I checked my watch. It was still a few minutes before Max would arrive. I thanked God he hadn’t shown up while my father was here. My father’s revelations made it even more important that Max and I follow through on the annulment. I went to my office and got my laptop, bringing it to the living room. I set it on the coffee table and pulled up the annulment forms I needed from the State of Nevada’s website.
My heart tore in two as I realized that I had to let Max go. I couldn’t ask for a relationship knowing what my father planned for him.
Filling out the forms was difficult as my eyes were filled with tears, but it had to be done. When I finished, I printed them out. I retrieved them from the printer in my office and brought them back to the living room. Checking my watch again, I saw that Max was ten minutes late. For a moment, I worried that he might have overheard the conversation. I shook that thought away. That was just my fear talking. If Max had overheard, he’d have confronted my father. Right?
CHAPTERNINETEEN
Max
"You will not annul the marriage. It took a lot of finagling and money to get you two married. You are going to stick to the plan. Now if you want to divorce him and get a settlement and alimony, we can consider that. Do you hear me, Amelia? We stick to the plan."
I was a fucking idiot. There was a reason I’d stayed away from relationships, but my dick had clouded my judgment. No, not my dick, my heart. Right now, standing outside Amelia’s front door, said heart was blown to smithereens. I'd fallen for Amelia's sweetness and humor, her intelligence, and her dedication to her business. But it was all a fucking lie.
After hearing her and her father talk about their plan to get my money, I left without letting her know I was there. What was the point? I'd come to see if maybe she felt the way I did and whether we had the possibility of pursuing a relationship. But she didn’t feel anything for me except that I was dumb enough to fall for her scam.
I used my phone app to order another car to take me back to the airport. Luckily, one was close by, and in a few minutes, I was in the backseat telling myself that I'd dodged a bullet. What if I hadn't heard her and her father talking and I had been able to make my pitch? Clearly, she would have accepted it. How far would things between us have gone before I realized it was all a lie? Would we be married for real? Would we have kids?
My chest hurt and my stomach felt sick. When had the scam started? Had she targeted me at the airport when she tried to take my car? I couldn’t figure out how it was possible that she knew I'd be there. My initial plans had been to fly home to New York that day. So, more likely, after spending a day and a night together, she saw an opportunity. She made comments about her father not being a good man, but clearly, they were a lot alike as she had roped him into her little scheme.
I remembered waking up the morning we discovered we were married, and there'd been a moment when I’d thought she had set the whole thing up. She was an Academy Award-winning-level actress because I’d dismissed that idea based on her reaction. She was even going along with the annulment, but now I could see the speed bumps she'd put in the way to avoid ending the marriage. She'd claimed being drunk wasn't reason enough to prove incapacitation to get an annulment. Her thinking must've been that I would want to avoid a divorce, or maybe it was just to give her more time to make me fall for her, and like a fucking idiot, I did. I fell for her hook, line, and sinker. And now I was stuck with a wife who would make sure that she got money from me.
As I arrived back at the airport, I wondered how she would've played it had I followed through and completed the annulment paperwork. Maybe she knew her plan was working, that I was dragging my feet because of my growing feelings for her. Jesus, I was stupid.
I couldn’t find a flight leaving Las Vegas to New York soon enough, so I splurged and arranged for a charter. It was nearly nine p.m. when the plane's wheels left the ground heading east. I had the time it was going to take to get to the East Coast to get my shit together. Maybe it was time that I hired a lawyer to deal with this annulment. Clearly, I needed to do something to protect my assets. It wasn't just my personal money I needed to protect, but my business with Sam. How could I have been so fucking stupid?
It was six a.m. on Christmas Eve when I landed in New York. I ordered a car and had it take me to my apartment where I closed myself in, grabbing a bottle of scotch and taking it to the living room, where I drank directly from the bottle. I might've drunk the whole thing, except if I died of alcohol poisoning, Amelia and her father would probably try to claim some inheritance.
Feeling fairly well sloshed, I set the bottle on the coffee table and then spread out on the couch to sleep. My parents expected me for dinner and to stay the night for Christmas, so I needed to rest. I didn't know how I was going to hide all this from them, but I sure as shit was going to try.
I woke to my phone ringing. My hand shot out to the coffee table, knocking over the scotch bottle as I picked up my phone. My first thought was Amelia.Oh, that's right, Amelia used me and broke my heart.
Looking at the caller ID, it was my mother.
"Hello?" I winced at the sound of my voice. It was the sound of a man who'd been drowning his sorrows in scotch.
"Max? Are you okay, sweetheart?"
I was a grown ass man, but the sound of my mother's loving voice filled my chest with emotion. I was six years old again, having fallen, and she was there to comfort me. My eyes blurred with tears, and I cursed that I had allowed Amelia to bring me to this.
I cleared my throat. "Yeah, Mom. I'm fine."
"You don't sound fine."
I levered up, swinging my feet onto the floor and using my thumb and forefinger to dig the booze and sleep out of my eyes. "I was just resting for a minute. What's up?"
"We were expecting that you would be here by now. Dinner's going to be ready in a little less than an hour. Are you going to be able to make it?"
I looked at my watch, noting that it was five thirty. Shit. I slept all day. "Yeah. I'm on my way out the door."
"Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yes, Mom, I'm fine. I'll be there in thirty." I ended the call before she could continue to ask me if I was okay. At six years old, I was open to telling her all my troubles, but I didn't want to tell her about Amelia and falling for her scam. I was humiliated enough with just me knowing.
I stripped and took the quickest shower in history, then dressed in black jeans and a red shirt. It was about as festive as I was going to get.
Since I'd already been packed for my trip to Las Vegas, I grabbed that bag to stay with my parents for the night. I grabbed another bag, stuffing all the presents I had ordered and paid to have wrapped into it. Then I ordered another car to take me over to my parents’ house.
During the ride over, I checked my phone like the idiot I was to see if Amelia had called or texted. After all, I'd ditched our date. I'd stood her up. But there were no messages from her, which only validated what I had learned yesterday. Any normal woman would have tried to reach out to me to make sure I was okay or find out why I hadn't shown up. But she hadn't. Did she realize that I discovered her scam?