Chapter 2: His Confession

CARTER'S POV

The meeting ran long because Henderson wouldn't stop asking questions about Q4 projections, and by the time I got back to the penthouse it was past eleven. I'd texted Grace twice… once to say I'd grab food on the way, once to ask if she wanted anything and she hadn't responded to either. Not unusual when she was sulking. She'd get over it. She always did.

The apartment was dark when I walked in, which meant she'd gone to bed early. Perfect. We could deal with this in the morning when she'd had time to calm down and think rationally. I dropped my keys in the bowl by the door, loosened my tie, and headed for the kitchen to pour myself a drink. The laptop was still on the island where I'd left it, closed now but there. I should've taken it with me. Rookie mistake, leaving evidence sitting around, but I'd been caught off guard by how upset she was. Grace didn't usually do confrontation. It was one of the things I liked about her—she kept things smooth, easy, uncomplicated.

I poured three fingers of scotch and was halfway through the first sip when she spoke from the darkness of the living room.

"You came back."

I turned and there she was, sitting in the armchair by the window, still in the same jeans and sweater from earlier. She hadn't changed for bed. Hadn't taken off her makeup. Just been sitting there in the dark waiting for me like some kind of horror movie wife. "Of course I came back. I live here."

"Do you?" She stood up and I saw she had papers in her hand. A stack of them. "Because according to your calendar, you spend maybe three nights a week in this apartment. The rest of the time you're at 'client dinners' or 'business trips' or staying at Marcus's place because you 'worked too late to drive home.'"

My jaw tightened. "You went through my calendar?"

"I went through everything." She moved closer and I saw her eyes were red but dry. She'd cried herself out, then. That was something. "Your emails, your texts, your browser history. You're not very careful, Carter. Or maybe you just didn't think I'd ever look."

I set down the scotch glass harder than I meant to. "You had no right to do that. Those are private communications."

"Private." She laughed and it sounded wrong, too high and sharp. "You want to talk to me about privacy? About rights? After what I saw today?"

"What you saw was taken out of context." I moved around the island, putting distance between us. "And honestly, Grace, this is exactly why I didn't want you going through my things. You're blowing this completely out of proportion."

"Out of proportion." She repeated it slowly, like she was testing the weight of the words. "I watched you have sex with seven different women. Seven that I counted. How many were there really?"

I didn't answer. Couldn't see the point in getting into specifics when she was already this upset. She took my silence as confirmation and something in her face changed, went harder.

"I found text messages going back two years," she continued. "Did you sleep with someone on our honeymoon? Because there's a thread with someone named Amber where you're making plans to meet up in Bali, and we were in Bali for our honeymoon, so I'm just trying to understand the timeline here."

Amber. Shit. I'd forgotten about Amber. She'd been a yoga instructor at the resort, memorable for about thirty-six hours and then completely forgettable. "That was different."

"How?"

"Because we weren't even really married yet. The honeymoon is just a formality. It doesn't count."

Grace stared at me like I'd spoken another language. "It doesn't count. Our honeymoon doesn't count as being married."

"You know what I mean. We were still figuring things out, establishing boundaries. I didn't think you'd—" I stopped, regrouped. "Look, I'm not going to apologize for having needs. I'm a grown man and I'm not built for monogamy. I never pretended to be."

"You married me." Her voice went quiet, dangerous. "You stood in front of two hundred people and promised to forsake all others. You put a ring on my finger and called me your wife. What the hell did you think that meant?"

"It meant exactly what it's always meant in my world." I grabbed my drink again, needed something to do with my hands. "A partnership. A social contract. You get security, status, access to a life you could never have afforded on a failed design business. I get a beautiful wife who makes me look good and doesn't ask too many questions. It works, Grace. Or it did until you decided to go full detective tonight."

She flinched like I'd hit her. Good. Maybe if she understood how things actually worked, we could move past this. "Failed business. Is that what you think?"

"I think you closed your studio six months after we got engaged because it wasn't making money. I think I've been supporting you for three years while you've played at being a designer. And I think you've had a pretty comfortable life in exchange for very little actual work." I took another drink. "I'm not saying that to be cruel. I'm saying it because it's the truth. This is a transaction, and we both benefit. You're just upset because you finally figured out the terms."

The stack of papers in her hand crumpled. When she spoke, her voice was shaking but not with tears. With rage. "I closed my studio because you told me we were starting a family. Because you said you wanted me to have time to focus on us, on building our home, on being ready for kids. Was that a lie too?"

