“What’s wrong?” I say. “Did Daddy here finally tap out on saving you from your own stupidity? Because from where I’m standing, the person with a financial motive in this family isn’t my wife.”
Peter takes a step forward. Sneers. “Nobody needs to wonder aboutyourmotive. Easy enough to tell what you’re getting out the deal. You’ve been screwing my sister, and she’s been letting you because she needed a husband and you were convenient. Dress it up however you want, but we all know what she’s been on her back for.”
I close the distance between us in two steps and I get in his face. Not touching him, because I don’t need to touch him, because this soft-handed, yellow-bellied, poor excuse of a man is too pathetic to be punched.
His back hits the SUV.
“You will not,” I say, “speak about my wife that way. Not ever again. Not on my property. Not anywhere on this earth. Or I will track you down like the feeble prey animal you are, and I will make millions of dollars of debt the least of your problems.”
I hold him there for a long moment. Until he understandshow literally I mean those words, and the little spine he has collapses. Then I step back.
I turn to Lila.
Her eyes are bright. Her chin held high. And then she smiles.
She sidles up to me, boots loud on the frozen ground, one hand sliding up my chest, and pulls me down to her. She kisses me deep and slow and thorough, the kind of kiss that has a little bit do with performance and everything to do with the fact that she means it.
I slide my hand down to her ass and pull her in closer because two can play at that game.
When she pulls back her eyes are dancing. She keeps her hand flat on my chest, fingers curled into my shirt, and tips her head back to look up at me.
“You tell ‘em, baby,” she coos to me.
I feel the laugh move through my chest before it reaches my face. I wrap both arms around her and hold her against me and look at her family over the top of her rose gold hair.
Her father’s jaw is tight. Her mother’s expression has achieved a new register of frozen displeasure. Peter is still examining the ground, hunched into himself. Celia has produced her phone and is taking pictures of the landscape, either drunk or unbothered or both.
Lila turns in my arms to face them, my hands linked at her waist, her back against my chest.
“If you all want, come inside, break some bread, have a little coffee. Or moonshine, for that matter.” She tilts her head toward the house. “Then we can start this conversation over with an apology for how you’ve treated me just now. Or pretty much always, while we’re at it.” She pauses. “But if you’re here to pretend this is about anything other than all of you being the richest penny-pinching cheapskates I’ve ever met, then forgetit. If it’s all down to Celia’s vacation home and Peter’s debt and the embarrassment that’s causing all of you, then I don’t have anything left to say.” She leans back into me, easy and settled. “Your call.”
Her sister just looks at her. “What did you do with the money, Lila?”
Her mother’s gaze moves over Lila slowly. Down and back up, cataloging the the muddy boots, the flannel, the wind-loose hair, with methodical disapproval.
“Good question,” her mother says. “Because it certainly doesn’t seem you spent any of it on yourself.”
“No,” Lila agrees. “I spent it on people who needed it. Funny how that works.”
Her mother’s mouth thins.
“The trust money’s gone,” Lila tells them. “All those Sherwood dollars are currently circulating through food banks and animal shelters and disaster relief funds. So if you came here to get it back, good luck to you.”
The eyes all land on me again. And I realize all at once what the plan is. What it’s probably been from the moment they did some research on me.
“You may not have that money anymore,” Celia says. “But your fake husband has plenty more where that came from.”
Her father’s expression doesn’t change. “Our position,” he says, measured and final, “is that this marriage was fraudulent from its inception. The trust distribution was obtained under false pretenses. And as Lila’s family, we have both the legal standing and the moral obligation to pursue every avenue available to us to ensure she is protected from further exploitation.”
“Exploitation,” Lila says flatly.
“Yes.”
“By my husband. Who has more money than God and zero financial motive toexploit me.”
Her father ignores her and reaches into his jacket, producing an envelope.
“Our attorneys filed this morning,” he says. “Annulment on grounds of fraud.” He holds it out. “Emergency hearing. End of the week. Whatever this is,” he says, “A judge is going to take a very close look at it. I’d prepare for that if I were you.”
