Chapter Nineteen
Nora
I stared at Jacob, aghast. His wife? His goddamned freaking wife?
He held his hands up. “Don’t react yet. Please. Just…”
“You’re married?” I shrieked. How could I not react to this news? “You’re fucking married?”
“It’s complicated. Can you please sit down and we’ll talk about it? Just let me explain.”
He tried to come close to me but I pushed him away. “Get the hell away from me. I can’t believe how stupid I am. I trusted you so fast, like an idiotic lovesick teenager, and after all the shit you pulled when we met, too! I’m such a fucking idiot.”
I was an idiot. I’d only known Jacob for what…a month? Not even that. And we’d only started sleeping together two days ago. Yet here I was thinking it was a good idea to stay at his house and make sex tapes with him. Jesus, what was I thinking? Of course it was all bound to go wrong. He and I came from incredibly different worlds. I was solidly middle class with a cozy little house and a moral viewpoint which included not having a spouse while sleeping with other guys, and he was a millionaire celebrity whose morals apparently allowed him to have a wife while sleeping with other women.
Kind of a deal-breaker.
“Please, Nora, I wanted to tell you so badly. I really did. I just wanted to wait and break it to you slowly, not like this. She wasn’t meant to be back here from her business trip till next month.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry your wife came back early and ruined your plans,” I said sarcastically. “Must be hard. Jesus, how did I not know this? Does anyone even know you’re married?”
“Not really.”
“Wow, she’s a lucky woman,” I said. “A husband who doesn’t tell anyone she exists and cheats on her all the time…amazing deal there.”
“I’m not cheating on her.”
I waved my hand at him. “Oh, whatever, I don’t care if you call it an open relationship. Even if she’s fine with it, I’m not! And I had a right to know before you seduced me.”
“I don’t mean to point fingers, but you technically seduced me first, at your parents’ place.”
I stared at him, incredulous. “Are you serious? We’re going to get technical like that so you can try and save your cheating, lying ass?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that. Can you please just sit down and let me explain?”
I craned my neck and looked outside. Oscar was a golden speck in the distance, and I whistled before turning back around to Jacob. “You’ve got until the dog decides to come back. Then we’re leaving.”
“Okay, okay. Just sit down. Please.”
He gestured toward a nearby loveseat, and I sat down, refusing to look at him.
“Ina is my wife in name only,” he began. “We met on the first season of Code Grey, about five years ago. She was an extra.”
“I don’t need to hear the romantic story of how you met,” I bit back at him.
“Yes, you do. It’s not romantic.”
“Fine. Whatever. Go on, then.”
“Ina is from Corvenia. She came over here six years ago on a temporary refugee visa, hoping to get permanent asylum. Well, actually, that’s not entirely accurate. She was trafficked over here as part of a sex slave ring. She escaped, and that’s when she was given temporary refugee status.”
“Oh my god,” I said softly.
Corvenia was a small country in far-eastern Europe. It had been under the control of the Soviet Union up until the very early nineties, and it gained its independence after the fall of the Iron Curtain like so many other places in the region. Things hadn’t improved much since the country’s claim of independence, though, as the country was run by a fascist government. It was subsequently rife with poverty, violence, and civil war between opposing factions in the north and east regions. Certain cities in the southwest of the country were okay to visit, but they were still known for sex tourism, illegal drug trades, and gangland activity, so overall, Corvenia didn’t exactly have a good reputation.
“She was working whatever jobs she could get while she waited for her permanent visa to come through. Waitress, retail worker, extra on TV and film sets. Like I said, I met her on the set of Code Grey. More specifically, I saw her crying behind a trailer one day and went and talked to her. She wouldn’t tell me much at first, but I finally got it out of her. Someone in Immigration had screwed up. Lost some of her papers. Instead of fixing the issue, they were simply going to deport her back to Corvenia in just three months. It was easier that way, I guess.”
“Jesus.”
“If she went back, she would’ve faced either death or more forced prostitution, because the people who ran the sex ring she escaped from would’ve more than likely found her again. And stacked on top of that, she would’ve faced persecution for simply being who she was.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You know how the Corvenian government feels about LGBT people?”
I nodded. Many gay Corvenian people had applied for asylum in other countries after being persecuted for their sexuality. Some had even been killed before they could get out of the country because of all the ant-LGBT propaganda the government liked to spread.
“Well, I’m not Ina’s type,” Jacob continued. “Ina only likes women.”
