Page 35 of The Husband I Left

He looks at me for a long moment, then nods, as if making a decision.

“The truth,” he repeats, his voice steadier now. “Alright. I’ll tell you the truth. All of it.”

Chapter 11

Genny

Oliver doesn’t talk right away. He looks down at his hands, at the fingers still dug into the arms of the chair, and then he slowly loosens them, one by one. He leans forward, with his elbows on his knees, and clasps his hands tightly in front of him. Finally he looks up at me, and I have never seen him look more undone than he does right now.

“I did not have an affair with Victoria,” he says. “I know what it looked like. I know exactly what it looked like, because I made sure it looked that way. But I never slept with her, and I never had any intention of leaving you for her. Not for one second.”

I say nothing. I just look at him.

“I’ve been a fool,” he continues quietly. “I’ve spent my whole life believing I was the smartest man in the room. I was convinced I could manage everything. Everyone.” He lets out a breath that isn’t quite a laugh. “And look where it got me.”

I still don’t say a word.

“It’s true that at one point in my life, I pursued her. We grew up in the same world. Same schools, same summers, same parties. She was beautiful, and I wanted her, and I didn’t think about it any more deeply than that. I chased her for years. Years. She’d let me get just close enough to keep me hoping and then pull away again. Looking back, I can see it was a game to her.” His mouth twists in disgust.

“And then three years ago. Her father made some very bad bets and lost most of what the family had, and suddenly Victoria wanted to talk about the future.” He rubs his thumb across his lower lip, a nervous gesture I’ve never seen from him before. “I knew what that meant. I’m not stupid, Genny, whatever else I am. I knew her timing wasn’t a coincidence. But I’d wanted her for so long that when she finally said yes, it felt like I’d won. I’d finally won.”

“I knew my father didn’t approve. And I didn’t care. I told him it was my life and my choice, and he could either accept it or lose me.”

“And then one day she was just gone. She didn’t leave a note. I couldn’t reach her. Her phone was disconnected. Her apartment was empty. Her father wouldn’t return my messages. I went—” He shakes his head. “I went a little insane, honestly. I hired people to find her. I flew to three different cities on rumors. And the whole time, my father just sat there in his office and said nothing, and I knew. I knew he’d done something.”

“When I finally found her,” he continues, “she told me that my father had called her unsuitable. That he’d threatened her. Threatened her father’s business, what was left of it. She cried. She said she couldn’t come back with me, that she couldn’t destroy her family, that she’d always love me but some things weren’t meant to be.” I can hear the bitterness in his voice now. “She was very convincing. She always has been.”

“So you confronted him,” I say quietly.

“I confronted him. I stood in his office and told him everything she’d said, and I watched him sit behind that enormous desk of his, and he didn’t deny a word of it. And then he told me—” Oliver’s hands curl into fists on his knees. “He told me he’d offered her money to leave. A great deal of money. And that she’d taken it. That she’d negotiated, actually. Asked for more.”

“Did you believe him?”

“No. I called him a liar. I said things to him that—” He swallows. “I stormed out. I didn’t speak to him for months. I told myself he’d manufactured the whole story to cover what he’d done, threatening her, driving her off. But deep down I knew—” He looks up at me, and his eyes are raw. “Deep down, I knew he was telling the truth. My father is many things, but he is not a liar. He never has been. He does what he thinks is right, and he doesn’t care who hates him for it. And I was never blind about Victoria, not really. I knew what she was. I knew that a large part of what she wanted from me was what I could give her. I just thought—” His voice cracks slightly. “I thought I’d be enough to make the rest of it real.”

His hands curl into fists on his knees. “I was furious with her. I was furious with him. But she was gone, and he was right there, and he was the one who’d taken the choice away from me. I needed to show him he couldn’t run my life. I wanted to hurt him the way he’d hurt me. And I could only think of one way to do it.”

He stops there, a slow flush creeping up his neck. His breathing is shallow, uneven. He can’t look at me.

I wait. One second. Two. Three.

“Oliver.”

“I’m getting there.”

“Oliver, if I have to pry this out of you bit by bit, we are going to have problems.”

“I really don’t want to hurt you, Genny.”

“You should have thought of that two years ago,” I snap. “You don’t get to be squeamish about what you did now. The least you can do is man up and tell me why.”

He swallows hard and nods. “You’re right.” He takes a deep breath. “It‘s true. I wanted to get revenge on my father. That’s why I was in your restaurant that night. I wanted to find someone of an unsuitable background and…” His voice trails off and he falls silent.

“I was looking for someone my father would never approve of. Someone from so far outside our world that just walking into a room with her on my arm would make my point.”

“And I fell at your feet. Literally.”

“That’s why I asked you out,” he continues. “That’s why I asked you to marry me after only six weeks. That’s why it had to be Vegas, before anyone could talk me out of it. I wanted to walk into my father’s house with a wedding ring on and watch his face. I wanted him to see exactly what happened when he meddled in my life.”