by Cynthia Dane
“Wonderful,” he said, fixing his jacket as he stood beside Jasmine and looked over her shoulder. “We’re still getting married. Wasn’t sure.”
Jasmine’s eye twitched.
“I see you’re still mad, though.”
“Really?” Jasmine’s exasperated sigh was too heavy to channel through her weary body. “We’re jumping right into that? Was hoping for a bit of a break. Maybe a, ‘Hi, honey. I love you. How are you?’”
“Hi, honey, I love you… how are you?”
“Very funny.”
Ethan bent down and kissed the top of her head. “I’m sorry. For everything.”
She shot him a derisive glare. “Do you even know what you’re sorry for? Sorry doesn’t count if you don’t get it.”
Yup, they were committed to this conversation. Ethan yanked out a chair and sat down. The fact he didn’t whip out his phone and check his emails while Jasmine talked was a fair sign that he took this seriously. “Something about the prenup, obviously.”
“You get that I’m not angry about its existence, right?” Jasmine clenched her wineglass so tightly that she was probably close to shattering it. “I’m not above thinking we can get married without a prenup. You’re worth how many billions of dollars right now?”
Ethan grabbed the wine bottle and drank right from the top. “Five,” he gasped, speaking before he had completely swallowed. The bottle clanked against the glass table. “Five fucking billion dollars are in my various accounts right now. That’s not including what my investments are worth. I’m not going there. It would give me a headache to try to add together right now.”
“Hmph.” Jasmine took the bottle back and refilled her glass. “Obviously you have to protect yourself. I get that. Now guess what I’m pissed about regarding Sunday.”
Ethan studied the glass in front of him, teeth chomping on his bottom lip and looking as if he were about to go into a boardroom and slice someone’s financial jugular. “Well, I had told you about it.”
“No you didn’t!” Jasmine didn’t mean to aggressively point, but her wine-laden finger had a mind of its own. “You mentioned something about it weeks ago, but you said we were ‘dropping by’ your lawyer’s office for something personal. I thought you meant business stuff for you. Not something that automatically put me on the defensive and implied that I was out for nothing but your precious billions.”
“I didn’t tell you?”
“How many times do I have to tell you no? I would have remembered something like that.” Oh, would she have. Jasmine would need at least a week’s notice to do her own research, speak with her attorney – whom she still barely knew – and emotionally prepare herself for something very unpleasant. Kinda like going to the dentist.
“I made the appointment on Friday afternoon, right before you showed… oh.”
“Oh? Oh? For fuck’s sake, Ethan, don’t tell me you forgot all about it the moment I walked into your life Friday and your cock got hard.”
“To be fair, you were rather dazzling. I barely remembered my own name that day.”
“Uh huh.” Jasmine leaned against the back of her chair, facing him in the most slovenly position possible. I smell like wine and I don’t care. Soon Ethan would too. Too bad they weren’t celebrating anything. “I’m gonna get over this, Ethan,” she began, careful to not really sound like the harpy his lawyer thought she was. “You have to understand why I was so upset with not only you, but that embarrassing situation. I’m not mad that I have to sign a prenup that protects your assets should – God forbid – we have to split up someday. It’s not a happy matter, but I’m not dumb. Obviously it had to happen.”
“I’m glad you understand. It’s certainly not my intent to imply I’m hatching an escape plan to get out of our marriage.”
“Truly. I get that, but it’s not something I can waltz into without fair warning. If we ever have to do something like that again, make sure you fucking tell me.”
“Duly noted.”
“Furthermore, I don’t think you understand the situation I am in.”
Ethan’s eyes lit up at that. “What do you mean?”
“I’m already dealing with everyone thinking I’m your trophy wife. Having that slapped in my face… even if you so generously changed the terms right away… was insulting and killed any emotional security I had that day. No, I’m serious.” She had to stop him from replying too soon. “You need to understand what is going on and why something like that was not okay.”