“Oh. I see.”
“Anyway, I couldn’t let something like that happen to her. So I asked her to marry me.”
“Wait…you’re saying this was a green card marriage?”
He nodded. “Yes. If I married her, she’d be able to stay in the country and become a naturalized citizen once enough time had passed.”
I shook my head slowly. “Jacob, do you have any idea how illegal that is?”
He frowned. “Of course I do. I know I could go to prison if Immigration ever found out what we did. But letting them send her back to an almost certain death was even worse.”
“I can imagine it was a very hard decision,” I said softly.
He nodded. “Way I saw it, both choices were wrong. I had to choose the one that was less wrong. And I did. I made my choice, and I’ve been living with it ever since.”
I was silent for a long time, trying to wrap my head around everything he’d just told me.
“So how does it work?” I finally asked.
“She has to live at the same address as me, in case Immigration come sniffing around. And they do, from time to time. She lives out in the guesthouse, but her address is still the same, so if they ever asked any of the staff here, they’d be able to confirm that she does live here.”
“And how long will this go on for?”
“We got married five years ago. That’s enough time for her to become fully naturalized to the point where even if we divorce, she’ll still be allowed to remain here in the US. So we’re actually in the process of filing for divorce right now.”
I twisted my hands in my lap, still not entirely understanding everything. “How does absolutely no one know about this?”
“A few trusted people do. My staff know. My manager and agent know. They helped me figure it all out. They didn’t want them to send her back any more than I did. But they figured that if the media knew about Ina, she’d be dragged through the mud and her history would be examined in great detail. We didn’t want that for her, and we also didn’t want to attract attention from people who might—correctly—realize it was just a green card marriage.”
“So you just hid it?”
“Yep.”
“But with the Immigration officials, when they interview you every so often to check up on your relationship to ensure that it’s ‘real’….aren’t they bothered by your reputation? I mean, it’s always in all the magazines that you’re a player, a ladies man, et cetera. Surely they can tell the marriage is fake based on that alone.”
“We tell them it’s all part of cultivating my media image, and that none of it’s actually real. And my staff here at the house can easily confirm that I’ve never actually brought another woman back here. Except you, now that you’re here.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Wait…you’ve never had a woman here before?”
“No. Of course, I’ve been with other women over the years. After all, the relationship between Ina and me is purely platonic. But I take them to hotels or go to their houses. I’ve never brought anyone back here. Not till you.”
“Oh.”
“I’m so sorry I kept this from you, Nora. But I wanted to wait until we knew each other better before I unloaded this mess on you, especially with all the shit you’ve got going on in your own life right now ‘cause of that asshole James. I was going to tell you, though. Please believe that,” he said. “I know how much you’ve trusted me. You made that pretty clear yesterday afternoon when you asked me to film us. And I trust you too. I wouldn’t have told you the truth about the Ina situation if I didn’t, because that truth could bury me if it got into the wrong hands. But I feel like I know you pretty damn well already, and I don’t think you’ll tell anyone and land me in prison forever, even though you so easily could. You essentially have my life in your hands, Nora, and I trust you with it. Does that mean anything to you at all?”
I hesitated. He had a point. I’d previously felt comfortable enough with him and placed my trust in him enough to do certain things like yesterday’s impromptu dirty film session, and there was a reason for that—my gut had told me that deep down, he was a good person who wouldn’t screw me over. And he was a good person. He’d done something highly, highly illegal with this marriage to Ina, but he’d done it for what he thought were the right reasons. He’d done it to save someone.
To add to that, he was right about his life basically being in my hands right now. If I wanted, I could go straight to Immigration and tell them everything. He’d go away for a long time if I did that, but he’d been willing to risk that just to tell me the truth. If he hadn’t cared about me or trusted me at all, he could’ve just lied about who Ina was—he could’ve told me she was simply a friend who rented the guesthouse, or made up any other number of lies.
But he didn’t.
He told me the truth.
Was that enough, though? This was a pretty darn messed up situation, all in all. After all, it wasn’t every day that the guy I was seeing informed me that he was legally married to another woman, no matter what the circumstances were.
“Nora,” Jacob said softly, grabbing my hand. “I understand how hard this must be for you, and your head is probably spinning. But please just answer this. Is it too much for you? Or is it something you think you can deal with?”
I bit my lower lip, and then I slowly shook my head and gave him my answer. “No.”