Brielle’s ire rose again. “Morgan heard your Hyatt name and figured you were the path to riches, and since she looks like super Barbie, even in an orange jumpsuit, you thought, why the heck not, and hooked up with her before she knew what good she was to you, or that you were the disenfranchised son of a millionaire.”
This was pretty sour, even for the situation. “I wish you’d just listen instead of jumping to conclusions, but fine. I know this is a bitter pill to swallow so believe what you want, but Morgan is a nice person, and she gave up a lot to help me out. Frankly, she was in a similar situation herself, and had ended up losing all funding with just one year to go. It was mutually beneficial.”
“Oh, I can just imagine the mutual benefits.”
“Let your imagination stop right there, Brielle. The plan was,” he hesitated before correcting himself, “—is to annul.” But even as it came out it felt strange, foreign.
“Well, what’s taking you so long?”
Yeah, what? The hurt in Brielle’s voice made him wince. He had to think a moment of how to phrase it, and he had to get the image of Morgan sitting at the piano singing Dean Martin songs out of his head, of her laughing as he sucked imaginary snake venom out of her ankle, of her falling asleep after he worked the kink out of her neck. Finally he answered, “There’s a rule if the marriage is annulled, any grant has to be repaid immediately and in full, so we were forced to wait out the school year.”
“And forced to just move in together to wait it out. In your mom’s buddy’s mansion.” Now she’d gone from hurt to a little angry, and he couldn’t really blame her.
Truthfully it was kind of special since his mom’s legacy was involved, but there was no real way to explain the quicksand that created the living arrangements. “Believe me, Brielle.” He was pulling up at the front of the house, and Brielle sat for a second in her seat, just breathing.
“I want to believe you, Josh. Really, I do. I would have wanted to a lot more before I caught a glimpse of her.” Brielle rolled her eyes and muttered something about peroxide. “I just wish you had trusted me with this information. You could have told me all of it as it was happening.”
He had written it all, but he couldn’t send the letters. “That’s just it, Brie. I’m telling you now. I’m trusting you. Even telling you this much is a huge measure of trust. Can you see how much trouble I could be in if this got back to the powers that be? We’d be in up to our eyes for what’s been going on. If I didn’t trust you with my whole reputation and my whole future, I’d never be telling you any of this. It’s you who’s got to trust me.”
Brielle sighed and looked out at the road. “I do trust you, Josh.” Finally she turned to him, more vulnerable than she’d been even when she mentioned New Year’s earlier. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for getting all upset about this. Frankly, this whole day isn’t going how I envisioned it. This whole month has been a lot harder than I can express, so this reaction isn’t all about you or today or this thing between us. I’m just—yeah. I wanted things to be so happy for us.”
“Me, too.” Josh meant that.
“Really? Because, if that’s true, I want to believe everything you told me is the way you said, and that I can trust you, and that things really will work out for us.” Her eyes pleaded with him. “They will, won’t they, Josh? Just like we’d planned forever and ever?” This slightly broken side of Brielle caught him by the throat. She had folded her arms around her knees again, and she was hugging herself like she had to keep herself together, to keep from falling apart.
“How long are you planning to be in town?”
She looked at her feet. “My return ticket to Germany is open-ended.”
Open. So she didn’t have an exact date of leaving. What did she want from him? What could he say right now that was true to her, as well as to himself, and to Morgan? It wrapped ropes on each quarter of him, and each pulled a different direction at full horsepower, threatening to tear him apart. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, I swear.”
Her cheek tugged to the side, a smirk of despair. “I’m going to think about this for a couple of days. I was trying to think of ways to get out of the wedding preparation so you and I could spend this week together, but now, I’m thinking distance would be better—for me.” She bit both her lips together. “I know you’ve always said you wanted to be with me, and I’ve pretty much kept that on my back burner for years, assuming there would be a time. I really thought this would be our time.”
Really? What about school? This was a curve ball she was throwing him. He still had another full year after this one—plus retaking Cold War Relations—before he’d be at the point where he thought Brielle expected him to be for things to move forward. “Really? Even without my finishing my degree?”