Kids. Christ. I'd forgotten I'd said that. "I might have mentioned it at some point, sure. People say lots of things when they're engaged. It doesn't mean—"

"We've been trying for two years." She cut me off and there was something wild in her eyes now. "Two years, Carter. I went to a fertility specialist last month because I thought something was wrong with me. I've been taking hormones and tracking my cycle and making myself available whenever you wanted sex, thinking we were trying to make a baby. Were you even using condoms with those other women?"

The question hung there and I felt the first real flicker of annoyance. This was exactly the kind of emotional spiral I'd wanted to avoid. "That's none of your business."

"None of my—" She actually took a step toward me, aggressive in a way I'd never seen from her. "You could've given me a disease. You could've gotten someone pregnant. How is that not my business?"

"Because I'm careful. I'm always careful. And frankly, Grace, if you'd been paying attention to what was actually happening in our marriage instead of living in some fantasy where I'm Prince Charming, you would've figured this out a long time ago." I finished the scotch, set the glass down with finality. "I never lied to you. I never promised you things I couldn't deliver. You chose to believe what you wanted to believe."

"You told me you loved me." Her voice cracked on the last word and I felt something twist in my chest, uncomfortable and unfamiliar. Guilt, maybe, though I pushed it down. "Every day for three years, you told me you loved me."

"And I do love you." It wasn't entirely a lie. I loved the idea of her, the way she looked on my arm, the way other men envied me when we walked into a room together. "Just not in the way you apparently needed me to."

She was crying now, silent tears running down her face, and I wanted to tell her to stop. Grace was beautiful when she smiled, when she was happy and easy and uncomplicated. This version of her—raw and hurt and falling apart—made me want to leave the room. Made me remember why I'd always kept things surface-level with the women I slept with. Emotions were messy. This was messy.

"I need you to leave," she said quietly.

"Grace—"

"Get out." Louder now. "Get out of this apartment. Get out of my sight. I can't—I can't look at you right now."

I held up my hands, going for reasonable. "This is my apartment. Legally, you can't kick me out. And you're being irrational. Let's both cool off and talk about this tomorrow when—"

She picked up my laptop from the kitchen island and threw it at me. Actually threw it. I dodged left and it hit the wall behind me, the screen shattering with a sound like breaking teeth. We both stared at the damage for a second, then at each other.

"Feel better?" I asked, and even I could hear the condescension in my voice.

"No." She was breathing hard, hands shaking. "No, I don't feel better. I feel like I've been living with a stranger for three years. I feel like everything I thought I knew about my life was a lie. I feel—" She pressed her hands to her face, took a breath. When she looked at me again her expression had gone cold. "There's more, isn't there?"

"What?"

"You're too calm about this. You're annoyed that I found out but you're not panicking. Which means either you're a sociopath or there's something worse you're waiting for me to discover." She moved to the kitchen, grabbed her laptop from where it sat charging. "What am I going to find when I keep digging, Carter? What else have you been hiding?"

My heart kicked up. The bet. Jesus Christ, she couldn't find out about the bet. That would end everything, not just the marriage but my reputation, my business relationships, everything I'd built. Marcus would kill me if she went public with that. "Grace. Stop. You need to stop digging because you're not going to like what you find."

"Try me." She was already opening her laptop, fingers flying across the keyboard. "I've spent three years being the perfect wife. Accommodating. Understanding. Looking the other way when you came home at three in the morning smelling like someone else's perfume. I'm done being that woman. So whatever it is, I'd rather know now."

I crossed to her, tried to close the laptop but she jerked it away. "Grace. I'm warning you. There are things in my life, in my business dealings, that you don't understand. That you don't want to understand."

"Your business dealings." She looked up at me and her eyes were sharp, focused. "This is about work? About money?"

"It's about a lot of things. Private things. Things that don't concern you."

"Everything about you concerns me. We're married." She said it like a curse. "Or did that not count either?"

I ran a hand through my hair, trying to think. The bet was in my office safe, physical paperwork because Marcus was paranoid about digital trails. She couldn't access that without me. But there might be emails, references, inside jokes that could lead her to ask the right questions. "What do you want from me? You want me to say I'm sorry? Fine. I'm sorry. I'm sorry you're hurt. I'm sorry this isn't the marriage you thought it was. Can we move on now?"

