The Billionaire's Wife (24 page)

Then something caught my eye.

I frowned, puzzled, and reached out,
plucking an Examiner from its spot. The story on the front was something about
celebrity plastic surgery gone horribly wrong, but in the upper left corner was
a familiar face.

My mother.

I read the words next to her and
dropped my box of Midol from nerveless fingers.

"Oh my god," I said. "Oh
my god." I swayed on my feet and Sadie hurried over.

"What's wrong?" she said.
"Did you get caught screwing your husband again?"

Numb, I shook my head and held the
paper out to her. She took it from me. I saw the blood leave her face when she
recognized my mother there, and in a shaking voice she read the headline aloud.

"SEX, DRUGS, AND REHAB: THE
BILLIONAIRE'S MOTHER-IN-LAW SOBERS UP."

We stared at one another while the
clerk behind the counter tried to act nonchalant. Then Sadie leafed frantically
through the tabloid, searching for the story. There, in the middle of the Rite
Aid, she read it out to me.

"Selene Dare, 56 and mother of the
recently exposed Felicia Waters, has been attending a court-ordered twelve-step
program for narcotics abuse, the Examiner has learned. While billionaire mogul
Anton Waters and his newly wedded wife, Felicia Waters, swan about town
shopping for their upcoming wedding celebration, Selene sneaks off to daily
meetings to maintain her sobriety. The wife of millionaire businessman Jonathan
Dare, Mrs. Dare lives in California, where she was recently arrested for
driving under the influence of illegally obtained Xanax."

My mouth was dry. "Is that
it?" I said.

Ashen-faced, Sadie nodded.

"Nothing about... about cancer
treatment?"

She shook her head. "It's just a
little bit of gossip," she said. "You should ask your mom."

But I didn't need to. In my chest, my
heart crumpled.

My father tricked me, I thought. And,
under it, a terrible thought I could barely face.

Did Anton know?

*

I found my father in the room he shared
with my mother in my house, reading The Wall Street Journal. My whole body was
numb. I shook with years of pent-up rage.

"I want you out of this
house," I said. I didn't tell him why. He only had to look at my face, and
he knew that I knew.

Curiously, he seemed almost relieved.
The stress he had been living under hadn't been my mother's fake illness, but
his own terrible lie. He had coerced me and sold me, all to save his shitty
business from his own incompetence.

I hated him so much in that moment,
more than I had ever hated him in my entire life. If Anton had kept a gun in
the house, I don't know what I would have done.

But he didn't, and I watched,
trembling, as he packed up his things—not many—and prepared to leave. It didn't
take long. When he was done at last, he stood before me.

"Felicia..." he said.

"Don't ever talk to me
again," I told him. "I never want to see your face ever again. Get
the fuck out of here."

He swallowed and nodded. I stepped
aside to let him pass by, the very thought of touching him making my stomach
churn. Nauseated, I followed him to the staircase.

His stooped back was to me, his
thinning hair sticking out at angles. He'd lost more weight.

It would be easy, a little voice
whispered in my head, and for a hot, dizzy moment I contemplated reaching out
and giving him a push.

Then he moved beyond my reach, heading
down the steps, and the moment passed, leaving me afraid of my own anger.

I could have shoved him down the
stairs, I thought. And I wouldn't have felt sorry about it at all.

I followed him down to the foyer. He
didn't look at me as he left, and when the door closed behind him, I locked it.

I didn't know what to do. I floated
from room to room, feeling useless. I had been such a sucker, such an idiot. I
should have talked to my mom. I should have done something—anything—other than
trust my father. But who would have thought he would lie about such a thing?
Who does that?

This place wasn't my home. Every room
was cold and devoid of my own touches. I sold myself for my father, and this is
what it had bought me.

I looked down at my clothes. I wore a long heavy skirt and
high-heeled boots. No underwear.
My ass was cold.

I went up to my room. All my things
were still there, neatly packed in boxes by hands that weren't mine. I dug
through them until I found an old hoodie and a pair of jeans. I put them on,
then hunted through my shoes until I found my working sneakers. The chime of
the downstairs door told me someone was home, and I went down to greet whoever it
was.

My mother stood in the foyer, divesting
herself of her coat.

"Felicia," she said, looking
at me with surprise. "What's wrong?"

Wordlessly I picked up the tabloid from
the entryway table and handed it to her. She took one look at it.

"Let me explain—" she began,
but I held up my hand. She didn't have anything to explain.

I told her everything.

When I was done, there was such
disappointment on her face that I couldn't stand it.

"Felicia," she said, reaching
out to me, and I let her enfold me in an embrace. She pulled back after a
moment. "Did Anton know that your father lied to you?"

I didn't want to think about it. There
was a good chance he hadn't. Except... except it was in the contract that my
mother's medical expenses be covered. I had spoken to him about my mother's
'illness'. And he had encouraged me to talk to her.

Had he known?

"I don't know," I said.
"I think you should go find a hotel."

For a long moment my mother watched me,
and I had to suppress the urge to hug her again, to start crying into her
cashmere sweater. I'd known for years that my father couldn't be trusted. How
had I let him trick me like that? How stupid was I?

Don't talk to your mother. She doesn't
want you to know. Fucking idiot.

My mother packed up her things from her
room, then kissed me and wished me luck before departing. I knew she would go
find my father and rip him to shreds, but no amount of vengeance could mend
this.

I went up stairs, lay down on Anton's
pristine white bed, and stared at the ceiling.

*

I was wide awake when he came home
later that night. When he entered the room, he paused in the doorway, taking me
in. I sat up and looked at him.

