by Carmen Green
“Would you let another woman steal your man?”
“No,” she said, walking toward the door, her doggie bag on her arm, her hat in her hand. “Not if I wanted him.”
“He was your husband.”
“I know.”
“Did you want him?”
“I used to.”
“Then fight to find out why he did what he did.”
“Open the door for me. I’m going outside.”
Hunter was about to say no. Generally, he stayed away from bossy women, but then he saw the pain etched in her face.
She swallowed.
Her lips pursed.
And the first tear fell. She whisked it away as if it was never there.
He opened the door.
“Don’t follow me,” she told him, and her hand landed softly in the center of his chest. Then, “Please, don’t leave me.”
“Okay.”
CHAPTER 5
Alex rounded the hotel’s track for the seventeenth time wishing she felt as good as she had on the thirteenth lap.
Who said thirteen was an unlucky number?
She pushed herself trying to obliterate the sound of Danielle’s and Renee’s voices from her mind. Who were these people? Marc was a bigamist? That just didn’t sound right. Poly–something or other?
There was another name for a man who married more than two women, but she couldn’t think of it.
Maybe she was dumb. Maybe her father was right. How could she not know her husband was married to two other women?
Wouldn’t he have come home stinking of another woman? He would have avoided her gaze, told elaborate lies and had friends who covered for him. But Marc didn’t have friends. He didn’t have receipts or loose papers, and he didn’t get any personal calls or business calls.
Marc didn’t come home.
Alex stumbled, and her hands flew out to break her fall. Crashing to the ground, she screamed in pain, her left hand and knee taking the brunt of the fall. Before the full impact could radiate through her body, she was on her back and was looking at the gym’s ceiling.
“Are you trying to kill yourself?” Hunter was over her, looking down, his voice calm yet concerned. His hands were on her shoulder and hip and he seemed almost on top of her. “What happened?”
“I was thinking and running fast, and I guess I was so deep in thought I tripped and fell. I’m sorry.”
He chuckled. “You’re apologizing to me? That’s real nice of you, but that’s not how it works. I get to say I’m sorry. Does anything hurt?”
She tried to raise her arm and winced. “My hand and knee hurt.” Alex tried to draw her knee up but froze with her leg half raised.
“Where exactly does it hurt?” Hunter supported her ankle with gentle fingers.
“Take off my kneecap and rub right there.”
“You are so Southern,” he said imitating her.
“I know. I used to get teased about my accent, but I guess I’m used to it.”
A quick smile creased his lips and she decided to focus on his mouth to keep from crying. “You have nice teeth. Not all rotten and crooked like nobody cared about you. What do you think I should do?”
His eyebrows drew together for a second. “About my teeth or your leg?”
“My leg.” She felt a smile start and wondered, after her day how smiling was even possible.
“If you’ll let me touch everything but your kneecap, I’ll be able to tell if anything leading to the kneecap is injured and maybe how bad. Then we’ll decide if you can put any pressure on it. If you can walk out of here, we’ll ice it. If you can’t, then it’s a trip to the E.R.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“My first year in the army, I was a medic. Then when I got shot, I spent a lot of time in the veterans’ hospital. So I’ve got lots of on-the-job training.”
He pressed her quadriceps starting at her hip. “Here?” he asked, moving down the muscle in inch degrees. “Here?” he asked as he moved closer to her knee.
“There,” she said loudly, “there, stop!”
She’d bolted upright and gripped his hand to her chest. She counted slowly waiting for her heartbeat to slow. Her knee hurt, but she knew she had to relax each muscle, and she started with her jaw and worked her way down.
Her lying, cheating jerk of a husband had just been buried, she assumed, she hadn’t even stayed to see him in the ground, and she was letting another man touch her. What was happening to her life?
“I think you should see a doctor,” he said gently, loosening her viselike grip on his hand. “I can carry you downstairs to a cab and take you to the hospital myself.”
“No, no,” she said, hearing her accent. “A hospital is out of the question.”
Why didn’t his suggestion surprise her? Everything she wanted to do, he thought the opposite. If she wasn’t going home, she definitely wasn’t going to a hospital.
“I’m not missing tonight’s meeting.” She tried to put pressure on her left hand, and aching pain caused her to wince and her eyes to tear. She closed her eyes, waiting for the silver stars to disappear. “No way.”
“They’d understand that you’re hurt.”
“If I were them I wouldn’t. They already think I’m stupid, and that Danielle hates me. Renee, I don’t know about her yet.”
Hunter tapped her hard on the shoulder until she jerked her shoulder away. “Ow! What!”
“Are you stupid?”
“No!”
“Are you dumb?”
“No.”
“You’re a lot of things, but stupid and dumb aren’t any of them. Don’t say it again.”
The harshness of his reprimand hurt nearly as much as falling. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
“I’ll tell you what to do or I’m going home tonight at nine.”
“You’d leave me?”
Hunter looked down at her from his crouched position. Strands of hair had escaped her braid and he pushed them from her face. He seemed to be thinking so many things.
“If you’re going to be self-destructive, I’m not going to watch.”
“What if I can’t do what you want?”
