“Please tell me this is a joke.”
Clara looked like she wanted to murder someone. We were ting in her office, and she was pacing the length of the room, her heels clacking on the tiles and filling the silence between us. I couldn’t bring myself to look up at her, or even say anything worthwhile. I just sat there and stared at my toes, a dull ringing sound in my ear.
“Olivia, look at me,” she said, coming to stand in front of me. “Do you or do you not remember signing that document?”
“I don’t remember signing anything,” I replied. “It has to be fake.”
She placed the papers in front of me, and asked in a calm voice that sounded like she was holding back a storm, Is this not your signature?”
“It is,” I replied tersely.
“Is that not your handwriting for the date?”
“It is.”
“But you don’t remember signing anything like this?”
“No, I do not,” I replied. “If it was three days before the wedding, then I will definitely remember signing if I did.”
And then, suddenly, it hit me like a ton of bricks. And when the realisation came crashing down on me, I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe anymore.
I remembered the day clearly, and how Marcus had insisted that we needed to move into the Ritz because it was closer to the venue. Emily and a few of my friends from college also move in for the week, and we basically spent the entire week moving all over Manhattan and trying to make sure that everything would be ready in time for the wedding
That day, Marcus had come to meet me on the balcony in the evening, and he informed me that the hotel wanted information on all six of my friends for documentation. He said it so casually that I didn’t even give it a second thought. We’d just finished having sex, so the endorphins were still rushing through my brain and I wasn’t thinking straight. He handed me a stack of papers, and when I glanced at the first page and saw the Ritz–Carlton Hotel, I didn’t ask any further questions. Marcus himself flipped through the pages and pointed out where he wanted me to sign, and that was basically it. After that, he threw the papers aside and made love to me on the balcony once again, and in that moment I felt like I was in heaven.
Never would I have guessed that he was manipulating me into signing a prenup.
“I didn’t know they were prenup papers when I signed,” I said, causing Ciara to pause her pacing and stare at me in disbelief. “Marcus handed me a bunch of papers that day and I didn’t go through all of them when I signed.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she swore.
“It’s not my fault,” I replied. “I was young, stupid and madly in love. It never occurred to me that he would do something like this.”
“Liv, you always go through any stack of papers you want to sign,” she said. “Always. It doesn’t matter if it’s your own mother handing the papers to you, or your own child. You have to go through them and kriow what you’re signing for.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, staring down at my feet. I couldn’t ever bring myself to cry anymore, because my tear ducts were all dried up and I was running the risk of being severely dehydrated if I did. I still hadn’t told her about the
+25 BONUS
Chapter Sixteen:
bathroom Incident, and I didn’t think I was going to. With the bombshell that Marcus had just