“Well, I—” Brielle’s voice cracked a little, but she collected herself. “I just need you right now, Josh. Germany was beautiful, but not every aspect of it was as hunky dory as I may have intimated.” She swallowed hard and blinked a lot of times fast. She’d never been emotional like this. He reached to her, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“Brielle. I swear, it was all for you. Every choice.”
Brielle nodded, saying nothing and put her hand on the door. “I’ll just dive into Claire’s wedding appointments until New Year’s. Meet me at the reception. Oh, and I left your gifts on the table in there. You can open them if you want to. Or just…whatever.” Hurt and confusion marred her face. Even her springy curls looked a little wilted. They tugged at him. She got out quickly and headed to her rental car.
“Wait!” he said. “Give me thirty seconds. There’s something I need you to have.” He dashed up the stairs and was back down in a few seconds, panting. It might be the wrong move, but he had to prove to her that despite the appearance of everything, he hadn’t been disloyal, he hadn’t forsaken her, no matter which way things ended up between them from here on out.
“Here.” Through the window of her car, he handed her the stack of letters he’d been keeping. “It’s proof. You deserve to at least know what my intentions were. Read them.”
She glanced at them and then set them on the seat beside her. Staring at the road ahead she said, “I’ll see you Friday.” And she drove off.
This was not how he imagined their first reunion after Brielle’s return from Germany.
A text came in, an apology from Brielle, he hoped.
Morgan: Paulie Whoever is still outside the station. I’m staying put like you said, but…
Josh restarted his car and went back to the station to pick up his wife.
***
Morgan knew she would have to treat this in a businesslike manner. No more pretending this was her real marriage or that she and Josh could make this work. Not with Super-girlfriend back in the picture and dropping in and whisking Josh off for long drives down the coast.
After a full hour of waiting for the paparazzo to take off and go find some Christmas cheer elsewhere so she could call Tory and get her ride home, Morgan finally decided to text Josh. While he was coming, she figured out what to say, and (luckily) Paulie melted away into the afternoon fog.
“Josh, this is serious.” As soon as they were out in his car, she launched into the planned words, only then realizing they mirrored the last words she’d spoken to him—I’m getting serious about you—before the juggernaut of Brielle’s German blitzkrieg hit. It made her stutter a second, tripped suddenly by the nerves that suddenly resurged, the old familiar fright accompanied by the Conversation Coma, just as she’d feared.
“I know. And I’m sorry.” Josh put the car in gear and handed her a pair of sunglasses to wear, apparently to go incognito, as if that would prevent damage that was already done, but which at least gave her enough irritation to get over the hurdle of being tongue-tied.
“Not about Brielle. I’m happy she came back to you, if she’s what you want. But putting that aside, we’ve got a much, much bigger problem. That Paulie fellow got pictures of you and Brielle together
. He will publish them, and am I wrong to think it could cause us some problems? I don’t mean us us.” Morgan waved her hand between herself and Josh. This conversation felt like tightening screws in her soul. “I mean between us and Seagram.”
Josh’s shoulders slumped. He slowly shook his head from side to side. “I told Brielle about our setup.”
“You what?” Morgan sat up straight. “I thought we agreed—”
“I know. I know.” Josh looked genuinely miserable. He should be. This whole house of cards was coming tumbling down all around them. “It was a weak moment.”
“Couldn’t you have just waited until after the annulment? Is she that impatient?” Morgan suspected Brielle might be a very impatient person, from how she looked so high strung during the two minutes they’d been in the same room at the police station. “What’s left of this whole scheme? Six months? We’re almost halfway through this nightmare.”
She didn’t mean to imply that being around Josh was a nightmare, but it came out, and truthfully, most of this day fit that description. He wasn’t making it any easier with this revelation. Morgan had had to tell Tory—and Josh had agreed to that up front. They’d needed her help with the photos, the move to Josh’s apartment for the filming, all that. But now he’d told his brother, his sister-in-law, his girlfriend. “Who are you going to inform next—that Bum person with the camera? Go ahead. Hand him a fifty-page story about our misdeeds.”
