Page 77 of Fake Wife
The next few minutes slide by like I’m in quicksand. Multiple calls to Teagan’s phone go straight to voicemail.
The sludge taste in my throat grows until it invades my senses, and by the time I reach my condo, I’m huffing like a man who’s just run a marathon.
“Caitlin!” I shout, rushing into the kitchen. “Where the hell are you? And where’s Teagan?”
She comes out of my office, sniffing, her eyes red rimmed with tears I know she’s already wiped away. But she’s still a fire-blazing redhead, green eyes glaring at me like she wants to be the match to set me on fire.
In Caitlin’s hand is an envelope, a stack of papers on top, and she thrusts it at me.
“What in the hell is this? And why would you have your dad deliver it?”
I take the papers from her. “My dad? Caitlin I have no…oh fuck.” The wordsPrenuptial Agreementprinted in bold across the top of the papers. The prickle at the base of my neck explodes into ice, dripping down my spine. “I didn’t…” I flip through the papers. The hell? I didn’t create this, and I sure as hell didn’t sign it.
My father. “The fucking asshole!”
We’ve been forging each other’s signatures for years, primarily for minor business purposes, not that I’d ever admit this to anyone.
I’m on fire. Burning my fingertips on the paper as if I can set it ablaze.
“You think I’d do this?” I shout at Caitlin. I toss the pile to the floor and close the distance between us. “Where’s Teagan?”
“She’s gone.” Caitlin sniffs and rolls back her shoulders. “She grabbed her stuff, shoved it into a duffel bag, and took off.”
“Caitlin, how could you think I’d give her nothing?”
The tremor in Teagan’s voice makes sense. As well as her confusion and hesitancy.
I hadn’t even considered a prenup. What’s mine is hers. Always. Forever.
Jesus.Shethinks I’d do this, after everything I told her, after everything I said I wanted for her?
I can’t even tell what aches more. My friend in front of me, staring at me like I’m a stranger, or the woman I love thinking I’d have my dad of all people bring her papers saying she gets nothing from our marriage.
“I need air.” I rub my chest with my hand, but it’s pointless. My heart is pounding against my ribs, trying to escape its protective covering, and I don’t know if I want to save it.
If this is what happens when you fall in love with a woman who doesn’t love you back, who can’t see the good in you despite evidence to the contrary, then what in the hell good is a heart for anyway?
I let loose a string of curse words and slam open the sliding doors that take me to the patio outside. It’s twenty-six stories high, and the wind whips around me.
My eyes scan the horizon, and I’m searching for her. Searching for Teagan despite the fact she thinks I’d do this to her.
Several minutes later Caitlin steps up next to me.
“So,” she says, sorrow and apology in her tone. “This was just delivered.”
I glare down at her. There’s an envelope from Multnomah County in her hand. The seal is broken. The little pipsqueak next to me opened it.
“I think maybe there’s been a mistake.”
I rip it out of her hands and huff. “You think? Damn it. This is a mess.”
“What are you going to do?”
Folding the envelope and marriage certificate that arrived way, way too late, I grip it in my hand and push off the railing. “What do you think I’m going to do?”
“Find her?”
“No. I’m getting fucking drunk.”