He sat back, exhaling words. “All right,” he said, forcing a certain calmness that made Jasmine feel like he was talking to an irate investor. “What’s going on?”
Where to freakin’ begin? Jasmine didn’t even touch the wedding stuff. That was its own can of worms that would be as productive as a potato working the assembly line in a factory. Instead, she focused on her struggles fitting in with the rich crowd, particularly the women who had their own code of ethics and manners that Jasmine could not understand, let alone emulate. Why should she even bother anymore? They clearly didn’t want her around. She was amusing when she was just Ethan’s girlfriend. Because of course a young man like Ethan would want to have his fun with an equally young woman of any standing – all that mattered was that she was hot, sexually available, and someone who was good arm candy at functions and in front of his coworkers. As for being his wife? Forget it! Didn’t he know that was suicide? What would happen when her beauty faded and he was left with a dumbass who couldn’t match wits with him, let alone be a good enough hostess for parties? Or, barring that, shouldn’t she at least be able to help him with his business… beyond being his glorified secretary? Good for them for having good looking kids, they supposed, but what terrible breeding. Ethan had proven himself by raking in his billions. What was Jasmine doing to prove herself? Pull down her panties at the country club so everyone could see what a young and tight pussy Ethan had scored himself?
By the end of her tirade, Jasmine had tears of frustration in her eyes. “They all treat me the same. I’ll never be one of them. Not that I want to become them, but it would at least be nice to go to a party, a restaurant, or the country club without a gaggle of stuck-up fuckheads whispering about me.”
Ethan remained patient, one elbow propped on the table and chin resting in his hand. His other hand tapped against the glass, fingers flexing, watch rattling. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “Of course, my inclination is to say that they don’t matter and you shouldn’t take what they think of you into stock, but I know as well as you do that such a thing isn’t easy.”
“You’re telling me.” Jasmine was ready to break out the harder alcohol. Wine was not going to cut it. “It’s not just about me, Ethan. It’s about you, too. Anything I do reflects on you. Maybe you can get away with it around guys, but if I tarnish your image too much, they’ll…”
“They won’t matter. Jasmine,” he took her shaking hand, “even if my business went belly-up tomorrow and I lost every one of my investors, it wouldn’t matter. Well, I say that flippantly, but you know what I mean.”
She wasn’t sure if she did.
“We wouldn’t have the same amount of money, sure, but I’ve got money saved in protected accounts that no agency in the world can touch. I’ve got investments spread across the globe, constantly making me money. If I lost my primary source of income? Whatever. Even if I had to use a bunch of my savings and sell off my investments to cover whatever happened to bring my company’s downfall, I would still have enough to get us through the rest of our lives. It may be a modest lifestyle, but it would be plenty to live a little here or bigger out in the countryside. Now, do you know why I spread so much of my fortune around just in case?”
Jasmine sniffed. “Because you grew up poor.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Because I grew up so poor that some nights I watched my father count out every coin in his wallet. That was it. That was literally every penny he had. His bank account was empty and he wasn’t gett
ing paid for four more days, but both he and I had to eat. It may have been noodles and peanut butter, but we ate because even when he bled more money than he made, he knew how important it was to budget. You think I didn’t pick that up?”
“I know you did.” Jasmine squeezed his hand as she thought of Ethan’s rough upbringing. When he talks about his father, I think about how much I would like to meet him. Mr. Cole was squirreled away in some retirement community in South Carolina. Ethan rarely spoke to him, but it was the money he made that allowed his father to stop working and finally relax for the final years of his life, however long they would be. Does he know we’re getting married?
“So I understand, Jasmine. We’re not in the same exact position, no, and maybe you’re judged harder than I am for sexist reasons I’ll never understand, but we are both judged wherever we go because we know what it’s like to sleep on a dirty floor and know – and accept – that’s where you’ll be sleeping the next night too. As nice as some of those people are, as welcoming and accommodating as they have tried to be to both me and you, they will never know what it’s like to go to bed hungry, knowing that the meals you get at school will probably be your only ones the next day if a friend doesn’t invite you over.”
