Chapter 5
I stood where I was, and my pulse wouldn't slow down.
What debt? Why had the Eastgates picked me in the first place?
My marriage had come out of an introduction between the two families, and my father had done business with the Eastgates for years. I had always known that much.
But the look on Sophie's face and the way she said it pointed to a story I had never heard.
I picked up my phone and called my father.
It rang three times before he answered.
"Dad."
"Lauren, your mother told me," my father said. "What do you need me to do?"
"Dad, I want to ask you something."
"Go ahead."
"How did my marriage to Julian actually get arranged?"
The line went silent. It wasn't the silence of a man thinking. It was the silence of a man who had been asked the one question he didn't want.
"Dad?"
"That subject can wait until you come home. I'll tell you face to face."
"I want to know now."
"Lauren—"
"Sophie came to my door. She told me to ask you about the debt."
A heavy sigh came through the phone.
"Don't get ahead of yourself. Come home for dinner tonight and I'll tell you everything."
He hung up.
I stood there holding the phone for a long time.
Those three years of marriage had been a beautifully finished house. Everything on the surface looked perfect, and I never knew what was buried under the foundation.
*****
At 6 that evening, I drove to my parents' house.
My father sat on the living room couch with a cup of coffee that had gone cold in front of him.
My mother sat beside him with red eyes.
"Sit down," my father said.
I sat and looked at him.
He lit a cigarette, took two drags, and put it out.
"Five years ago, the company almost went under."
"What happened?" I asked.
"The cash dried up. At the worst of it, the banks were calling in loans, the suppliers cut us off, and every site shut down. You'd just graduated and you were doing your master's overseas, so your mother and I kept it from you."
None of that had ever reached me.
"The Eastgates came to us on their own. They said they could cover the hole. 60 million dollars."
"And what did they want?"
My father looked at me.
"They wanted you to marry him."
The room stayed quiet for a few seconds.
"So my marriage was a deal?"
"Lauren—"
"60 million dollars for three years of your daughter's life. Is that about right?"
"It wasn't like that." My mother broke in. "We looked into Julian back then. He had money, he had looks, and we thought you'd be happy—"
"You thought."
I looked down at my own hands.
"Did Julian know?"
My father said nothing.
"He knew from the start, didn't he?"
"Yes."
"So he never treated me like a wife, because to him I was nothing but a payment on a debt."
"Lauren!"
"Dad, I'm not blaming you," I said. "I only want the truth."
I stood up.
"Is there anything else?"
My father didn't answer.
My mother tugged at his sleeve, and he waved her off.
"They put in one more condition."
"What condition?"
"As long as the marriage lasted, the Winters couldn't compete with Eastgate on a single piece of real estate."
"What kind of condition is that?"
"It meant I spent five years watching Eastgate take every prime lot on the East Side and the North End, and we couldn't touch one of them."
My mother couldn't hold it in any longer.
"If it hadn't been to save the company, do you think we'd have let you suffer like that? They had that 60 million dollars over our heads and they squeezed us with it."
I took a slow breath.
Suffer wasn't the right word for it.