“Pack it up for me,” I tell Francesco, and he nods politely.
“Alec,” Jen repeats, her voice soft.
I turn to face her, bracing myself. She smiles at me, and my heart twists painfully. Her long blonde hair is perfectly straight, and she looks at me as though she never stabbed me in the heart, and then twisted the knife.
“It’s Alexander,” I correct her.
She looks stricken and glances at Francesco. “That… was that an engagement ring?”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Speaking of engagements,” I say, “I hear congratulations are in order. It slipped my mind the last time I saw you. I can’t think straight when I have Elena in my arms.”
Her cheeks redden, and she twists her engagement ring around her finger. My heart twists just a little at the sight of her ring, and I take a sick type of delight in knowing Elena’s ring is bigger.
“That’s cute,” I tell her, nodding at her ring.
She hides her ring behind her other hand and grins up at me. That smile I used to love, it no longer looks the way it used to. It doesn’t look innocent and sweet. Now, it looks fake and calculative. Was it always that way, or am I only just realizing it?
“Don’t take this joke too far. I’m not sure what you’re trying to accomplish, but being with a girl like that isn’t going to make me jealous. Did you know she came running to her father’s house not too long ago, begging for money? She looked so pathetic, tears and snot running down her face, crying on the floor. She was even wearing disgusting torn clothes. You could never be with someone like that.”
Anger courses through me. My Buttercup was in such a bad state? “Not too long ago, you were the one wearing cheap clothes,” I say, giving her a once over. “But look at you now.” I shake my head and smirk. “Elena was born with class running through her very veins, no matter what she wears. You might marry one of us, Jennifer, but you’ll never be one of us. Not truly.”
She looks at me as though I’ve slapped her and grits her teeth. “She’s using you. You know that, right? She needs money for her mother’s hospital bills or something like that. Is she the reason you’ve been ignoring all of my text messages?”
The lack of empathy astounds me. I always thought Jennifer had a heart of gold, but now I’m wondering if that was all an act too. Or maybe she never even put on an act, and I was just too smitten to see her true colors.
“What Elena needs is none of your concern,” I tell her. “It’s mine. She’s mine.”
Jennifer looks at me through narrowed eyes. “If I wasn’t good enough for you, there’s no way someone as pathetic as Elena would be. Your mother would never allow it.”
I frown at her. “What are you talking about?”
Jennifer laughs, but there’s a hint of pain in her gaze. “Your mother. The second our relationship got serious, she started to show me how ill-suited we are. She’d take me to all these events where she knew I’d be out of my depth, and she’d never give me any warnings or advice. I could take that, you know.” Jennifer brushes her hair out of the way the way she does when she’s flustered. “But then we spoke about marriage, you and I, and your mother gave me an incredibly restrictive pre-nup.”
I raise my brows. This is all new information to me. Neither my mother nor Jennifer has ever mentioned anything of the sort. As far as I’m aware, Mom is doing the same thing with Elena. Not to show her we’re ill-suited, but to ease her back into society, to help her make new connections. It’s likely that that’s what she was attempting to do with Jennifer, too. My heart sinks as I think of my mother. Is she unknowingly the reason Jennifer walked away?
“I couldn’t do it,” she says. “Constantly being made to feel like I’m not good enough for you, like I don’t deserve you. I couldn’t live the rest of my life like that, no matter how much I loved you, no matter how much I still do.”
“So you cheated?” I ask, my voice deadly calm.
Jennifer’s eyes widen, and she shakes her head. “It wasn’t like that. Matthew was just a friend at the start, but he was just always there. You were always working, and you’d cut me off the second I said anything negative about your mother. He was just there when I needed someone.”
I smile at her and nod. “I see… so it was my fault you cheated on me?”
Jennifer shakes her head, flustered, and I laugh. “My mother was right about you all along,” I tell her. “A pre-nup shouldn’t have mattered to you if you didn’t think we’d ever get divorced. I know my mother, and any pre-nup she’d have asked you to sign would have still provided you with enough money to live off. All she would have done was safeguard Kennedy assets.”
Jennifer’s eyes flash with guilt and dismay, and I know I’m right. The money she was offered was likely quite a sizable amount.
“Either way,” Jennifer says. “I was so devoted to you, and I still wasn’t good enough for you according to your mother. If I wasn’t, then I don’t see how Elena will be.”
I stare at her, the difference between Elena and her greater than I initially thought it was. Jen looks fake in every way—her hair, her lips, her tits, but also her smile and her kindness. None of it looks or feels real. She isn’t worth the hatred, the mental real estate she’s been occupying.
I glance at Francesco, who rushes toward me, a ring box in hand. I smile at him as I take the box from him and place it in my suit pocket.
I glance back at Jennifer, seeing her in a different light. “It was good to see you, Jennifer,” I say. “I wish you and Matthew the best. You deserve each other.”
I walk away, and this time, I don’t look back.
Chapter 39
E lena
My hands are trembling as I hold my phone up, a photo of Alexander and Jennifer staring back at me. She’s smiling at him, and he’s looking at her; the two of them standing in the jewelry store he took me to pick our rings. Based on the suit he’s wearing in the photo, this must have been just a few days ago.
Has he been seeing her all along? I can’t make sense of this. The way he reacted when I broke that photo frame made me think that maybe, just maybe, he was actually moving on from her. But the way he looks at her in this photo… it’s the same way he’s always looked at her.
I don’t understand why he’s even with her at all. Why wouldn’t he have told me about it? He’s been acting so possessive lately that I was under the impression that I’m the only woman in his life. Was I wrong? Was his behavior really just him projecting his own unfaithfulness?
“What’s wrong?” Lucian asks, startling me.
I lock my phone and look up at him, shaking my head. He’s been so incredibly depressed after everything that happened with Marcus. He’s barely leaving his bedroom, he sleeps most of his days away, and he’s too scared to leave the house, scared that someone found out his secret, somehow. There’s nothing I can do or say to convince him that everything is fine, that his secrets are safe.
“It’s nothing,” I tell him, pasting a smile on my face. I don’t need him to worry about something so trivial. This is between Alexander and me, after all.
My phone buzzes and I frown when I realize that it’s the private investigator I hired. “Ma’am,” he says. “There have been some developments in the case. I have some evidence to show you. Would today be a good time?”
I swallow hard and try my best to keep it together, even though my heart is sinking. I was hoping I was wrong, that my suspicions were just that—suspicions. “Yes,” I say, my voice shaky. My mind is buzzing as I give the PI my address, my heart racing.
I don’t even realize when Lucian helps me to the sofa. “Elena, you’re worrying me,” he says.
I turn to look at him and blink, absentmindedly, before forcing a smile onto my face. “It’s nothing, Luce. I’m sorry.”
He sits down next to me, searching my face. My phone rings again, and this time it’s Alexander. I watch it ring until it finally stops. Before I saw that photo, he’d have been the first person I’d want to speak to after hearing that there’s a new development in my mother’s case. But now? Now I need some distance.
He calls me again, and this time I click the incoming call away. Lucian frowns at me and wraps his arm around me. “Okay,” he says. “Something is definitely wrong.”
I shake my head and put my phone down as Aiden walks in, the PI in tow.
“Mr. Starling,” I say, nodding at him. He and I have never met in person. In fact, it was Aiden that found him for me.