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Fifty-six
Henley
I’m sorry, Jeremy. I’m sorry, but I can’t marry you. I’m in love with Conner and I want to be with him.
That’s what I’m going to say.
I’m going to tell Jeremy no. That we’re only twenty-five. That we have time to find someone else. That we’ll order him a mail-order bride from some sketchy internet sites if we have to. We’ll find a way, but that my mind is made up.
I’m not marrying him.
I’m choosing Conner.
But what about your mother?
What about the money?
Five-hundred million dollars in a lot of motivation.
The money is for my mother.
When Jeremy made me the offer, half a billion dollars in exchange for five years of marriage, I imagined giving it to her, telling her it’s hers, that she can have it, as long as she lets me go.
She’s never had any of her own and even though she seems content to run through my stepfather’s money like water, I know it bothers her. Spencer is twenty years older than her, and he’s made no provisions for her in his will. When he dies, she’ll be left with nothing. His children hate her. They’ll toss her out on the street before his grave is even dug and she know it.
It’s the reason she took me with her.
Why she insisted on plastic surgery and dental work. Finishing school and dermatologists. Clothes that I hate and a life I don’t want.
So, she could pimp me out. Find someone with money who’d want to marry me.
I’m her insurance policy.
And I let her because she was all that I had. Because I chose her. Let her take everyone else away from me. Because without Conner, none of it mattered. Who I married was irrelevant because whoever it was, it wouldn’t be him.
I remember looking at myself in the mirror, face bruised and swollen from where the plastic surgeon took a chisel and mallet to my nose. Mouth aching from hours in the dental chair and I didn’t see myself. I didn’t even see the person I was letting her turn me into to.
I saw Conner, his brow furrowed. Irritated with me because I wasn’t listening. Wouldn’t believe him.
I like your face.
If he saw me, he’d be furious.
Hate me for letting her change me.
No matter how angry he’d be or how much he hated me, it wouldn’t be more than I hated myself.
Don’t be childish, Henley. Do you really think someone who looks like Conner Gilroy could love someone who looks like you?
I thought about killing myself more than I like to admit. Because I was a coward. I couldn’t stand up to my mother but the thought of being forced to live her life was too much to consider.
Jeremy saved me from that.
That’s why I owe him. Because whether he knows it or not, he saved my life. Even if the situation we’re in now was designed for his benefit, even if he’s selfish and spineless and shallow, Jeremy kept me afloat.
So, I was going to marry him.
I was going to take the money and give it to my mother.