"Move on." She closed the laptop slowly. "You think I'm going to just move on from this? Go back to smiling at your friends and hosting your dinner parties and pretending everything is fine?"

"Yes." I said it bluntly because that's exactly what I expected. "Because what's the alternative? You divorce me? You get nothing. We have a prenup, Grace. A very thorough prenup that my lawyers spent six months drafting. You'd walk away with whatever you brought into the marriage, which was approximately nothing."

Her face went pale. "You think I care about money right now?"

"Everyone cares about money. And you care about it more than most because you've never had it." I moved closer, lowered my voice. "You like this life. The apartment, the clothes, the way people treat you differently when you say your last name. Are you really going to throw that away because your feelings are hurt?"

She stood up so fast her chair scraped the floor. "My feelings are hurt? You think this is about hurt feelings? Carter, you've been lying to me since the day we met. You married me under false pretenses. You've exposed me to god knows what diseases while I thought we were trying to have a baby. And now you're threatening me? Telling me I'll lose everything if I don't fall in line?"

"I'm not threatening you. I'm explaining reality." I kept my voice level, controlled. "You're upset right now and that's understandable. But when you calm down, you're going to realize that staying married to me, even knowing what you know, is still your best option. Where else are you going to go? Back to that studio apartment in Brooklyn? Back to scraping by on freelance work that barely paid your rent?"

She slapped me. Her palm connected with my cheek hard enough that my head snapped to the side, hard enough that I tasted blood where my teeth cut into my inner lip. We both froze. Grace had never hit anyone in her life as far as I knew. She stared at her own hand like it belonged to someone else.

"Get out," she whispered. "Pack a bag and get out. I'll call you when I'm ready to talk about next steps. But if you're here when the sun comes up, I'm calling the police and telling them you threatened me."

"I didn't—"

"You did." Her voice was steady now, eerily calm. "You told me I have nothing. That I am nothing without you. That's a threat, Carter. And I'm done pretending it's anything else."

I touched my cheek where she'd hit me, felt the heat of it. This was spiraling faster than I'd anticipated. I needed to regroup, talk to Marcus, maybe get my lawyer on standby. "Fine. I'll stay at the club tonight. But Grace, I'm serious about the prenup. If you try to make this public, if you try to take me for anything, you'll regret it."

"Is that another threat?"

"It's a promise." I grabbed my keys, my phone. Left the broken laptop on the floor because it didn't matter. I had backups of everything. "You have forty-eight hours to calm down and come to your senses. After that, we're having a real conversation about how this marriage is going to work going forward. And trust me, you're going to want to be reasonable."

I headed for the door but her voice stopped me one more time.

"There's more, isn't there?" she repeated. "Something you're terrified I'm going to find. I can see it in your face."

I looked back at her and for just a second I saw the woman I'd married. Beautiful and poised and perfect for the role I'd needed her to play. Then I saw what she was becoming—sharp and angry and dangerous to everything I'd built.

"Leave it alone, Grace," I said quietly. "For your own sake. Leave it alone."

I walked out before she could answer, before I could see whether my warning had landed. The elevator ride down felt longer than usual, gave me too much time to think about what happened if she kept digging. Marcus would be pissed. The other guys in the club would close ranks. But Grace didn't run in those circles, didn't have access to that world. She couldn't find out about the bet unless someone told her.

And no one was going to tell her. We'd all signed NDAs, made promises. Fifty million dollars hung in the balance. Marcus wouldn't let that go just because my wife was having a breakdown.

My phone buzzed. A text from Marcus: "Henderson mentioned Grace looked upset at lunch last week. Everything good?"

I stared at the message, at the casual way he was checking in, and felt my stomach drop. He knew something was wrong. Was probably already calculating how to protect himself if this blew up. I typed back: "All good. Talk tomorrow."

Another buzz, immediate: "You sure? Can't afford any drama right now. We're too close."

Too close to what, he didn't need to say. Too close to me winning the bet. Too close to fifty million dollars split between the five of us. Too close to proving that marriage was just another game, just another transaction, just another thing we could control.

I pocketed my phone without responding and walked out into the night. Grace would calm down. She always did. And even if she didn't, even if she tried to leave, the prenup would hold. My lawyers had made sure of that. She'd signed away any claim to my money, my property, my life. She'd get nothing but the clothes in her closet and whatever was left of her dignity.

I'd won the bet the moment she said "I do." Everything after that was just running out the clock.