Chapter 4

“If you’re trying to joke with me it isn’t working,” Charlotte said to him, eyeing him warily after his last statement.

“I don’t know you enough to want to joke with you,” he said with a set face that convinced her he was being completely serious. “When you get to know me, you’ll realize I’m a serious man with very limited time for jokes.”

She swallowed when she noticed he was actually being serious.

“But I don’t know you. I can’t possibly get married to you.”

“I don’t know you either,” he shrugged. “That’s the whole idea.”

“Marriage is supposed to be between two people who love and care for each other,” she said, hoping he would see reason. From the way he had said they were getting married, she didn’t think he was asking her permission.

“Look how that turned out for you,” he said and her heart sank. “When one thing does not work, you look for an alternative.”

“And in this case you’re the alternative? What makes you think you’re an upgrade from my husband?” She asked, wanting to hurt him just as much he had hurt her by the things he had said to her.

“Yes,” he said, without looking the least bit offended. “I am an upgrade from your husband. Half the men in this state are an upgrade from your husband. Jonah isn’t that much of a standard. Something else kept you in that marriage and I want to know what it is.”

The truth was that Jonah hadn’t always been a jerk. When they had met in her first year in college, he had been really sweet and they had hit it off immediately. Their relationship was perfect at the start, with neither bothered about money or the future since they had each other.

Their love had been pure and uncorrupted until his grandfather died. The old man whose empire was been the largest and most successful in the state had willed everything to Jonah’s uncle and left the rest of the family with nothing. They all believed that the uncle who had always been a greedy schemer had tricked the old man into giving him everything before he died. Unfortunately, no one could fight back because he now had all the power like he always wanted.

When this happened, Jonah’s trust funds suddenly weren’t enough anymore. Pushed with anger for this uncle of his, he had gone ahead to squander all the money he had on stupid deals which were bound to fail from the start. He had stopped listening to her and called her bad luck for everything that had happened to him.

Slowly, his love for her disappeared as he began to view her as the enemy, especially after she had lost her baby and couldn’t get pregnant anymore.

“Love,” Charlotte said.

“What?” He asked.

“You asked what kept me in the marriage. Love did.”

Suddenly, he began to laugh, a deep throaty almost pleasant laugh she would have found sexy if only it wasn’t at her expense.

“You can laugh all you want,” she murmured. “Maybe you’ve never been in love and that’s why it’s so funny to you.”

He stopped laughing, but the smile was still on his face. He didn’t look offended though. “That’s such a wild assumption to make about me, considering the fact you don’t know who I am,” he said.

“Anyway, I’ll tell you what really kept you in that marriage.”

She looked up at him with a frown, although she was curious to find out what he thought had kept her in the marriage he appeared to know so well.

“What did?”

“Convenience.”

“How?”

If someone had told her two days before that she would be in a big house, wearing a stranger’s shirt with nothing underneath and discussing the details of her marriage with the said stranger, she would not have believed it, but here she was.

He sat down on the desk he had been leaning on, relaxing now he knew she would not try to run away.

“When you married him, you gave everything up. Your family disowned you because they could see the future when you couldn’t. He was all you had, so when you entered the marriage, you unknowingly signed your entire life to him because you didn’t have a second option. He stopped you from working and slowly broke you until you became too afraid to speak your mind or even show yourself in public. You both claimed it was the asthma at first, but we all know that’s not the full truth. When he changed, you had no where else to run to and you probably were just too afraid to try and find your feet after you had been under him for so long.” He stopped and watched her as if he was waiting for her to confirm his story.

Her mouth hung open as a new feeling of fear enveloped her. How did this man know so much about her? How did he know her family had disowned her or the fact that she had asthma?

“How…do…you know that ab…out me?” She stammered, feeling unsafe all over again.

“Relax,” he said, but she couldn’t possibly relax. “It’s not really a secret. Anyone who wants to know can find out.”

That didn’t make her feel better.

Oh what had she been thinking? Maybe she shouldn’t have barged into the engagement party like she did. Jonah had done worse in the past but he always returned to her. Now she had messed it up by coming out of the house and disgracing him in front of all those guests,

She should have never left the house in the first place. Jonah had been right. The world was a scary place. Here she was with a stranger who had carted her into his home and was saying very personal things about her. If he did anything to her. No one would find out.

She was hyperventilating as these thoughts filled her head. Her hands were shaking, and if she wasn’t careful, she would fall into another asthma attack. They were happening more often now, since after she left the house after Jonah had asked her not to.

“Sit up, raise your head high, don’t crouch, fight it…” the stranger muttered, holding her down. His voice was firm and steady, as he tried to help her fight the attack.

Her breathing slowly steadied and soon, she returned back to normal.