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JC smirked. “Yeah, I remember.”
I noticed that he said nothing about me calling him JC. His cell phone rang, and he slipped it out of his pocket to answer it. Again, his wife. When he came back, I joked with him.
“Brianna has you on a pretty tight leash. You know, checking up on you like that.”
Without saying anything to me, he sank into one of the leather chairs in front of my desk, looking weary. It was a look I had seen before, the very same when he sat me down to break our engagement.
“Can I tell you something?”
I nodded. “Of course, anything.”
“It’s not working out with Brianna. It was a mistake for me to marry her. She’s too young, we’re never on the same page, and she expects so much from me. I’m her fucking husband, not her father.”
The revelation about his marriage should’ve made me happy. Now he knew how it felt, but all I felt was empathy.
“I’m sorry. Why did you marry her?”
“All the time, my father was trying to get me to date her. I finally gave in, and then the pressure started mounting for me to marry her. She’s seven years younger than me. I should’ve said no but all he cares about is his business.”
I remember Jonathan Camden Lawson, III. He was an asshole. Always on top of JC to be the best, even in high school. Our senior year, the man grabbed him by the collar after our team lost a debate with a rival school. It was a silly debate, and JC was so serious. I felt sorry for him to have a father like that.
“But why, JC? Why would you marry her? Just to please your father?”
Uncertainty crept into his expression. “Brianna was pregnant.”
“What?”
I tried to hide my surprise because JC had been so careful when we were together. He didn’t want an unplanned pregnancy until we were ready for children.
“I knocked her up. She told me she was on the pill. Brianna is not very good at keeping track of things. She forgot to bring her birth control on a long weekend, and that’s where it happened. My father was involved in an important merger at the time with her father. He said he would disown me if I didn’t do the right thing.”
“How long have you been married?”
“Eleven months.”
“What happened? You never mentioned a baby.”
“She got her period. Brianna was late, not pregnant. Her pregnancy test gave a false positive.”
“That’s rare.”
“I know, I read up on it, but it was too late. I’d already asked her to marry me, and I was stuck. I don’t love her.”
“You could have broken it off,” I said, almost sarcastically.
“And bear the wrath of my father while he was going through the merger and risk it? No way. I’d rather be unhappy than have both him and Brianna’s father come after me.”
I almost felt the urge to wrap my arms around JC and comfort him the way I did when he did poorly on a test or had a tough day at the office, but I resisted. “What are you going to do?”
“Deal with it. I’m married, she’s my wife. Maybe in five years, I can end it. I never loved her, not the way I loved you.”
I feel a deep pang of pain go through me, and I start chewing on my lip.
“Stop. I’m sorry,” JC said.
“For what?”
“I never should’ve broken up with you.”
