Page 13 of The Worst Man

Six

“That’s good, since it means you’re about to become a very rich woman.”

“You know I don’t care about your money.” I waved my hand in front of my face as if to brush aside the realization that I’d just married into one of New England’s richest families—if not all of America. “If anything, I wish you had less of it. That kind of wealth scares me a little.”

“You might think differently after you read this.” He reached behind him and grabbed his phone off the bedside table. For a few seconds, he thumbed the screen and then passed it to me.

“What are you showing me?” I couldn’t put my finger on it, but Hank’s mood had soured in the last couple of minutes. Now he seemed almost angry, and I didn’t understand what I had said or done. Did he honestly think I’d married him for his money? Up until a couple of minutes ago, I hadn’t even remembered that we were married. I made a pretty poor gold digger.

“Just read it.”

My eyebrows dipped into a vee at his clipped tone, but instead of telling him to quit behaving like a dick, I glanced down at the device and started reading as requested. Clearly, he was troubled by whatever was on it. After a few seconds, my head popped back up. “What the fuck?”

His jaw ticked and his nostrils flared. “Yeah. That was pretty much my reaction, too.”

“They can’t be serious.”

“Oh, I assure you, they are. In fact, I’ve been waiting for them to pull a stunt like this for a couple of years. I’m actually surprised it took them this long.” He shrugged noncommittally, but I could see in the tight, rigid line of his shoulders that the idea of his parents attempting to bribe me to stay married to him wasn’t something he took lightly.

“How do they even know you’re married?” I asked, handing his phone back to him. I didn’t want to look at the note from his father for one more second than I had to.

His finger skated over the screen again a few more times, and then he held it up for me to view. As if the matching gold bands on our fingers didn’t already confirm we were now married, the photo posted to his Instagram profile certainly did.

“When did you post that?” My voice fell to a near whisper as I digested what I was seeing.

Whoever was behind the camera had snapped the picture at the exact moment that Hank had slid the ring on my finger. The elated expression on his face stole my breath. I’d never seen a man look at me so unabashedly pleased. While my heart had believed him when he said he wanted this marriage to last, seeing the proof of it stamped on his face cemented the knowledge in my heart.

And the look on my face? It could only be described as giddy. I couldn’t remember ever seeing myself so utterly happy and content. As if we’d been a real, honest-to-goodness couple who’d just spontaneously decided to tie the knot at two o’clock in the morning in front of an Elvis impersonator.

“Right after you fell asleep,” he answered as my mind drifted back to the picture. Until now, everything about the ceremony had been hazy and indistinct in my memory, but the second my eyes clapped onto the photo, it had come rushing back to me on a tide of emotion.

Do you, Henry Horatio Talbot, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife? To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, for all the days of your life?

I do.

Reluctantly, I pulled my eyes away from the screen and Hank dropped his phone down onto the bed next to him. “I didn’t know your name was Henry.”

He gave me a small smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “It’s my dad’s name, and his dad’s name, and so on and so forth. My full, ridiculous name is Henry Horatio Fuller Talbot the Eighth, if you can believe it. I absolutely hate it, of course, so when I was in sixth grade I asked everyone to call me Hank instead. My parents were livid at the time, but they eventually gave in. Now I know I’m in trouble when they call me Henry or Horatio.”

He was definitely in trouble then. His father’s email read:

Henry,

Imagine our surprise at waking up this morning to learn that our son had run off to Las Vegas to marry a woman we’d never met, much less heard of. Your mother is inconsolable with grief, although she did admit to being somewhat pleased to see your new bride isn’t one of your regular trollops.

Thank you for tagging Ms. Whitcomb in the photo as it made it much easier for Frederick to look into her background. While we would have preferred for you to marry someone like either Juliana or Penelope, a fellow professor of literature is an acceptable addition to the family.

To that end, we are pleased to offer Miranda a lump sum payment of three million dollars now, followed by an additional five hundred thousand for every year she stays married to you. Kindly have her attorney contact Frederick directly to arrange payment. Also, your mother wishes you to know that she expects you both for dinner next Sunday.

— HHFTVII

If I found it odd that he’d signed off using his initials instead of something paternal like “dad” or “your father,” I didn’t mention it to Hank. He was already seething from the message, and poking at him wouldn’t do either of us any favors.

But I did have a few questions that needed answering.

“Who are Juliana and Penelope?” I didn’t want to examine too closely why I’d chosen to ask about the two women his dad had specifically called out before inquiring about their bribe.

Hank, however, was only too happy to call me on itt. “Out of everything he said, that’s what stood out to you?” He raised one eyebrow imperiously high, and I was immediately reminded of all the times he’d done that in the past. Before, I’d wanted to wipe that smug look off his face using a two-by-four, but with our changed circumstances, I now found it somewhat endearing.

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