She hadn’t heard this much disdain in his voice in a while. Ethan didn’t often talk about his upbringing. Jasmine never got the impression that he was ashamed of it, but when he did speak, she felt the bad memories and fears that came from being impoverished. I was lucky my parents were never that poor… unwillingly… Jasmine didn’t know that level of living until before meeting Ethan, when she couldn’t get a real job to save her life but was stuck in one of the most expensive cities in America. I could never go back to that. More tears skirted the edges of her eyes. Just the thought of taking her cat back to the hovel they once lived in was too heartbreaking to bear. Even with Ethan at her side, it would be hard.
But he was right. He knew what it was like to live a poor man’s life. If Jasmine had to choose someone to survive poverty with, it would be Ethan.
“Listen to me.” Ethan’s hand traveled up her arm, testing the rigidity of her flesh. “I’ve dated those women. The daughters, the ex-wives, the granddaughters of big men who either made their own money or their fathers and grandfathers made all the money. So, I know what it’s like for a woman to be like that. I see the way she judges, whether she knows it or not. They can be beautiful, they have good manners and graces, but there’s always this air of… I don’t know how to explain it. They’re not necessarily fake, but they’re so controlled. They’re constantly aware of how others view them and what it means to be them. Some men of modest origins like me don’t have problems dating them. They like the money they bring in, the prestige of knowing their families, the connections they make… and well, some men like that type of woman. I didn’t. Do you know why I started fooling around with my assistants? It was only a happy accident that it worked out so well to have my girlfriend working for me too.”
Jasmine tried not to laugh. “No. Do go on.”
“Because they were like me. They had seen every episode of Friends. They knew what a McDonald’s hamburger tasted like. Going to Hawaii was the event of their lives, not something one did every year and barely thought about. I know some men criticized me for being the type who likes ‘poor’ girlfriends because then I can show off my money and things to them. That’s a stereotype about new money men like me. That we’re overcompensating for our inadequacies from high school or whatever.”
“I don’t think you’re overcompensating…”
“Thanks, but what I’m trying to say is that, barring some unforeseen miracle, I would have always married a woman with a background like yours. I don’t want a wife I can’t relate to on a fundamental level. That would put me on the path to a divorce. Jasmine, I’ve only proposed to two women in my life, and I didn’t do either one without a long, hard think.”
Jasmine thought back to meeting Adrienne in the boutique that day. “Adrienne is kinda like those women, though.”
Whether bringing this subject up annoyed Ethan or not, he still continued. “She didn’t always used to be. She hides that side of her now. I realized I didn’t feel anything besides a mutual respect for her because she had changed so much. Maybe I dodged a bullet when she turned down my proposal for marriage long ago. I have no idea. That’s her prerogative. Mine is to marry a woman I get along with and trust. Isn’t that you?”
“I hope so.” Jasmine pushed the hair out of her face. “I know, Ethan. I trust you, too. I never doubted that you thought I was good enough for you, and I know you don’t make any of your decisions easily. If you asked me to marry you… you must think I’m more than good enough to be called Mrs. Cole.”
“So you are changing your name?” That droll voice was going to get his ass kicked someday. Not today.
Jasmine laughed. “I don’t know yet. Jasmine Cole does have a ring to it, doesn’t it?”
He nodded.
“Even so, none of this changes how those people treat me and make me feel. It can’t be helped. You hear enough nasty shit about you, and it’s going to get to you.”
She thought Ethan was going to immediately respond, but he took her hand instead, studying the lines in her skin and the freckles dotting her body. “As time goes by, they will see that you are perfect for me. They don’t have to like you, but I’m sure they’ll come to respect you enough. Or at least enough to get bored with you. Someone else will come along to stir up the gossip mill.”
“I know.”
