he wouldn’t be so successful if he weren’t, and if there was one thing that success had taught him it was that no matter how well he thought he knew someone, he never really knew someone well enough – everyone had secrets.
And that had been why Mary had played the prenuptial agreement card.
A prenuptial agreement, especially one suggested by her, would go a long way towards easing Quaddra’s doubts about her real intentions.
This was Mary proving to Quaddra that she wasn’t after his money.
Yes, she knew that a prenuptial agreement would completely overrule the traditional 50/50 split that had become the base for negotiations in most divorce settlements in the USA.
In their particular case, she would make sure that their prenuptial agreement stipulated that should Mary and Quaddra ever get divorced, Mary would have no rights to any of Quaddra’s already existing fortune and none of his properties.
Whatever wealth he’d accumulated before their marriage would be completely out of her reach and there would be nothing that her lawyers would be able to do to overturn that…
but Mary wouldn’t just be divorcing Quaddra.
She would be suing him for criminal domestic violence, physical abuse, battering, and false imprisonment and captivity – and that was a criminal lawsuit, not a divorce settlement – in which case, a prenuptial agreement meant absolutely nothing.
Her lawyers would be requesting compensation for physical injuries and for all the psychological torment and trauma that he had caused her… and with that, they would be able to take everything – prenup or no prenup.