Chapter 11 - Before He Loved Me
The room felt smaller.
“When?”
“Four months before you introduced us.”
I stared at Dad.
“That’s impossible.”
Ryan and I had only been dating six months when I introduced him to my father.
Dad opened an old file Naomi had brought.
Inside was a meeting memo.
Ryan Bennett.
Bennett Development Group.
Financing proposal.
The date was unmistakable.
Ryan had met my father before he supposedly knew who my father was.
I read the memo.
Ryan had requested eight million dollars.
Dad had declined.
“Why?”
“His numbers didn’t make sense.”
“You never told me.”
“When you introduced him later, I realized he had not told you we had met.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
Dad looked ashamed.
“I asked Ryan privately.”
“What did he say?”
“That he was embarrassed.”
“He claimed he wanted you to love him without thinking he was using your family connections.”
I laughed once.
It sounded broken.
“And you believed him?”
“I wanted to.”
That answer hurt because I understood it.
Dad continued.
“When you asked me to reconsider financing the company, I agreed because I trusted you.”
“So Ryan knew exactly who I was when we met.”
Dad nodded.
I remembered our first date.
A charity art auction.
Ryan had told me he almost didn’t attend.
He joked that meeting me had been fate.
Maybe it had been research.
Maybe I had been a target.
My phone buzzed.
A message from Ryan.
Now you know.
I typed back.
Did you date me because of my father?
The typing indicator appeared.
Stopped.
Appeared again.
Finally.
Not at first.
I stared at those three words.
They were somehow worse than yes.
Naomi sat beside me.
“Emily.”
“I need the truth.”
Dad said quietly, “You may not get it from him.”
“Then I’ll get it from documents.”
We spent the next three hours reconstructing twelve years.
Ryan’s first meeting with Dad.
Our first date.
The investment.
Our engagement.
The proxy I signed before our wedding.
Then Naomi found another memo.
It had been created two days after our engagement.
A note written by Ryan to his father.
If marriage proceeds, Whitmore relationship stabilizes financing.
I read it three times.
Not Emily.
Marriage.
Financing.
A relationship described like a balance-sheet item.
I thought that was the worst thing I would discover.
Then Aaron called again.
“I found the original acquisition file.”
Naomi asked, “What’s in it?”
Aaron hesitated.
“A contingency plan.”
May you like
“What kind?”
“One for what happens if Emily files for divorce before closing.”
