“…A marriage contract,” he was saying. “Very standard, of course, dictating that all of your assets will be conferred upon me at the time of our union.”
It was standard, but I didn’t bother to hide my frown as I flipped through the pages. I’d known, in a cerebral sort of way, that my money and the company would legally and technically belong to Hugh in the eyes of the law, but I had comforted myself with the fact that Hugh had told me when I agreed to marry him that the company would still be mine in the practical sense. Now, looking at the actual clauses in stark black and white, the reality of it hit me hard. Everything I’d worked so hard to build and protect would belong to someone else. Be possessed by someone else.
“I will have my solicitor look it over,” I said. I meant to push the papers away, not wanting to deal with it right now, but a word caught my eye.
Infidelity.
I glanced up at Hugh and then looked back down to the page. “‘In the event that the wife is found to be unfaithful, her husband may be allowed to divorce her and keep all remaining monies, properties and investments…’” I read aloud. I stopped. “Hugh. Explain this.”
Hugh shrugged. “It’s simple enough. If you fuck someone else, I will divorce you and keep the company.” The words pierced me like a bullet. Another reality I hadn’t considered—that my sexual freedom would also be at an end.
My hands shook. “Are you serious? You expect me to fuck only you?” I quickly scanned the rest of the pages, finding nothing about his fidelity being required. Of course. I had just assumed…I mean, Hugh was part of the same circle I was. For years, we’d fucked whom we wanted, when we wanted, laughing at all the conventional people with their stodgy, sexless marriages. How could he do such an about-face? “Hugh, the things we’ve done…I thought certainly you were more enlightened than this!”
“That was play, Molly. This is real life now. If I have a wife, she must be faithful to me. I cannot compromise on that.”
“And you?” I demanded. “Are you going to be faithful to me?”
“Molly, be serious, please,” Hugh said in a pained voice. “Men naturally have excessive desires that have to be sated, but for a woman…I mean, obviously, we have to make sure that any children you bear are mine and no one else’s. A woman’s fidelity is crucial to the family, and I knew being stripped of your company altogether would be a reliable incentive.”
My hands shook. “Are you really threatening me with that? You would leave me with nothing? Without the only fucking reason I’m doing this in the first place?” I stood so fast that the papers fell off the desk, scattering across the floor. I didn’t care. I leaned forward, bracing my hands on my desk. “Go fuck yourself, Hugh.”
“Okay, but…” Again in the pained voice, as if he had no more control over this than I did. “It’s either marry me and remain connected to your company, or refuse to marry me and lose it right now.”
“I—” I couldn’t finish my sentence. There was a ball in my throat, a painful teary ball that made it hard to speak, hard to breathe. All I could see was red and my fingers itched with the urge to claw his face. He must have seen my temper building because he got to his feet and walked towards me, hands outstretched as if approaching a dangerous animal.
“Molly, these are just the formalities, believe me. After we’re married, you can continue running the company as you like, no matter what this contract says. And yes, we need to make sure any children are mine and mine alone, but you’ve always liked sex with me, haven’t you? And we can have as much sex as you’d like.”
He was very close to me now and he took my trembling hands in his. “Haven’t I been your loyal friend all this time? Through all your troubles? I care so very deeply about you, and I want what’s best for you. This is what’s best for you. I’m what’s best for you.”
The anger hovered, just out of reach, like a mirage that refused to resolve into reality. I couldn’t hold on to it, I couldn’t give it voice, but it was there still, distracting me, making me wary. “I just don’t know if I can be happy like this, Hugh,” I said honestly. “I’m sorry, but that’s the truth.”
Hugh looked at me with his deep brown eyes. He was very handsome and he had been a very loyal friend. A woman could do worse and I knew many women who had. “Would you be more unhappy with me…or without the company you love so dearly?” he asked. “I will do anything in my power to make you happy, so long as it’s within the bounds of reason.”
That is the difference between him and Silas, I thought. Silas would have thrown himself at my feet, would have forsworn all reason, and made a ridiculous but gallant fool of himself in the process.
Silas. I supposed I would never know what he would and wouldn’t do for me.
“I will sign it,” I said, pulling away from Hugh. “But for the company. Only for the company.”
Hugh smiled a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “That’s good enough for me.”
Martjin van der Sant was a short man, with thin white hair cropped close around his ears and a precisely trimmed mustache. Even his clothing looked as if it had been folded and pressed with a ruler in hand. He did not smile, nor did he talk very often, but when he did, it was with a clipped Dutch accent that left no room for argument. My encounter with Hugh and his contract had left me shaken, but I swallowed everything down and mustered my most professional, competent demeanor as the other board members and I met van der Sant’s party down at the docks.
A man as wealthy and powerful as van der Sant could have easily sent representatives to investigate our assets. The fact that he traveled all the way here to see them for himself told me a lot, told me that he was a man to be both respected and feared. I was proud of the way I ran my company and I knew he wouldn’t find anything on the company’s end that would dissuade him from partnering with us, but I was more than a little nervous that word of my personal life might reach his ears. I glanced over at Cunningham as we walked along the docks. He was talking seriously with one of the other businessmen van der Sant had brought along, and there was nothing in his demeanor to suggest he was planting rumors about me.
He wouldn’t, I decided. He wanted this business deal as much as I did—maybe more than I did. Even he wouldn’t jeopardize the chance at more money simply to spite me. Besides, he had taken care to mention my engagement to Mr. van der Sant when we’d introduced ourselves earlier, probably to portray me as a normal, moral young woman.
The dock and warehouse visits went very well, and I was beginning to feel more settled about Hugh and the contract when we escorted Mr. van der Sant back to my townhouse for a late luncheon. “I hope you don’t mind if my daughter joins us,” Mr. van der Sant said. “This is her first visit to London and she is very excited.”
“Of course,” I said, sending word to one of my people to arrange for her to be picked up at their hotel.
But when she walked through the doorway an hour later, my stomach sickened. She was not, as I presumed from van der Sant’s age, a married woman in her thirties or forties, but a girl. A girl of about thirteen or fourteen, with flaxen blonde hair and gray eyes and a sweet, innocent face. “Everyone,” Mr. van der Sant said, “this is Birgit, my daughter.”
Birgit made a shallow curtsey, and I knew without looking that Cunningham’s eyes were pinned on the girl. I knew he was watching her, observing her sweetly uncertain mannerisms as her father introduced her to the other people present, knew that he was already wondering whether she was still intact.
I prefer my women fresher…younger.