“We don’t have to fail,” she answered.
I laughed almost maniacally. “Oh but we do. Because no way in hell would I ever allow you to get your wish. I won’t marry you, Bellamy. I won’t ever marry someone who wants nothing more from me than my money.”
“I don’t want you for your—”
“But you do,” I interrupted. “And no matter what, I refuse to be used.”
I watched tears fall down her cheeks, and there was still an almost consuming need to wipe them from her cheeks and pull her into my arms. I wanted to smell the floral essence from her hair as I kissed her worries away. I wanted to—
Fuck that.
“Don’t cry, Bellamy. You’re a beautiful woman and will be able to land some other poor fool who will be your sugar daddy.”
“Please don’t be mean,” she said in barely a whisper. “And that’s not what I want.”
The thought of her being with another man was more mean to me than it was to her. It made me physically ill, and I considered throwing up the whiskey I just drank in hopes of getting rid of this ball of tension in my gut.
Hating that I could feel my heartbeat in my temples and worried I might say or do something I’d regret, I stormed to the door to leave.
“Emmett, please don’t go. Can we talk this out?”
I looked over my shoulder. “I really thought you were different, Bellamy. Thank you for finally opening my eyes tonight.”
17
BELLAMY
Obviously, it was a terrible secret, and terrible for it to come out that way, but if he would have just let me explain….
Or maybe there was no explaining it away. The truth was I’d gone back and forth about what I was going to ask for at the end of the Trial. Sometimes, I thought I’d be bolder and ask just for the money, and Emmett would never have to know about the other. Things seemed to be going so well between us naturally that I… I hadn’t wanted to think about the end. That was what I did, right? Live in the moment so hard I could pretend I wasn’t constantly just dancing right on the knife’s edge of collapse? Ignoring tomorrow was a way of life for me.
I spent the night crying and pacing and waiting for Emmett to come back, and then just after dawn, there was a knock at the door. My heart leapt. Was it Emmett, finally ready to talk to me? We’d had fights before, and surely if he’d just….
But when I rushed to the door and yanked it open, it was only Mrs. H on the other side, with a breakfast tray in her hands. “Oh. It’s you.” My shoulders slumped, and I turned away from her.
“Well, I won’t take that as an insult, considering all I heard happened in the ballroom last night. She set the breakfast service on a side table. “Come here, dearie. Do you need a hug?”
My first instinct was to lash out. No, I didn’t need a fucking hug! I didn’t need anything from anybody!
But then I looked toward the older woman with the kind laugh lines on her face and couldn’t hold back. I went forward and collapsed into her arms. She was warm and soft, and dammit, she gave great hugs.
“There, there, dearie, it’ll be all right in the end,” she said, patting my back.
She was so nice and motherly.
Motherly in a way my own mother had never been.
I broke down sobbing into her overlarge bosom, and she held me closer still. “That’s right, lassie. Let it out. Let it all out.”
So I did. I cried and cried, and once I was all cried out, I slumped back from her and collapsed down on the bed, curling up sideways with a pillow to my chest. Mrs. H sat down beside me and rubbed my back.
“How are you so good at this?” I asked. “Do you have kids?”
A slightly sad look crossed her face. “None of my own. But the members’ children have grown up around the Oleander. I feel like I’ve had a hand in raising so many of these boys.”
I swiped at my eyes. “So why don’t you hate me? Trying to trap one of them into marrying me?”
Mrs. H looked down at me, pulling her hand away from my back. “Well, I had my suspicions in the beginning; I won’t deny it. I’m protective of my boys, especially knowing what your ask was.” She shook her head. “But then I watched the two of you together. And I have to say, that boy’s usually so serious he’s like a little old man. Except when you’re around. He lights up and acts his age. He remembers there’s more to life than work and trying so hard to be accepted into certain realms of society. He remembers that he deserves to have joy and companionship.”