The Wrong Wife by Maya Alden

Chapter 36

Declan

Mark called me as I got into the chartered plane from New Orleans.

"Is Esme okay?"

"No," was his curt reply.

"Clarify," I demanded as the pilot announced we'd take off in ten minutes.

"He beat her."

"Beat Esme?" My heart sank, and everything inside me stilled before going into adrenaline overload.

"No, her mother."

"What?" I nodded when the stewardess brought me a glass of Scotch. They knew what I drank, and had it stocked when Baker booked the charter.

I heard him sigh. "She doesn't talk about it and thinks I don't know. But… he's been beating them all the time, Dec. Why do you think Monica sent her away?"

It made a horrible kind of sense. "And now he's making a statement to convince Esme to leave me?"

"I need you to protect her."

"I'm not going to let her go, Mark. I'm in fucking love with her."

"Yeah, we can all see that. Don't let her walk away because she's going to. She’ll do whatever she can to protect that useless fucking mother of hers. She never showed Esme love or cared for her—instead, fuck, I can't stand that whole family."

Mark was voicing my feelings.

"Where is she? And where are you?"

"I'm…well, standing guard outside Monica's room because I don’t want her to be alone with her and Julien. I exchanged shifts with a colleague to be here. She's inside with her mother, probably making promises about not getting the police involved and convincing you to marry Viv."

"I'm not marrying Viv no matter what happens. I'll walk away from the merger, Mark."

"You may well have to."

I heard what he was saying even if he didn’t voice it. "I'll put Esme first."

"Yeah, someone should."

After the plane hit cruising altitude, I called Raya. I asked her to ensure she got all the information from the police on the investigation of Monica's alleged accident. I called Carolina Vega, the Knight Tech counsel to ask her what the consequences of going against the Hartley Industries bylaws would be.

"You mean if you divorced your wife before the year was done?"

"Yes."

"Or if you annulled your marriage and married the other Hartley?" she asked acidly. Carolina had met Viv and Esme and made it clear, as had everyone else in my life except for my mother, that they were on team Esme.

"I'm not marrying Viv, Vega. Just tell me what the damage will be?"

"Well, you'll lose… it'll be significant. The contract is clear; whoever calls for the divorce, Knight Tech, will have to pay remuneration. An annulment not followed within one month with a new marriage contract will lead to the dissolution of the merger, which is going to be a cluster fuck now that both companies have just come together."

It would be a lot of money—and would negatively impact the lives of thousands working at both companies. Needless to say, the stock would take a dive. The board may not fire me because the Knight family owned more than fifty percent of the company, but I wouldn’t blame them if they did.

"So, we're fucked no matter what?"

"Well, you can annul your marriage; you've been married for just six months, and any judge will grant that, and I'm sure Forest knows enough judges to make that happen for you. Then you can marry Viv, get a new contract, and off to the races you go."

I shook my head. "Who the fuck agreed to such a bullshit contract?"

"You did. I warned you. But you were in love," she spat out that last word.

"I'm a fucking moron."

"Not going to contest that."

"Well, counselor, my wife is being pressured right now to pressure me to give her family what they want. And I'm afraid she's going to succumb to that pressure."

"What are they doing?"

I told her what I had learned from Mark.

"These days, the police can go after abusers even if the victim doesn't press charges, Dec. But from what you are saying, their hands will be tied if Viv claims she saw the accident. Doesn't she realize that she'll be disbarred if it is proven she's lying?"

"And how will we prove she’s lying?”

I drank more Scotch as we flew and tried to figure out how I would save my wife, her mother, my marriage, and my company simultaneously. Yeah, it was a fucking cluster fuck!

Mateo couldn't agree more. He picked me up at the airport and drove me to the UCLA Medical.

"Any news on the hacker?" I asked.

Mateo shook his head. "Raya is looking high and low. It's her number one priority."

Sorry, buddy, I think her number one priority is and has always been you.

"She's also made sure there are a couple of people at the hospital so Esme will never be alone with Julien is there. But that blonde giant of hers is standing outside the door, scaring everyone away."

I smiled. "Mark is a good friend."

"If only I swung the other way."

"Where are Viv and Julien?"

"Viv is in San Francisco, packing up. The marriage is officially annulled, as you know. And from what I hear from sources, her next project is to become Mrs. Declan Knight."

I sighed. "Can't believe how popular I've gotten."

"Not so popular if your wife wants to annul your marriage."

"I don't know how to get through to Esme."

Mateo looked at me as the city lights flashed past us in the Escalade. "She's twenty-three, Dec. Remember when you were that age?"

"Yeah."

"And she's lived in fear of her father for herself, and now we know her mother all her life. Be a good girl, Es, or Daddy will beat Mommy."

"Christ." I ran a hand through my hair. The torture my wife had gone through. And, yet she wanted to help people. Now I could see where her passion for helping abused women and children came from. She'd learned from experience how hard it was to step away from an abuser. Monica was weak, and Esme had to be the adult in that relationship.

"And your mom wants you to call her back."

"She called you?"

Mateo nodded. "Since you won't talk to her, she contacted me. Esme is not our kind, by the way, and blah blah, could you go back to Viv."

"I feel like a fucking stud, and not in a good way."

"She always liked Viv."

"Because she is like Viv, and I was, as Freud would say, trying to marry my mother. Mateo, how did we get here? I thought this merger would make us one of the most powerful tech companies in the world, and now I'm not sure we'll keep our shirts."

Mateo shrugged. "If we lose it, we'll just start again. Our abilities are not rooted in our bank accounts, Dec; they're within us. A social worker who helped me told me that once."

"Esme would say the same thing."