Chapter 64
I turn on my heel and storm down the hallway, fingers trembling as I search my purse for my phone. Anderson. Who the fuck is Chase Anderson? My husband? Most successful billionaire in the country? Who the hell is that? My Ethan? My Ethan Chase?
“May!” I hear Ethan call out behind me, but I don’t stop walking. I can’t. I need to…I can’t breathe. I need some air. Alone. I need to think. Confirm. Prove to myself that I’m not stupid. That I’m not gullible or fucking blind.
I slap my palm against the elevator buttons, and it dings, opening. I step inside and just as Ethan reaches it, it closes. As I press the buttons to my destination, I hear a loud thud and a frustrated groan behind the metal doors.
My purse falls from grasp as I fumble with my phone, tapping on the search engine once again. I’d looked up Ethan Chase once when Ginny had frustrated me enough, and I’d found nothing. It’s not that I wasn’t curious. Or observant. It’s that I felt like the worst person in the world, trying to dig up history on her husband from social media. It’s that I trusted him with everything I was.
I type the text in. Chase Anderson, and when the feed comes up, my knees give out. I sit, huddled up to the side, staring at Ethan in an impeccable suit, leaning back against the chair with a scowl as he looks back at the camera. There’s another where Ethan’s on a stage, spotlight on him as he speaks to a crowd, a trophy in his right hand. Ethan at a tennis club. Ethan at someplace called Necker Island. Ethan shirtless on the cover of the Vanity Fair magazine. Ethan on Vogue. Ethan at a funeral with his entire family. Ethan at a foundation by the name “Andersons & Co.”
Ethan at the freaking white house, shaking hands with the…
The phone clatters out of my hands and I close my ears with both of my hands, panting, crying. It’s like I never even knew who he was. The man who’s returned home to me, made me dinner, fallen asleep on my shoulder, eaten my burned pie…that is the man I have come to know. A man that doesn’t even exist.
Lie after lie. All lies! How could one look someone who trusted them so in the eye and lie repeatedly? Why? What was the need to do that? How could he make a complete fool out of me? Make me trust him so easily? How could he lie to me? And the private investigator? He had him lie to me too?
A new life, a new home, a warm bed to sleep at night, and a full stomach, he’d promised me. I suppose I should be thankful he’d given me all of that and so many lies in addition to all of that.
“Ma’am, are you alright?”
I look up to find a uniformed man crouching in front of me. There’s a crowd outside the elevator, staring at me worriedly. I hadn’t even noticed it open. Or the people around.
Grabbing my purse and phone from the floor, I stand, wiping my nose and my eyes as I dash out of the elevator.
”Poor thing,” I hear a woman say as I rush past. “The other day, there was a woman wailing in the bathroom. Said her husband cheated…”
I wonder if cheating is worse than living an utter lie. I wonder if cheating is worse than manipulating and deceiving someone into believing what you want them to.
Ethan’s by the door of our suite when I get there. His head snaps left upon hearing my footsteps, and he instantly rushes in front of me, frantic. “May, please, let me explain—”
“Give me the keys,” is all I say.
He reaches for me, but I flinch, backing away from him. “Don’t you ever touch me again.”
Ethan ignores me and takes my hand. “I’m sorry. There is no excuse for what I have done. I was going to tell you everything eventually. I was going to tell you when I was sure that you didn’t—” He stops abruptly, catching himself.
I yank my hand back. “Until you were sure that what, Mr. Anderson? That I wasn’t a gold digger? That I didn’t want you for your money?” He doesn’t respond and I have my answer. “Give me the keys. I will not spend another second here with you.”
“May, please. Don’t leave. You promised.”
I stare at him through eyes blurred with tears. “The house rent is covered by the company you work for. I suppose that wasn’t entirely a lie. I mean, twisted the right way, it could almost pass off as the truth. To date, I always wondered why you drew up that contract. I understood we were at loggerheads with each other. Friends and couples do have their fights. What I didn’t comprehend, however, was making me sign not to take your property if we got separated. I would sit for hours wondering what that meant. Now, I understand it completely. That day at the café, I thought you were the best man in the world. The most beautiful man I’d ever seen, with clear eyes and an easy smile.”
I smile at him, and it is cold. “Now I know it’s all a front to hide how horrid you are underneath your many masks. You saw me. A woman desperate and nearly homeless. I told you everything about me. I told you things I haven’t even told Ginny. You offered me the world, dangling in front of me the things I needed; the things I craved, because it was all a game to you. I’m sport. A fucking amusement for you. Toss the peasant the gold and see if she steals it, no?”
“That is not—”
I chuckle softly. “No? Go on then. Tell me why you, a filthy rich bastard, picked a nobody like me to be his wife, and don’t you dare use Harriet as an excuse. It could’ve ended with just coffee.”
No answer.
I snatch the keys off his hand and head over to the door. When I shut it behind me, I slide the bolts in place and stalk off to my portion of the suite.