“You want to be treated well. Start by treating yourself well.”
“Okay. Hunter, I want you to stay with me the next few days. I know that’s a lot to ask, but I can pay you.”
“I’m expensive, and I have a lot to do at home.”
“Work? Can you get someone to stand in for you? Please. I don’t have anyone. Please?”
“Three days is all I can do.”
“Thank you.” Impulse told her to hug him, but common sense told her to keep her hands to herself.
“But,” he added, “if we aren’t getting along, then we’ll both know it’s time for me to go. Come on. Let’s take a look at your hand.”
Alex extended it, and for the first time Hunter looked at her wedding set. He studied the rings for a few seconds and then he looked away.
Alex looked at her rings, too.
Two carats of diamonds surrounded a beautiful two-carat round solitaire that she’d been so proud of, until now. Suddenly a sickening heat slithered up her body, making her feel nauseous. “The diamonds aren’t real.”
Hunter didn’t reply. He gingerly slid his fingers along hers and moved them in tiny degrees. “Any pain?” he asked.
“Hunter?”
“Can you bend your finger?” he said.
She didn’t even try.
“Squeeze my fingers, Alex.” He waited for her, and when she didn’t, he looked frustrated. But no more than she felt. “Why aren’t you cooperating?”
“Cooperation works both ways, Hunter.”
He looked back at her hand. “No, they’re not real.”
“Do you have a side job as a jeweler?” Anger burst from her like an unexpected summer storm. “What don’t you do? You’re an accountant, medic, FBI agent, soldier, security person. Are you married? I mean, goodness, you’d be wo
rth more than platinum to someone.”
He didn’t even seem flustered at her meltdown. “You pressed, remember? You had to know. Why are you shooting the messenger?”
“Don’t you lie? Because, I’m going to tell you something, this would have been the time.”
“No, I don’t lie. Not as a general rule. Do you lie?”
“Of course I do. If you were me and had my day, I would have lied to spare me this scene right now. I would have said the diamonds are gorgeous. Have them appraised for your insurance, and then let the poor appraiser deliver the bad news.”
“I don’t live in that world.”
“What world, Hunter? I tell the truth when it’s important. But my husband just died. The lying, cheating, can’t-get-enough-of-other-women husband who I thought only loved me. So I would have lied and told me my rings were real.”
“You see, that’s why I’m not married.”
“Why not?” Some of her anger evaporated and she had no idea why.
“First because women are difficult creatures to understand, and second because I was taught honesty is the best policy. I’m sorry your rings aren’t real, but he did it, not me. I worked for a jeweler when I was in high school and that’s how I could tell the stones are cubic zirconia.”
“What haven’t you done?”
“One or two jobs. Those are classified.”
Alex looked up at him, curled her hand around his and squeezed.
“Good. I don’t think they’re broken, but I still think you should be checked out by a doctor.”
She tried to flex her hand. “Is everything about my life with Marc going to be a lie?”
“Do you want me to be honest?”
Alex could feel the muscles in her back and legs tensing, her stomach, and even her chest. She was afraid to say yes. But being so close to Hunter made her feel a little safer, at least temporarily. “Yes.”
“You should probably prepare for that possibility.”
She nodded. “Help me up, please. I choose not to believe that, you know. I believe there’s an explanation for all of this.”
“On three, I’m going to pull you up. One, two, three.”
Alex was up and unsteady, her hands on his shoulders, Hunter’s hands on her waist.
What she wanted at that very second was a good, long hug. But how could she ask for that? Her husband was dead. Her family was angry with her and she wanted to be comforted by Hunter. He’d just told her the truth and she’d gotten angry.
He’d told her the truth again and she’d denied wanting to know. When was real going to be real again? How would she ever be able to trust a man again?
“You don’t believe in hoping for a better outcome, Hunter?”
“Yes. I wish this whole day had started and ended differently. Then you’d have an entirely different perspective.
“Step lightly and test the strength of your knee. I’ll support your weight with my body. Lean on me. Now step.”
Alex did as he instructed and her knee was weak, but it wasn’t too bad.
She needed to be alone. So if the tears fell, she would be the only one that would know. “It feels okay. I can’t run, but I think I’ll be all right.”
“I’ll help you back to your room.”
“If I hold on to the wall, I can make it back okay.”
“But if you hold on to me, you’ll make it back for sure.”
She knew that. She needed some time away from Hunter. This whole day was too much for her and it wasn’t even over.
“I don’t want to stop you from working out.”
“I’ll get it in later,” he said, yanking on her braid. “Come on. Last one back gets the ice.”
CHAPTER 6
The conference room wasn’t as nice as the one at Wright Enterprises, but Alex tried to get comfortable, her leg propped up on the chair next to her, Little Sweetie sleeping on her lap.
Money had been wasted on dinner nobody ate, as they sat at the conference table with Chris, shrouded in a veil of grief, confusion and suspicion.
Alex looked over at Hunter who stood at the window next to Tristan, and offered her a nod of moral support. He’d agreed to stay and that’s all that mattered. This day felt as if it couldn’t get any worse.
