4
Imogen
I remember the exact moment I knew that I was in love with Theo.
It’s not something many people forget, that second in time when they knew their person was the one.
We had been lounging around his shanty of a house on Nantucket on a particularly cold October morning. It was just a month after we’d met at the gala that had ended with my panties on the floor of a coat check closet.
The rain blows against the antique glass windows of Theo’s … well, it’s more of a cottage than a house. Which isn’t meant to say that I don’t love it, because I absolutely adore it. I’ve spent most of the days this month here, in his bed, blowing off my responsibilities. Theo’s home has become a love nest, or a lust nest, depending on the time of day.
“Coffee and eggs for the prettiest woman in the place.”
Wearing nothing but his boxers and jet-black beard, Theo comes into his bedroom carrying a wooden tray filled with the breakfast he just made for us. A man, cooking breakfast in his own kitchen, while the woman snuggled into his comforter is in nothing but his T-shirt.
That was practically unheard of in my world.
“I’m the only woman in the place.” I giggle, acting like a schoolgirl because that’s how he makes me feel.
“Oh, you thought I meant this place? No, beautiful, I meant the world.” His smile is playful but those dark gray eyes are all types of seriousness.
As he sets down the tray on the bed and joins me across the comforter, I steal a piece of bacon. “Who even says things like that?”
“Me, doll. I say things like that. To you, only you.” He scoops up a bite full of eggs on his fork and puts his hand underneath, offering them to me across the bed.
Usually, the word doll would seem offensive and sexist. But out of Theo’s mouth, it sounded like an endearment … as if he was actually calling me this beautiful item that he wanted to put on a shelf and admire.
Between the nickname and his offering me the first bite of food, not to mention cooking it, I knew right then. It was a simple moment, nothing fancy like in the middle of a ballroom floor or up in a hot-air balloon. No, I fell in love with the man meant for me while sitting in our underwear in a two-bedroom cottage on the cold beach in October.
“I love you.”
The words came out of my mouth before I could even think about them. Not to mention, he had just fed me a bite of eggs and my mouth was full. It was as un-special a moment as there ever was, plus we’d only been seeing each other for a month.
Quickly, I covered my mouth in shock, wanting to reel those words back in.
Theo’s nostrils flared, and his chest vibrated with emotion. “You’re just now figuring that out? I knew I was in love with you from the moment I laid eyes on you. But welcome to the party.”
And then he sent the tray of food crashing to his bedroom floor, eggs, juice and all, as he lunged for me, pulling me under him to plant a kiss filled with the emotion of the moment on my lips.
“Theo!” I cried out giddily.
He’d just told me he loved me and then ruined his perfectly good carpet. The WASP in me wanted to tidy the mess and to logically think out these feelings.
But the bear of a man now attacking my neck with kisses and heating the places in my body apparently only attuned to him prevented that.
“Say it again. It feels like a lifetime that I’ve been waiting to hear you say it,” he whispered, his hands tangling in my hair.
It made no sense that we should be in love. Two different people from two very different walks of life. Practically no time had passed since we’d met. I barely even knew a thing about him. It was crazy.
And yet, it was the most sane thing that had ever happened to me.
“I am in love with you.” I breathed into his lips.
That love had propelled me to turn my back on what had been planned for me since the day I was born. My two brothers were being groomed for Chief Information Officer and Chief Financial Officer of our father’s company. I, of course, was a woman and would not be given as integral a role or as much responsibility.
I know it sounds ridiculous. I know that in modern-day society, this notion or school of thought would be labeled as sexist and anti-feminist. But that is the world I grew up in, and it was kind of a miracle that I’d poked and prodded my father enough to make him give me a part of the company as well.
Chief People Officer. It was the role he came to me with on my twenty-second birthday, right before I graduated college. The deal was that I’d start on in a smaller role, not entry-level but not executive either. And I would work my way up for a few years before I was handed the reins to the entire human resources, marketing and events branches.
By the time I met Theo, I had been pressing my nose to the grindstone for three years. I’d gained clout and respect in our family company, both from those below my position and above it. I was on track to gain my executive title in a year or two. And then I’d fallen in love, and my father had taken everything off the table. If I wanted to marry a “poor construction worker,” as my father had called him at the time, then I was not going to be put in a position of power at the company. It was too risky, giving me control of integral parts of the business if my partner came from a background of no status or wealth.
“What if he begins to manipulate you? Wants you to make decisions that will serve his financial needs?”
Those had been my father’s words in the days after my engagement. As if I would ever pick a partner who would ask those things of me, let alone allow a man to manipulate my professional decisions.
I was devastated. Sure, I could stay on in a lesser role, or join my mother in organizing the company’s charitable giving … but I would never rise to the role I’d been working so hard to take over.
I can’t describe to you what it’s like to give those things up unless you’ve been in a family who owns a prestigious company that you’ve been groomed to work for your entire life. It’s supposed to be an honor, a privilege of being a Weston. And I gave it up, for Theo. I don’t know that he ever truly appreciated that sacrifice.
The terms of my divorce, the ones my parents stipulated, were served to me a day ago. In true Morgan Weston form, my father had them drawn up and witnessed by my mother. He couldn’t even bother to call me to talk about it; he was out of town and I was simply a side-project he didn’t need to waste time on. I won’t get into the ridiculous language it was put into, but basically, they were offering me a deal, once more. Carry on my sham of a marriage for the next four months, giving them enough time to consult lawyers and draw up divorce papers and protect all of my assets. The four months would also give them time for smoke and mirrors. I’d learned a long time ago, from both my father and my mother, that the best way to negate a headline is to create another headline.
That other headline was going to be my promotion to Chief People Officer at Weston Shipping Enterprises.
With this divorce, I would be suffering the worst heartbreak of my life. But I would also be gaining the privilege I gave up when I decided to love him.
I knew that this deal was not an offer; it wasn’t a question. This was how the fracturing of my marriage would go, on my father’s terms.
All I had to do was convince Theo to allow me to be a Walsh for just a little bit longer.