Page 217 of Handsome Devil
Hopefully we could at least discuss it a little more rationally first? And maybe even find a way to work things out?
After a long, sleepless night of thinking about it, I didn’t even know which way I wanted it to go. Stay together for the duration of our fake marriage and see if anything real developed, and risk having my heart broken? Or just put some space between us now, and protect both my heart and my sanity?
After work, I headed over to my parents’ house, to see my mom. I hadn’t really talked to her much about my “marriage.” Mostly because I didn’t want to hear her gush all over my husband, which she’d started to do as soon as she found out who he really was.
Now, I really needed to clear the air.
If I ended up leaving Dane, I did not want to hear about what a grand mistake I was making. And at this rate, it was a real possibility. My mom had been waiting for me to get married from basically the moment I was born.
But that was her dream for me, not mine.
I was a serial dater. I always had been. I had fun dating around. Maybe because I wasn’t popular in my younger years, I was making up for lost time?
I’d never really examined it. I never really needed to.
As a woman, I’d dated many beautiful men, models, even. Successful men. Powerful men. And until Dane, I really didn’t fight with men in relationships. Maybe I’d never even learned how to fight, or how to work through the aftermath of a fight, with a man. My relationships with men were brief and shallow. I always cut things off before they ever got too serious.
And now I was thinking of cutting this one—my marriage—off. Because I was afraid.
Even if it was fake, maybe it had a chance of becoming real. If I had the courage to put my heart on the line. But I was afraid of trying to make it real, and finding out he didn’t want it. That he didn’t want me and he never had.
When Dane and I fought yesterday, it really hit me—that if we really were headed for divorce and nothing more, it was going to be very, very hard. Because day by day, my emotions were getting invested in that man. Seeing him upset about that news article really bothered me.
The fact that someone had attacked him like that bothered me.
Especially when he seemed to think I wouldn’t even be strong enough to weather the storm with him. That I’d be upset if he lost money in fighting those accusations. That all I cared about was the divorce. That all I wanted was the alimony, the agency, and nothing more.
As if there was no more on the table today than there had been when we said our vows.
And on top of it all, my mom was going to flip out if I got divorced.Worsethan when I married him.
I was already pissed off at her for it, and it hadn’t even happened yet.
Issues. Fuck, I had issues with my mom.
“I had a fight with Dane,” I told her, as soon as she answered the door and I strode into the house. I didn’t give her a hug. I was too annoyed. “And whatever you read in the news, those accusations against him, that employee who said he grabbed her… it’s not true. It’s all lies. So please, let’s not get into it.”
“Okay,” my mom said carefully. She shut the door after a glance outside at Darrell, who was hanging out in her driveway.
Obviously, she’d read the news. She’d called me, left me a message yesterday. I didn’t return that call.
“Where is everyone?” I asked her. My dad and my youngest brother, who still lived at home, didn’t appear to be around. Mom looked nice, though. Hair done and makeup on. She was a very pretty fifty-two, shorter than me, with a slender figure. She’d always been more petite than me.
“They’ve gone ahead to your uncle’s for dinner. What happened, Devi? You sounded so urgent on the phone just now. Are you alright?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” I went straight into the kitchen and started looking in the fridge. “Don’t you have any white wine?”
“Yes,” my mom said disapprovingly. “But I also have tea and that is what we’ll be drinking. Sit.”
I sighed and hip-checked the fridge shut, then plunked myself on a stool at the breakfast bar while she put on tea.
“Tell me,” she said. “What happened? Why did you fight?”
“Because of you,” I muttered, “kind of.”
“What?” My mom stopped what she was doing and turned to me.
“You know how many times you told me to marry and ‘marry well’ over the years?”
