The Marriage Clause

SILAS

Silas watched as Emory shut the door. He’d frozen when she’d found him, not sure what to say to her. He hadn’t even thought to ask where she was going.

He sat and pulled up their shared calendar, but her schedule was no longer available to him. He tried pulling it up again but found nothing. He stared at her presentation materials as he drank his sports drink.

He felt like someone had hit him with a baseball bat. His head pounded from the endless martinis he and Tanner had drunk last night.

Emory’s dinner hadn’t been with her friends. It had been with members of the hospital board for the new wing she was helping raise money for. It had been really important to her. She had practically begged him to come. He braced his arms against the table as he remembered that this project was in honor of her mom.

“Fuck.” He tried to remember who had been at the table when he’d come home but couldn’t picture their faces. “Oh, Jesus… I called her a fucking fish.”

He’d fucked up. He’d insulted her in front of her guests with another woman’s lipstick smeared across his face. It was one thing to make a fool of her, but this looked bad on him and Bishop Industries. He wanted to push her into a divorce, but he didn’t want to do it at the expense of the company.

He should have been happy about her leaving, but he wasn’t. Pushing her into a divorce was ultimately what he wanted and it looked like he was well on his way, but he’d made a fool of himself. His stomach churned at the thought of how he’d behaved in front of a group of important people.

His phone beeped as a message from the girl he’d been with last night came through. He ignored it and pulled up his text history with Emory. He scrolled through their messages.

He’d never answered her. He’d been in a hotel room, rolling around in bed with a woman.

He’d never responded to that one either. He’d been having breakfast in bed with another woman.

He’d been on the yacht off the coast of Florida with Tanner and a couple of models.

He’d been at a high-stakes poker game with the guys.

The messages continued, but he noticed they had started becoming infrequent and more formal sounding. He scrolled back through them and felt worse. He was a total dick. Emory was nice. He knew she heard the rumors about him, but she said nothing. She maintained just like she was supposed to.

He had embarrassed himself and, most of all, made a mockery of a charity. That was going to be hard to bounce back from. He needed to apologize to her immediately. He picked up his phone and tapped her contact. It went straight to voicemail. He tried texting her.

He waited to see if she read it, but her read receipts were turned off. He wondered if she had left him. The thought instantly soured his stomach, and he wasn’t sure why. He wanted her to leave. He wanted a divorce, but he didn’t want to screw her over with the hospital.

He made a pot of coffee, took a shower, and felt better. He was getting dressed in lounge pants when his phone beeped. Hoping it was Emory, he sighed when Tanner’s name flashed across the screen. Tapping the speaker, he pulled his shirt over his head.

“Tan.”

“Si, I’m still fucking drunk,” Tanner mumbled.

“I fucked up last night, Tanner,” Silas sighed as he put drops in his eyes, clearing the redness.

“What happened? Your fine-ass wife finally give you some?” Tanner snickered.

“Don’t talk about her like that. That dinner I thought she was having with her friends was with a group from the hospital.” He sat down heavily on the edge of his bed.

“What?!”

“Yeah. I don’t remember who all was here. The faces were a bit fuzzy.”

“Fucking Silas. You better be lying. Chairman Rogers was going to be at that dinner. He’s fucking tight with your dad. What did you do?”

“I know I came home with lipstick on my face, and I insulted her in front of everybody.”

“Oh fuck! Oh fuck, Silas! You fucking prick!”

“I know I’ve been pushing her for a divorce, but this… I didn’t mean to fuck this up. This was about her mom…her mom, Tanner. She left this morning, and I don’t know where she is. She pulled herself off my calendar.”

“Call her, you dick! Get her on the phone and fucking fix this!”

“I tried. It’s going to voicemail, and she has me off of read receipts.”

“I’ll see what I can do on my end. I need to sober up before I can drive, but I’ll come over later.”

“Stay put. I need some quiet time anyway.” Silas lay back on his bed. “I need to get my story straight and talk to my dad. This is going to be bad. The fallout from this could affect me getting the company.”

“Well, on the plus side, it looks like you’re well on your way to a divorce, my friend. Congratulations!” Tanner started laughing. “You’re going to get exactly what you wanted.”

Silas didn’t find it funny. “I hurt her last night. I embarrassed myself and made Bishop Industries look terrible.”

“Si, you’ve been fucking around the whole time you’ve been married. Trust me, you’ve embarrassed yourself a lot more than this, and she’s aware of it.”

“What? What do you mean? That’s all been hush-hush.” Silas shot up and paced the room. His heart was pounding.

“You’re an idiot if you think people don’t run their mouths. That dinner we had two months ago got back to her.”

Silas scrolled back through his phone and started looking at their messages again. It was about two months ago that her messages had become less friendly and more formal.

“Damnit, Tan. I’ve got nine months left. How am I going to fix this?”