Page 50 of The Bride Bet
“I know.”
“And it wasn’t about the fame or the money that came with it. It was a chance to live out my dream.” She set the glass down. “I don’t have that anymore.”
“You have the money,” he said. “I’m sorry about the franchise. That sucks. I know it was your dream. But Graham and I didn’t make any deal about how I got you to marry me. The deal was that you had to marry me and he gave me a hundred million, that’s all.”
Her face did something complicated. “The money that everyone in the world now knows about. The money that has a story attached to it that follows my name forever.” She shook her head slowly. “You know what the difference is between you and me in this? You’ve lost some pride. That’s it. That’s the whole thing you’ve lost.”
The words found the mark. He didn’t show it because he was very good at not showing things, but they landed.
“That’s not entirely fair,” he said, keeping his voice even.
“Isn’t it?” She wasn’t shouting. That was somehow worse. She was very calm. “Your company is fine. Your reputation takes aknock and recovers. Men at your level can get away with all kinds of things. This isn’t even remotely close to the worst things they’ve done that society has forgiven them for.” She picked up her glass again. “I started from nothing. I worked for fifteen years. I bought my mother a home. I had a body that was failing me and found a way around it, and I got the part I wanted most in my entire career. And now all of it — the part, the reputation, all of it — is gone.”
“You agreed to the arrangement,” Nate said. He said it quietly, but he said it.
Her chin lifted. “I did. And I’d like to think I made the best decision I could with the information I had. The information I had did not include ‘your emails are going to be leaked, and your career is going to be destroyed.’”
“I didn’t leak them.”
“I know you didn’t.” She set the glass down again, harder this time. “But you created the situation where they existed to be leaked. You made the bet. You came to that party. You found me in that hallway, and you put a number on a year of my life. At the time, I was scared enough to say yes.” She stopped. Steadied herself. “I’m not saying you’re a bad person. I’m saying you have a habit of making decisions that feel manageable to you and are catastrophic to everyone else. And then you’re surprised when they don’t see it the same way.”
“You knew the risks,” he said. “We both knew the risks. You walked into that boardroom and negotiated every term of that contract. You knew?—”
“Don’t.” The word came out sharp and final. “Don’t do that.”
“I’m not dismissing what you lost?—”
“You just told me I knew the risks.” She looked at him across the kitchen with something in her eyes that he hadn’t seen there since the restaurant opening the very first night. The thing from before the boardroom and the beach house and the sand dollar. “That’s dismissing it.”
He closed his mouth.
She was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke again, the sharp edge had gone out of her voice, replaced by something flat and decided. “I need to go home.”
“Jasmine—”
“My house.” She was already moving toward her wing. “I need to be in my own space. I need to not be here right now.”
He stood in the kitchen and let her go, because what else was there to do? She was right that she needed space and possibly right about more than that, and he’d run out of the right words.
She came back twenty minutes later with her two suitcases, the same two modest ones she’d arrived with. Marisol appeared from somewhere and Jasmine thanked her warmly, and the warmth she gave Marisol and the look she gave Nate were so different that he felt the distance between them like a physical thing.
At the door, she stopped.
“The bet’s over,” she said. She wasn’t cruel about it. That was almost the worst part. “Graham has what he needs to prove it was fake. Whatever was owed, it’s done.” She looked at him steadily. “We never have to speak again.”
Nate opened his mouth but didn’t know what to say. So that was it? Because of their disagreement, the two of them were completely done?
He was still trying to collect his thoughts, trying to tamp down his anger, when she walked out the front door.
He stood in the doorway and watched her car go down the drive. The gate opened, and then she was gone.
Just like that.
CHAPTER 27
NATE
Nate went back to work the same night she left.