“Can you do that for me, Jasmine? Can you deal with all of that? Those people? The things they say and do? Although if you tell me when it happens, I’ll help you. That’s part of my job as your husband.”
“I think I can…” Jasmine mulled that over. Could she handle it for years on end? Could she handle the judgment? Not being invited to parties that could help her husband’s career? Hosting parties that inevitably screwed something up because she didn’t know details? She wasn’t an Adrienne or Monica, who could become chameleons in the world of the rich… deceiving people, making them think they came from money because they lived it so effortlessly. Jasmine could only be herself. People would have to either take it or leave it. If it bothered her too much? Bye bye. She was off to Rio, Paris, Oslo, some place where nobody cared who she was. She would have the money for it. Asking Ethan to give her some money to go somewhere for a few days was as easy as… well, asking Ethan for money. That was something Jasmine had gotten used to over the months. Hey, when the man has billions of dollars, why does he care?
“Life is supposed to be easy for you when you’re with me, my flower.” Hearing him say that was one of life’s greatest pleasures. “It’s the least I could do for you… having you in my life makes my life more enjoyable and easier. I want to do anything I can to make sure you stay in it.”
“You can start by not springing shit like a prenup on me.” Jasmine could be droll too.
“Point taken. Are we good now?’
“What? No way. My lawyer called me an hour ago to say he finished going over the details of the prenup we ‘negotiated’ Sunday and found a few, shall we say, discrepancies. Did you know that I’m only worth 10% of your money if I lose a limb? That’s cold, man.”
“You’re right. It should be twenty.”
Adrienne probably didn’t get that smack in earlier, let alone on the head. Jasmine made do by lightly punching him in the shoulder and getting up to put the wine bottle and glass away. She didn’t make it very far. Ethan grabbed her, pulling her into his lap and planting a kiss on her cheek. What a hard life Jasmine Bliss lived.
Chapter 3
When it came to grown adults who spent their formative years at a paltry middle class or – and heaven really should forbid this – lower, then there was only one thing for long distance acquaintances to do in the evening after a long day of work, school, or in Jasmine’s case, wedding planning.
“You’re
gonna get us killed!” Jasmine shrieked, leaping on the couch as she watched Ethan’s character charge into an obvious ambush. The TV lit up in a riot of colors as Ethan was taken out by another team of two, leaving Jasmine’s character to single-handedly defend a large fort in the middle of nowhere. “Oh my God, why do I play with you?”
Ethan slumped against the couch and dropped the controller on his jeans. Jeans! “Because I paid for it.”
“I like that answer,” Vincent’s voice said in their headset. The only reason this gathering was possible was because he and girlfriend Nala were both home early on a Wednesday afternoon over on the west coast. Ethan would never. Come home early, that is. Apparently everything Jasmine ever heard about west coast people taking things easy was true. “I should use it more often when I’m asked shit like that.”
“Shut up,” Nala snapped. Jasmine couldn’t see either of them, but she imagined them sitting on a couch somewhere in Portland, wearing jeans and hoodies, surrounded by dirty dishes or take-out boxes. That was the kind of life Jasmine romanticized when hanging out with her fiancé on a weeknight. “I made you dinner.”
“What does that have to do with anything? It was burnt, anyway…”
“Shut up!”
This whole night happened because Jasmine found Nala online and asked if she wanted to play. After hashing out that no, someone did not have to be a bridesmaid after all, Nala announced that her boyfriend wanted to play with them. So happened that Ethan was wandering out of his office and toward the den. Ethan was the worst gamer in the world, but Jasmine would rather have him as her shitty gaming partner than some computer robot programmed by… well, probably programmed by someone like Vincent.
It was a good thing they all got along. Vincent’s humor wasn’t as dry as Ethan’s, but they had made each other laugh more than once – not counting the time Vincent expressed incredible disbelief that Ethan could be so bad by likening him to a chimp playing ping pong. They were already slated to come to the wedding the following month, but if they hadn’t been, this night would have sealed the deal.