For the first time since she’d become friends with Josh, Morgan was really, truly mad at him. It didn’t matter that the anger was fueled by the hurt of his abandoning her at the first second his old girlfriend came into view. Seriously, how could he endanger her like this? Especially right after she’d been stuck at the police station, where she was probably getting a preview of her future if the police found out about their fraud.
Josh hadn’t spoken for a full mile. Finally he said, “It’s been a nightmare?”
This question touched a chord in her, plucking at the string of her heart, and she exhaled. “No. No, that’s not what I meant.” They were close to campus now, nearly home. Morgan didn’t know what she’d find there—maybe Brielle had moved in. She’d left enough junk on their kitchen table to be luggage. Maybe Brielle was setting up house in the kitchen, making Josh’s Christmas dinner, or worse, waiting for him upstairs in the master. Ooh, what would she think of the photo above the bed? Morgan only spared a fraction of a second picturing the girl’s face when she first caught sight of that picture. Yikes.
But while there was photo evidence of their relationship, Morgan knew it was all faked. And she knew what had to happen next.
“Josh, Mr. Seagram will see the photos of you and Brielle. I know because he saw the last photos of you and me with that mean-spirited caption. We are basically employed by him, and we’ve breached his trust. He’s a church-going man, and he has all kinds of high ideals and standards, and we are supposed to be his shining examples. While it’s obviously not fair to us for him to expect our perfection, we are being handsomely paid for it, and living a lie. Frankly, this is not the woman I want to be.” Saying it aloud gave Morgan a sense of empowerment, and she finally said what had been on her mind since the police station. Well, since before she got pulled over, actually. “Can we please not go home?” Morgan didn’t want to see what was waiting there, anyway. “Can we please just go straight to Mr. Seagram’s?”
Josh gripped the steering wheel tighter and then loosened his fingers a few times. Finally he gave a slight nod and made a turn at the next corner.
It was time to come clean.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
It was with heavy steps that Josh walked around to the passenger side of the Land Rover to let Morgan out at Sigmund Seagram’s circular driveway. He pulled the one personal key he had off the key chain, ready to return the vehicle and house key, and then call his water treatment coworker George to see if he could couch surf at his place tonight. Christmas night, geez. Mrs. George, whoever she was, would love that, no doubt. At least Morgan had a place to crash at her sister’s. She could go back to life as before, probably even with roller skates involved.
It had all been a nice glimpse into ease and luxury, but he wouldn’t want it for too long. It might turn him into Bronco.
“You okay? Do you want to tell him, or should I?” He helped Morgan out of the car. Her mouth pressed into a grim line.
“We should each tell our version of the story—the truth, of course. But before we go in, I have to give you something.” She looked up at him with the blue eyes wide that got him every time. Soon, her warm hand had touched his, and she pressed something into his palm. He looked down and opened his hand.
“The ring?” An arrow shot through his heart. He hadn’t expected this as a consequence for what was going on.
“Brielle was right. I can’t be wearing your mother’s jewelry. It’s almost as big a breach to dishonor your mother this way than it is for us to be play-acting and defiling the sanctity of marriage by what we’ve done.”
“Wait a minute. We never once defiled the sanctity of marriage.” He had to put his foot down here. “We were trapped into this by government regulations, and you know it.”
“We made a mockery of its sacred meaning, Josh, and you know that.” She was reaching up and unlatching the necklace, and then she removed the earrings and pressed them into his hand. “I did really love these. They were beautiful. Thank you. They meant the world to me.”
Maybe it was just Josh’s wishful listening, but he was sure she put emphasis on the world. He should ask her what she meant by that, whether she meant she loved him. He opened his mouth to do so, but the front door swung open and there stood Sigmund Seagram in his full bulk of glory in a red business suit. It must be his idea of festive clothes. Eccentric millionaires had eccentricity in several facets of their lives, apparently.
