Page 28 of Her Dark Lies
“You’re going to be my wife,” Jack says, taking my hand. “The mother of my children. A full-fledged member of this family. That means you’ll have your own money, to do with what you will. We won’t be getting divorced, though, will we, Claire?”
“Of course not,” I reply, touching the warm pearls around my neck. “I wouldn’t bother marrying you in the first place if I had any intention of leaving. That would be counterproductive.”
We all laugh, and Maggie slides over the papers. “Just for the record, Claire, the money and assets will revert back to Jackson’s estate if you pass away before an heir comes along.” They pause, as if to let this morbid idea sink in a bit.
“Naturally. I wouldn’t need it if I were dead. I understand.”
Cross my heart and hope to die.
And there it is again, that overwhelming curiosity—did Jack’s dead wife go through all of this? Or is this new, something they’ve cooked up just for me?
Maggie gives me another sweetly predatory smile, like an adorable but feral barn cat.
“Excellent. What you’re signing here, Claire, in addition to the prenuptial agreement, is basically a nondisclosure agreement. Everything we’ve discussed today must stay between us. If you tell anyone outside of the people in this room anything about the Comptons’ financial arrangements with you, you will forfeit it all. Do you understand?”
Interesting. “I do.”
Jack squeezes my knee, recognizing the echo of the words to come.
“There’s more. You are precluded from discussing any personal information you might learn about the family through your marriage and subsequent time spent with them, their history as a family, anything to do with the Villa and all their other properties. If you do, you will forfeit your 30 percent, and there will be other legal ramifications. Is that clear as well?”
“Crystal. I would never divulge family secrets. I take that vow very seriously.”
“Read this over, then,” Maggie says, relaxing into the chair, “and here’s a pen.”
I read through the paper in front of me. The language is quite clear, but I read it carefully. Halfway down the page is the stipulation that everything depends on me legally changing my name to Compton and agreeing to raise my children under the Compton surname. I have no choice there.
And if I disclose anything personal about the family without express approval, the family can come after me legally. It should probably strike me as strange, and looking back, I can see that of course this was completely out of the ordinary. But in the moment, with Jack smiling at me and the lawyers waiting expectantly, their requests for secrecy and silence seem to be the most perfectly reasonable request I’ve ever heard. This is a family everyone wants a piece of. They are internationally known, famous, wealthy, targeted, and as such, understandably private.
An all or nothing setup. I understand it just fine. I will erase Claire Hunter completely, morph into Claire Compton, Mrs. Jackson Compton, and forevermore leave that damaged, empty part of myself behind that attaches to my maiden name.
And I want that. I want it so much. It’s not the money, though. I swear it. I want Jack. I want his oblivion.
Without another thought or glance, I sign my name above the line whereClaire Elizabeth Hunteris printed, and date it.
Soon enough, everything I sign will say Claire Compton. It is astounding to think of. I always thought when and if I got married, I’d keep my maiden name. I intended to be Claire Hunter forever. Call it karmic debt, a nod to my dead father permanently etched on me, legally and ancestrally.
When I told Jack I wouldn’t be taking his name, early in our engagement, he’d been so stricken I walked it back immediately. “I’m open to discussing it, of course,” I said, but he’d shaken his head. “You don’t understand. If you aren’t a Compton, legally, I can’t protect you. I’m afraid you won’t have a choice in this, darling. I’ll make it up to you though, I swear it.”
“We could hyphenate our children’s names.”
“Out of the question. My children will be Comptons. It’s how our lives are set up. It’s a legal thing, darling. You know how it is with these big ancestral estates. Draconian rules.”
The Hunter name isn’t without its own melodrama. Perhaps leaving it behind in service of marriage and children would clear my karmic debt and I’d be a whole new woman.
I eventually realized that by claiming the title and becoming the new Mrs. Compton, I would not only make Jack happy, which, at the time, was paramount, I could also banish the ghost of his first wife.
And heishappy right now, watching me closely as I initial each section and sign my name with a flourish, page after page after page. One last signature, one last initial, and it’s done. I hand the papers back to Maggie.
“Wonderful, wonderful,” she says, signing her own name as witness, embossing the page with a notary’s seal, adding the date, then tapping the papers together smartly so their pale blue edges are perfectly aligned. Amazing to think of the power in her hands. The money these family lawyers control.
I start to rise, but Jack puts a hand on my arm. “Hold on, darling.”
Now what?
Maggie sends a quick text on her phone and moments later a hidden door to our right opens. I jump. It’s as if the wall itself stretched and yawned, and people walked through its mouth. I shouldn’t be surprised, a house this large must have access corridors, but I am.
Jack’s parents step into the library, alongside a younger version of Brice with a deep tan and cold sable eyes. Poor Elliot looks tired. There is a man with them that I don’t recognize. He stays unobtrusively by the door.
