No more. I couldn’t take any more of this tiptoeing. He had to stop his lies now. “I’m in love with Logan McPherson and I want to be with him, not you.”
Physically shaking, he ran his fingers through his dark hair. “I figured as much when he barged into my office looking for you.”
I shook my head. “Then why did you still ask me about us?”
“Because I need an answer.”
My knees felt like rubber. “It’s no, Michael, it’s no.”
That fear seemed to grow on his face. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
I needed to sit down, so I made my way to the bed. Once there, I turned to him and softened my gaze. “Please, don’t take Clementine away from me. Don’t punish her for my choices. She needs me in her life.”
He seemed so distant, even though he was just across the room. “If you’re not standing by my side before the District Attorney nominations, her life will be in danger and there is nothing I can do about it.”
I got to my feet and ran over to him. “What are you talking about? Tell me what you mean.”
Five seconds had passed before he spoke. “I can’t.”
My fists were pounding against his chest and tears were leaking from my eyes before I knew what I was doing. “Stop saying that. Just tell me. Tell me now.”
As if defeated, he closed his eyes. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“The beginning, Michael. Start there.”
He nodded, and after a few seconds he began to speak. “Your sister and I didn’t fall in love. She was a prostitute I used for sex on a few occasions and although I fell in love with her, she never really loved me. She couldn’t, because she was in love with someone else.”
“Tommy Flannigan?” I asked, already having determined Lizzy had some kind of connection with him from what Logan had uncovered.
Another nod. “He wasn’t right for her. He couldn’t help her turn her life around, and that was what she needed.”
I had nothing to say. I was certain she did need that, but experience had told me no one could do that for her; she had to want to change.
“And yet she loved him anyway. He was her pimp, for fuck’s sake. He used her to make money. I hated that. Couldn’t stand it. He didn’t want her to clean herself up, didn’t want her to get off the drugs; all he wanted was for her to keep her mouth on other guys’ dicks.”
I’d never heard him talk like that. “What changed, Michael? If she didn’t love you, why did the two of you get married?”
“I’m getting to that. Like I said, we knew each other.”
My temper flared. “Yes, you were one of those dicks she kept her mouth on.”
“Don’t judge me, Elle. At least I wanted to help her. And I tried many times to get her to walk away from that life, but she wouldn’t. When I was done trying, I gave her my card and told her if she ever needed anything, to call me. For the longest time, she didn’t. But then about two years ago she got picked up on a possession and prostitution charge. That’s when she contacted me. I took her case free of charge, vouched for her, and bailed her out of jail—the court contingency was that she come work for me, my contingency was that she stay away from Tommy. She didn’t really have much of a choice. It was me or jail time. So she agreed to my terms. And as the days went on, she was doing so much better. Every day I could see the light shining brighter in her eyes.”
An overwhelming sadness stabbed at my chest for what she had become.
“At that time in my life I was just starting to think about running for District Attorney and I thought having a woman beside me would be beneficial, so I asked her to marry me.”
I’d surmised that Michael and Lizzy, although married, weren’t truly in love, so this wasn’t a surprise. “Why her? You could have had anyone, I’m sure.”
“There was something about her that I couldn’t let go of. Not only was she beautiful, but also I really, truly believed that I could fix her. Change her life. And I thought maybe she could change mine. You know, the whole ‘two lost souls’ thing. I had a lot of hope back then, hope that she’d learn to love me.”
I hated hearing this. Lizzy and I had both been so broken.
He went on. “The offer I made her was more than fair. All she had to do was marry me, play the dutiful wife, help me get the nomination, and stay clean. In return, I’d give her forty thousand dollars for each year she stayed with me. It really would have been a picture-perfect campaign—selfless attorney helps struggling woman and they fall in love.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Manufactured love for the polls?”
He went on. “It didn’t start out that way. I told you, I really did love her.”
My eyes widened. “So my sister married you for money?”
He nodded. “Sadly, yes.”