He watched me with hooded eyes. His
shoulders hunched in a wary posture.

My father had surely told him what I
had discovered. Now it was his turn to tell me what he'd known.

"Why did you marry me?" I
asked him. I'd asked him this question before. Now I wanted a real answer.

But all he said was, "I wanted a
wife."

"Did my father tell you he was
lying to me to get me to marry you?" I asked. "Which one of you
decided I should be the sacrifice? Was it him or you?"

Anton seemed to shrink. "It was
him. He offered you up as a bargaining chip."

My eyes stung. "So you didn't want
me?"

"I did. You were what tipped the
scales."

He'd wanted me and he'd bought me. It
was nothing I didn't know. But for some reason a lump of misery curdled in my
stomach. "And my mother? Did you know she wasn't sick?"

Slowly, Anton nodded. “Your father told
me of her addiction when we met. He said nothing of any illness.”

"When did you figure out that I
thought I was helping my mother?"

Now it was Anton who looked sick.
"The day after we were married," he said.

In my chest, my heart collapsed. Two
weeks ago. He'd known for two weeks. A lump sat in my throat, too large to
swallow around.

I stood up. “You lied to me.”

He was quiet for a moment. “I didn't
know how to tell you,” he said finally. “I thought it was between you and your
parents. I tried to get you to talk to your mother...”

“You said you wanted a companion,” I
told him. “Is this how you treat someone who trusts you? You buy me, you
realize I agreed under false pretenses, and then you don't tell me?”

He had no answer for that. The silence
between us stretched out, and I wondered how many other things he hid from me.
Why was he like this? What was his past? What was in his basement?

Who was Anton Waters?

I didn't know. I'd probably never
known. And right now, I didn't care.

“I have to go,” I said.

He didn't stop me, merely stepped away
from the doorway.

I passed him by, and I didn't cry until
I was halfway down the street.

Chapter Eight:

Bartered Betrayal

I went home.

Not Anton's house—that wasn't home any more, if it ever had
been—but
my
home. My tiny shitty apartment where this had all started.
My studio now, I supposed, since all my shit was in Anton's house. I doubted
he'd try to keep it all like some kind of jealous ex-boyfriend, but I didn't
care about it anyway. It was just
stuff.
You can lose
stuff.
You
can't lose yourself.

Or you shouldn't, anyway.

And yet that was what I'd done. I'd trusted Anton, let him fold
me up and take me in and use me however he wanted because I loved the way my
body felt when he touched it, and I'd loved seeing the man behind the mask. The
one who sometimes laughed despite himself, the man who couldn't let himself
lose control for even a moment, the man who sometimes seemed completely
confused by me, as though I were some kind of exotic creature he couldn't
understand. But I still didn't know him at all, no matter how many times I gave
him control. I'd lost myself to him, and had nothing to show for it in return.
I needed to go somewhere that wasn't his, that had never been touched by him,
and clear my head.

I walked the whole way there. It was cold. My sneakers, my old
familiar sneakers, were just canvas. The leather boots I'd been wearing would
have been better, but those clothes were for Anton's wife. I was just Felicia
Waters. I shared his last name, but nothing more. Not his house, not his life,
and certainly not his secrets. He didn't even share
my
secrets with me.

My heart was a hole in my chest.

The wind cut through my hoodie, but I kept going until I reached
my building. Wearily I climbed up to my floor, and when at last I found myself
in front of my old door, I realized that I didn't have the key. I didn't even
know what time it was, only that it was now fully dark and I'd been walking for
hours. My feet ached. My head ached. My chest ached. And now I was locked out
of my old apartment. Locked out of my old life, if I wanted to get all
metaphorical about it. Locked out of my old self, if I wanted to be truthful.

I started to cry.

I really hate crying, but I knew I had to get it over with
sooner or later, and it might as well be sooner, so I leaned against the door
and let it come over me like an avalanche.

My shoulders bowed, my face crumpled, and I collapsed to the
floor. Grief bubbled up in my chest, great wracking sobs that seemed to come
from someone else completely, and a small, detached part of me listened to the
anguished howls filling the small hallway, wondering what could have been so
horrible that someone should make such a terrible, frightful sound.

I didn't even know. I didn't even
know.

It's not like Anton loved me. It's not like he ever even hinted
that he might. He'd explicitly
said
he didn't want a wife to love. And
yet I'd allowed myself to hope, all the same, that our marriage might be
something more than just a convenient arrangement. My stupid, dumb, hopelessly
romantic heart had told me to hope, and I'd foolishly listened to it.

Sadie was right. I
was
stupid.

The sound of a door opening next to me startled me, and I
quickly tried to wipe my tears away and pretend that some other girl covered in
snot with a face like a tomato had been wailing like a banshee. It couldn't be
me.
I would never do anything like that.

My next door neighbor, Mrs. Andersen, stuck her head out into
the hallway and glared at me.

“Felicia!” she snapped. “You don't even live here any more and
you keep making a racket!”

I stared at her, tears leaking from my eyes.

She gave an exasperated sigh. Good old Mrs. Andersen. I could
always count on her to not care. It was comforting. Almost.

“Well, what's wrong?” she demanded. “What are you doing here?”

“I'm locked out,” I said. It sounded inane even to my ears,
because no one was going to bray like a wounded cow just because they were
locked out of their apartment, but I wasn't about to explain myself to Mrs.
Andersen. She could just go on believing I was the worst neighbor in the world.
And I probably was. I'd had the audacity to come back after moving out and
leaving her with peace and quiet.  The fact that I was going to be
staying—given that I could get in, of course—would probably put a huge crimp in
her day. Night. Whatever.