"With your money." Tessa pointed out.
"Not only my money."
"At least according to him." Tessa softened her tone slightly. "I’m not trying to attack you. The situation is insane."
Naomi looked away. "And now I’ve made him even madder. I told him to send me the debt details."
"Maybe that’s for the best. Maybe management should change hands. your family debt has had the same manager for over ten years, and somehow the damn thing is still flourishing. Even you know that sounds suspicious."
"It doesn’t mean he’s doing anything wrong."
"No. But it means you should know exactly what you owe."
Naomi sat on the edge of the bed. Tessa sat beside her.
"He’s been handling everything since your dad died," Tessa said. "And somehow this debt is never-ending. Every time you think you’re making progress, there’s another payment. Another amount you supposedly have to cover."
Naomi stared down at her hands. "I never really questioned it. I just thought..." She rubbed her thumb across her palm.
"you’re not sixteen anymore. You’re allowed to ask questions."
That sounded so simple when Tessa said it. But Richard had spent years making every question feel like betrayal.
Naomi sighed. "What if I can’t handle it myself?"
Tessa turned toward her. Naomi’s eyes were worried now.
"What if he sends everything to me and I completely screw it up?"
"You won’t."
"You don’t know that."
"You said Dorian is giving you five hundred thousand at the end of six months, right? Then surely that should give you enough breathing room to sort out the debt properly. You find out what is owed. What has already been paid. Then you make a working plan."
"You really think I can do this?"
"Girl, if I had half the energy you do, I’d be Superwoman." Tessa squeezed her hand.
Naomi groaned. "I’ve got to shower for this thing with Dorian."
"Actually... Painfully rich is going to cancel with his mother. He said he’ll pick you up tonight instead. He seems genuinely concerned about you. Maybe he truly wants to help."
Naomi looked away. "Yeah." She stood and adjusted the towel around herself. "That’s how men suck you into their orbit and make themselves irreplaceable."
Tessa groaned dramatically. "Oh God, here we go again. I still don’t understand your love logic. I patiently wait for the day you fall in love."
Naomi laughed. "You’re going to be growing grey hair out your ass by then. Love..." She paused. "Love hurts. My mother. My aunt?" She gestured vaguely toward nothing. "Look at them." Her mother had loved her father so deeply that whatever happened between them had ended with him dead and her in prison.
Diana loved Richard enough to explain away his abuse. What exactly was Naomi supposed to learn from that?
That love made women blind?
"I’m not hurting," Tessa said. "And I am happily and lovingly married. There are a lot of marriages that aren’t train wrecks, Naomi. My husband drives me crazy sometimes. I drive him crazy too. We argue. But he does not hurt me, and I don’t have to make excuses for him."
"Maybe my family lineage is cursed then," Naomi said not wanting to offend Tessa but she genuinely believed that love in a marriage or any relationship equals disaster.
*****
"Boss, we have a problem."
Dorian looked up from the file in front of him as Adrian walked into his office. "You found something."
"Yes." Adrian closed the door behind him.
Dorian leaned back in his chair. "Go on."
"Miss Bennett’s fiancé is supposed to be Callum Sterling."
Dorian frowned. "Am I supposed to know the fucktard?"
"Maybe not him, but you know his father. Victor Sterling."
"The Victor Sterling?"
"The Victor Sterling," Adrian repeated.
Dorian leaned back farther. "Ah, fuck." He rubbed a hand over his jaw. "Again, that complicates everything you told me about Naomi." His thoughts immediately returned to the bruise hidden beneath flour on Naomi’s face. "I think this Callum is hurting her."
"I wouldn’t exactly jump to conclusions. Callum is a weakling, so to speak. He’s spoiled, entitled and generally unpleasant, but he doesn’t strike me as someone who would want to break his nails."
Dorian shoved away from the desk. "Then someone fucking is!" He stood and started pacing. He dragged a hand through his hair. "She won’t tell me. Why won’t she tell me?"
"Maybe because you are both her accidental husband and contract husband."
Dorian walked back toward the desk. There was something he was missing. He could feel it. Naomi’s money did not make sense.
The fiancé did not make sense. And now somebody was putting bruises on her face.
"Do you think it’s possible to get more information on the Sterling family through the firm? If anyone knows their secrets, it will be us."
"I could," Adrian said carefully, "but that would send alarm bells ringing through the firm. Your uncle would be on me in seconds."
Dorian scoffed. "Another fucktard I don’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole."
Adrian studied him for a moment. Then asked the question anyway. "Why do you care so much?"
"Because she is my wife."
"Accidental wife," Adrian clarified.
Dorian looked at him. "Semantics." He knew exactly what Adrian was thinking. He simply refused to acknowledge it.
"Maybe if you make her trust you enough, she’ll tell you what happened."
Dorian frowned. "Why would I want to do that?"
Adrian nodded slowly. "Yeah, I forgot."
"This Callum Sterling. Get me whatever you can find on him."
Adrian nodded. "Of course. It’ll be made available soon."
"Thank you, Adrian."
Adrian turned toward the door, then paused. "And don’t forget, you have that dinner at nine p.m."
"Oh, I didn’t forget."
There was no chance of that. The third Mrs. Heathcliffe had been making enough noise online to ensure he remembered exactly why he needed to see her.
Adrian glanced at the tablet in his hand. "Your interview this morning seems to have quieted the storm. The narrative is changing."