Page 6 of The Husband I Left

Oliver had money. I’d known that; the suits, the car, the penthouse, but I hadn’t understood the scale of it. I simply had no frame of reference for numbers that big. And so I might have attached more importance to some of the things that next than Oliver would have.

Flowers started being delivered to my apartment every Monday. Beautiful, elaborate arrangements of roses and lilies that took up most of the small table that was squeezed into the corner of our kitchen. After the first one was delivered, Kylie came home from work and stopped dead when she saw it. Then she shook her head and muttered, “What have you gotten yourself into, Genny?”

Dresses started arriving before our dates. Beautiful, expensive ones that fit me perfectly, delivered by couriers who looked deeply confused as they glanced around my apartment. Emerald earrings that the accompanying note said reminded him of my eyes. When my laptop died just before finals, a new top of the line one arrived that afternoon. He started sending his car to drive me home from work because he didn’t like the idea of me riding the bus that late. After my finals were over, he whisked me away to a beautiful bed and breakfast on the coast, where we spent most of the weekend in bed together.

Nobody had ever really spoiled me before Oliver. My parents had loved us all fiercely and done their best to provide their children with a good life, but there were four of us and they’d had to watch every penny. Gifts were usually practical. Treats were carefully budgeted for. And now suddenly there was this beautiful man who treated my smallest wishes like commands he’d been waiting his whole life to receive. And it wasn’t just the gifts. It was the attention. Oliver remembered everything, right down to the smallest detail. When we were together, he made me feel like no one else existed.

Looking back now, from the smoking ruins, I know exactly what I should have done. I should have slowed down. I should have asked questions. I should have held out longer before letting myself get swept away.

We’d been dating for right around six weeks when he asked me to marry him.

It was a warm night, and we’d just finished dinner and were sitting together on the terrace of his penthouse. The city was glittering beneath us, and the breeze was tugging at my curls. We sipped wine, and I was telling about my mother’s latest fight with my dad’s dogs, who kept digging holes in her garden.

Right in the middle of my story, he turned to me and took my hands in his own and said, “Let’s get married.”

I laughed, then realized he was serious. “You don’t even know me,” I said. “It’s only been a month. We haven’t met each other’s families yet. We haven’t even fought about anything yet.”

“I don’t see the point in waiting,” he replied. “I knew you were the one the first time I saw you. You make me happy. I’d like to make you happy in return. I want to give you the world, Genevieve.”

There was a small, sensible voice in the back of my head telling me to slow down. To think about this. That you don’t marry a man after knowing him for only a month. That you don’t marry a man when you know nothing about his family. That you don’t marry a man when you don’t even know his middle name.

But the rest of me was on a terrace under the stars and the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen is sitting across from me, looking at me like I’m the answer to the question he’s been asking his whole life and I’ve read too many romance novels and I’ve mistaken the giddiness and rush of a new relationship for love.

“Yes,” I said, and I was laughing and crying at the same time. “Yes, you crazy man. I will marry you. Yes.”

* * *

Oliver didn’t want to wait. Neither did I. The thought of running away together felt adventurous and romantic, and everything my life hadn’t been before Oliver walked into it.

“Let’s go tonight,” he said after he slid a ring with a diamond large enough that it looked fake onto my finger. “We can take my plane to Vegas and be married by tomorrow.”

“Tonight?”

“Why not?”

I couldn’t think of a single reason why not, so off we went. He made some calls, and a few hours later, we were on a private jet with cream-colored seats and champagne. I called my parents from the plane. My mother cried. My father asked me if I was sure about a dozen times. I promised him I was and that we’d have a reception for the family when we got back.

We got married the next day by an Elvis who looked like he might actually be old enough to have known the real thing. I wore a white sundress I’d hastily purchased that morning at a little boutique near our hotel.

We spent the next week rarely leaving our suite. Hell, we barely left the bed. He knew every single place on my body that made me gasp, and he revisited each one of them, just to be thorough. He’d keep me hanging right on the edge of pleasure, making me beg before he’d let me tip over the edge. I’d repay him by taking him in my mouth, and his low, broken groan made me feel like the most powerful woman in the world.

I called him my husband about a thousand times, just because I could. He’d call me Mrs. Sinclair, and it felt like a promise.

It was after Vegas that reality set in.

The thing about whirlwind romances is that the wind eventually stops, and when it does, you’re left looking around trying to figure out where you landed.

I’d never really thought about what it would mean to live in Oliver’s world. I’d been visiting it for the past month, but I still had my real life to go back to. My apartment and my classes and my job and my parent’s cozy house in the suburbs. Now, I had to figure out how to live my life here with a man who, when it came right down to it, I really didn’t know that well.

We’d been back in Boston for exactly one day when Oliver looked up from his breakfast and said, “We’re having lunch with my parents tomorrow.”

I nearly choked on my coffee. “Tomorrow? Like, tomorrow tomorrow?”

“Is that a problem?”

“No! I’m looking forward to meeting them. It’s just… do they know about us? About…” I waved my hand so that the diamond on my finger flashed in the morning light.

He took a sip of coffee and replied, “They will tomorrow.”