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flicker of heat cut through the icy cold agony slithering
through her veins.
“Something my own father did. In my family, in a family of
old money and men who rule with an iron fist, you don’t tell
anyone that you’re gay. My father found someone for me to
marry. He wanted the deal done. It was basically a business
transaction, because, yes, the rich still do that. I did have a
choice. If I didn’t marry Henry, I would have been disowned. I
needed my family’s money to back the restaurant. We were
just opening it and my dad knew that. He knew he had me in a
position where if I refused, I’d lose everything. He never
wanted me to be a chef. That was demeaning to him. Beneath
our family. We were bankers and businessmen and investors.
We didn’t work in kitchens. People cooked for us, not the
other way around.”
Haley groaned, but she didn’t say anything. There was no
smart comment coming, no daggers of doubt to dig into her
back. Claire kept her head ducked because she couldn’t bear to
look at Haley.
“I married him. It was…it was hell. As hellish as anyone
could imagine. Henry didn’t know about me. He tried to be a
good husband, but in his world, he was raised to believe that
he’d take over the family business. He was raised with more
money than he knew what to do with. An oldest son complex.
He hated that I worked. He hated that I wasn’t the model
trophy wife. The restaurant was the one concession I made to
the marriage. Henry knew that if he tried to ever take that
away from me, I’d tell the world all of his family secrets. I
learned them fast. Soaked them up because I needed to in
order to protect myself. Henry wanted children, but I’d sneak