Chris shuffled the papers in front of him again. “Marc was my older brother by two years. We were born and raised in Costa Woods, California. We weren’t close the past few years, but I wrote out a chronology that might fill in some of the inconsistencies.”
“There aren’t any inconsistencies,” Alex interrupted. “He lied to us.”
“How do we know you’re not lying to us now?” Renee asked. “How do I know this isn’t some elaborate scam?”
Chris rubbed his eyes and folded his hands in front of him on the table. “Yes, Marc lied. I don’t know why. I’m the executor of a house of lies. I’m the younger brother to a liar, but that only makes my job superhard. As for scams, I’m not asking you for anything. He didn’t have much life insurance to speak of. I found one policy and it’s for ten thousand dollars. That’s what I used to bury him. The rest came from my own pocket.”
Chris opened a folder on the table and distributed copies to everyone. “Our mother took out this life insurance policy when we were children. Our mother, Betty Foster, is deceased now ten years. Our father, Spencer, is deceased, eleven years.”
“There’s a problem, Chris. I have a life insurance policy on Marc,” Danielle said, “and I’ll need a copy of the death certificate so I can collect the insurance money.”
“So do I,” Renee said forcefully. “But it has to be proven whose husband he is first.”
“He’s my husband. I’m sure of that. I have to check with my accountant, but I know we have life insurance, too,” Alex told them.
“You should have married your accountant,” Danielle said sarcastically.
“I thought about this today while I was getting a facial, Danielle. You’re very pretty. But why would Marc marry a woman like you and then fool around on her? He asked to marry me last. Obviously he wasn’t happy with you, and I can see why. You’re a very unhappy person.”
“You were getting a facial while we were burying your husband?”
“Yes, it calms me. Besides, Marc managed to do a lot of things without me, including have other wives and die,” Alex said angrily.
“But if you loved him oh, so much, you’d have seen him to his final resting place.”
“I didn’t need to do that, Danielle. You were there. Did he get buried?” Alex stopped herself. Little Sweetie had an expression of alarm on his face. Alex realized that she was shouting. She sat back in her chair.
“Let’s stick to business,” Renee said into the stiff silence. “Legally, the real Mrs. Foster would be entitled to any and all insurance monies resulting from his death.”
“Are you an attorney?” Danielle stared Renee down.
“No, but I do know a little about insurance policies.”
“Nobody is getting any money that I paid for my husband’s insurance policy.” Danielle looked as threatened as she sounded.
Alex hated when Danielle looked at her for an extended period of time. She felt as if she was back in middle school and the teacher was asking a world-history question.
“If Marc’s declared my legal husband, I’m entitled to the money. You ladies should know that I’ve already called my attorney, and as we speak, your assets are being frozen until this matter is settled,” Renee announced, picking up her purse and standing.
Alex sat up and looked at her. “What did you say?”
“As of an hour ago I asked my attorney to have your assets frozen until we sort out who is legally married to Marc and what assets are and aren’t his.”
Alex shook her head. “Renee, I wish you’d talked to me before doing that. Attorneys have their place, but they can sure complicate things. Just a minute. Let me take care of this.” She pulled out her BlackBerry and pushed several buttons.
&n
bsp; “Who are you calling in the middle of this meeting?” Danielle demanded.
“I’m not going to shout at you again, Danielle, but just hold on. I’m going to do you a favor, and one day you’re going to thank me.” Alex held up one finger. “Hey, Nelda, this is Alexandria Lord Wright-Foster calling for my godfather,” she winked at Danielle, who rolled her eyes. Alex squinted and then focused on her manicure.
“Can he make himself available to me, please, for five minutes?” Alex laughed. “I know it’s been a month of Sundays since I called. I will get by for dinner. Yes, I’ll hold.”
She put her hand over the mouthpiece. “I’ll be just a minute more. It’ll help you too, Renee…Godfather, it’s me, Lexi. I’m having a bit of trouble and I need your help. My husband, Marc, died in a plane crash. Thank you, that’s very kind. No, Daddy doesn’t know yet. Here’s the problem. Marc was a total jerk and was married to two other women at the same time as he was married to me, and one of them has just informed me that’s she’s frozen my assets. I know, Godfather, it’s all a horrible mistake. Can you please explain why that won’t happen? I’m in a meeting right now with the other Mrs. Fosters. May I put you on speakerphone?”
Alex pushed the button and set it on the table. “Go ahead, Godfather.”
“This is appellate court Justice Theodore Fit-zhulme Thomas.”
Shock registered on the faces of everyone in the room. All eyes moved between Alex and the phone on the table.
Alex wasn’t sure what to make of Hunter’s expression. He’d been surprised like everyone else, but now he seemed to have made a judgment and slipped behind his wall of indifference.
“Who am I speaking to?” Justice Thomas asked.
Each person stated their name and relationship to Marc.
“My condolences to all of you, because one way or another, your lives were affected somehow by Mr. Foster. Let me tell you something about my goddaughter. Lexi has more money than the president of a small bank. If you think you’re going to stop her by attempting to freeze her assets, you’ll need the services of an extremely large law firm, and a lot of financial resources. You should also know that you will lose because she has some of the best legal minds in the South at her disposal.
