“Please, don’t ruin four years of watching my sister smile because of you.”
“You think I want to be standing in this hallway telling you this while she’s in there? Fighting.”
Every horrible thought I had ever pushed away came rushing back at once.
He had done it for money.
He had married her because I was the one he could not have, and Rosie was the closest he could get.
Every horrible thought I had ever pushed away
Ben pulled out a piece of paper and held it out to me.
“I made a promise, and I’m going to keep it. Just… it’s much worse than you think,” he said. “You’d better sit down.”
I took the paper with shaking fingers.
The first thing I noticed was the letterhead.
It was from my father’s law firm.
“It’s much worse than you think,”
Advertisement
The next thing I noticed was the payment schedule.
A six-figure sum.
Money to be paid to Ben if he married Rosie.
My parents’ signatures…
Ben’s signature.
The scream tore out of me before I could stop it.
I thought I understood exactly what I was looking at, but I would soon find out that there was so much more.
The payment schedule.
“You SOLD yourself to marry my sister?”
“I know what it looks like, but let me explain—”
“Explain WHAT, Ben?” My voice cracked against the walls. “That you took money from my parents to marry Rosie? She is fighting for her life in there! And you stood beside her at the altar with a check in your pocket?”
Ben slid down the wall.
Then he said something that stole my breath.
“Explain WHAT, Ben?”
Advertisement
He was crying.
