was living at his son’s house. But he’s moving out soon. Apparently his father had left a sizable inheritance. Ten billion, can you imagine? Now where are my glasses?”
She perched the delicate gold spectacles on her nose and peered at her phone.
“Whoever married first, his son or him, would earn the inheritance. I can never work this dang phone. Where are my photos? Anyway, apparently his son was on track to earn the money, but shit went down, as the kids say! And my darling is going to be inheriting. There is a deadline, ladies, so we unfortunately cannot spend years planning the wedding. We need to have it done in a month!”
“A month!” Ivy said.
“Yes. Ah, here is the photo.” She passed around the phone.
“He is attractive,” Elsie said, handing me the phone.
I peered at the screen and felt the room closing in on me.
“That’s Chris’s dad. That’s Chris dad!”
“Oh shit,” Ivy said.
“That motherfucker!” I screeched.
“Yes, Chris is his son’s name. Oh!” Ms. Frankel said, eyes widening in shock. “You’re the girl he married. My word.”
“We’re getting a divorce,” I said darkly.
“You should wait until that inheritance comes through,” Ms. Frankel said, taking off her spectacles. “Then clean him out. I have a wonderful divorce attorney. I’ll have him call you.”
“He used me.” I started sobbing.
“Men are whores,” Ms. Frankel declared, patting me on the shoulder. “There, there. Have a corgi.”
She picked up one of the pudgy dogs and set him in my lap.
“He never loved me. He just wanted the money. He sat there and lied to me about wanting to spend the rest of his life with me,” I sobbed.
“Like father, like son,” Ms. Frankel said drolly. “It seems I am unfortunately out of a fiancé.”
“But the inheritance,” I choked out.
“Chris has the Svenssons as his lawyers,” she said. “I bet they draw this thing out in court for the next decade with that much money on the line. Lord have mercy. No, I will not be tied to a homeless man, no matter how good he is with his mouth. Alas, ladies, it seems I am back on the market. Hopefully I shall be back soon with a new fiancé!”
I sat there, stunned, as Ms. Frankel collected her corgis and was shown to the elevator by Ivy.
“How could he?” I said quietly.
“Chris is a liar,” Elsie reminded me. “He lied from day one, and he is pathologically obsessed with money.”
“It’s some sort of sick compulsion,” Amy added. “Sociopathic.”
“There is pizza on the way,” Ivy said soothingly. “No more meetings.”
But not even pizza could calm my rage.
“He humiliated me. Over and over. None of it was real. God, the annulment!” I shrieked, realization hitting me. “He screwed me over! We could have had an annulment, but he was trying to get his inheritance! That bastard.”
“Sophie,” Ivy said in concern, “the chocolate cake?”
“On it.”
“And I’ll pick up some more wine,” Brea said, grabbing her purse.
“I’m going to ruin him!” I raged.
“Let’s not do anything rash…” Ivy said delicately.
“I’m not,” I said, scowling. “I have an article to write because I will get that publishing contract.”
“Yes, let’s channel all that anger into positive creative pursuits,” my friend said, pushing me in my chair and draping a blanket around my shoulders. “We will all be back soon with good things to eat. You’ll feel much better!”
But this pursuit wasn’t positive—at least not to Chris. I sat and wrote and wrote. I wrote about the shitty first date, I wrote about the lies, I wrote about the inheritance, I wrote about the fake wedding, I wrote about how much I despised him, and I wrote about how stupid I had felt after I realized the truth.
I proofed it quickly, added several photos, and then emailed it to Victoria.
“There’s your viral article,” I muttered, shutting down my laptop.
All my dirty laundry was out there, but I didn’t care. Because Chris was going to have his comeuppance.
57
Chris
Grace and her stuff were out of my penthouse when I returned later that evening. My mother was drunk on the couch.
“Why are you still here?”
She looked up blearily from her phone.
“I was waiting to see you,” she slurred. “I know you had a hard day.”
“If you want to keep getting handouts from me, then stay out of my business,” I snapped at her.
“But darling,” she said, “it’s all over the internet.”
“What the—”
My mom held out her tablet to me. On the screen was an article titled, “Married in a Minute to a Moron.”