“Well, I’m honored! Thank you so much for thinking of a lonely old man on a Christmas Day evening. Come in, come in!”
Guilt almost buckled Josh’s knees, but Morgan pulled him forward, obviously doing the trudge of shame herself.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Seagram, but we are not here on a joyous errand,” she said. “I’m afraid we have some very bad news.”
Seagram ushered them into his living room, where a fire crackled and the tree from last week was decked with even more ornaments than before, if possible. “Whatever it is, it can wait until after hot cocoa.”
Josh knew that to be impossible. “I’m afraid not, sir.” It wasn’t going to result in a friendly cup of anything, if Josh’s prediction held.
“Well, then. This sounds serious.”
There was that word again. Morgan had used it twice already today—first, in a way that made his stomach drop into his jeans, and then in a way that’d made his blood run cold. Yes, this was a serious day. Seagram directed them to sit on that blasted narrow love seat, where they couldn’t help but touch legs. Josh did not need that distraction right now. Apparently, neither did Morgan. She perched at the edge of the couch and shot Josh a worried look— the lost baby deer face he knew too well and was a sucker for every time. He rose to protect her.
“Sir, we have not been what we’ve seemed.”
“A happily married couple of college students? You’ve been unhappy? Or you’re not married?”
“Uh, not that sir.” Because they’d been married, and they’d been happy—at least Josh had. Josh didn’t know how to frame it, so he finally plunged in. Man, how many times was he going to have to recount his sins today? Maybe Morgan was right and he should just hand Paulie Bumgartner a typed version so the whole world could read it for themselves. Joshua Hyatt Lives a Lie. That could be his headline, although he was sure Paulie would conjure up something more salacious than that, like Loser Son of Hyatt Holdings Defrauds American Taxpayers. Yeah, that was more like it.
Josh sank onto the sofa as he explained the whole saga of the fraud, seeing hurt grow in Seagram’s eyes as the story unfol
ded.
Seagram said nothing for a long time, just nodded.
Morgan, Josh saw when he finally finished and dared look at her, was crying silently, tears wetting her whole face. He reached for a Kleenex from the box on the end table and handed it to her. She only twisted it between her hands.
I really never meant to make her cry.
Finally, Seagram heaved a sigh. “As I’ve said before, marriage is something so dear to my heart that I’ll go to extraordinary lengths using my time, energy and a lot of resources to promote it in any way I can. This seemed like a far better use of money than some TV ad about it or a billboard. And it would have been.”
The guilt punched Josh’s gut again, while Seagram went on.
“And I do think it still could be. I’m not a CEO of a large company for nothing. I ask the right questions.” He looked straight in Josh’s eye, which took some doing, since for Josh meeting Seagram’s eye right now was acid pouring on him in the chemistry lab. “And the right question is, do you love each other?”
Morgan spoke for the first time since they sat down, and it came out a strained whisper. “Josh has someone. She was in his life before—”
“I know all that,” Seagram said.
Seagram knew all that? What was that supposed to mean? Had he vetted them so thoroughly? If so, how—? The turmoil in Josh’s insides spun donuts.
“But,” Seagram went on, “that doesn’t answer the question. Do you love each other?”
Josh sat silent. Maybe it was his male ego, but he didn’t want to be the first to answer. If she was going to say no, he didn’t want to be the loser saying yes. He glanced at her glistening face and saw she was searching his eyes. That twang in his heart plucked again. He swallowed, but there might still be some of that bagel somewhere lodged in his throat.
“Morgan?” Seagram turned to her, and Josh fought the instinct to jump between her and her accuser. “Do you want to field this one?”
Before today’s massive meltdown, he would have put odds at fifty-fifty that she’d answer yes, especially after how sweetly she slept after he tucked her in bed last night, or how thoroughly she kissed him on the stairs. But now—well, she’d been pretty furious with him outside a few minutes ago. A glance told him her chin visibly trembled, and really, that woman had been through a lot today. He’d put her through some of it. Most of it.
Legally Wedded (Legally in Love Book 3) Page 31