Chapter 3 - The Husband My Family Never Knew About
My mother used to tell people I came into the world quiet.
Amber apparently arrived screaming.
Mom always told that story like it explained everything.
“Amber knew what she wanted from day one,” she would say proudly.
Then she would look at me.
“Jessica never needed much.”
For most of my childhood, I believed that was a compliment.
It took me twenty-seven years to understand it had become an excuse.
The morning after Bellamy’s, I woke beside Alexander in his house in Paradise Valley and stared at my phone for almost ten minutes before touching it.
Thirty-four notifications.
Mom.
Dad.
Amber.
Aunt Susan.
My cousin Ellie.
Even Trevor had sent a message.
Apparently Amber had not wasted time.
Alexander appeared in the bedroom doorway carrying two mugs of coffee.
“You look like someone reading her own obituary.”
“Close.”
He handed me a mug.
“How bad?”
“My mother says I humiliated Amber.”
“By getting slapped?”
“Apparently.”
He sat beside me.
“And marrying me has somehow become a hostile act.”
“Understandable. I’m terrible.”
I looked at him.
“You leave cabinet doors open.”
“I knew this day would come.”
I laughed.
That was Alexander’s gift.
Not money.
Not houses.
Not access to things I had once considered impossible.
He could make me laugh when I was preparing for battle.
He nodded toward my phone.
“You don’t have to answer today.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
“Because avoiding them is what I always do when Amber explodes.”
He waited.
I looked at him.
“And I don’t want to be that person anymore.”
Alexander leaned back.
“Then don’t.”
I called Mom.
She answered before the first ring had fully finished.
“Jessica Marie Bennett, what have you done?”
Not hello.
Not are you okay?
What have you done?
“Good morning, Mom.”
“Do not use that tone with me.”
“What tone?”
“That cold corporate tone you’ve picked up.”
I almost smiled.
“I work in graphic design.”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
Behind her voice, I heard Dad.
Then Amber.
Of course Amber was there.
“Are you all at the house?”
Mom hesitated.
“We need to talk.”
“I asked a question.”
“Yes.”
“Put me on speaker.”
Silence.
“Jessica—”
“Speaker.”
Another pause.
Then Dad’s voice.
“We can all hear you.”
Amber spoke immediately.
“Tell them the truth.”
I stared out the bedroom windows toward Camelback Mountain.
“Which truth?”
“That you deliberately humiliated me.”
“You slapped me.”
“Because you were acting smug.”
“I was buying earrings.”
“You know that isn’t what this is about!”
“No, Amber. I genuinely don’t anymore.”
Mom interrupted.
“Jessica, why didn’t you tell us you were married?”
There it was.
Not how is your face?
Not why did your sister hit you?
Why didn’t you give us access to this important information?
“Because it happened six weeks ago.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“I didn’t want you there.”
The silence was immediate.
It hurt saying it.
But it was true.
Mom’s voice changed.
“Jessica.”
“I wanted one important day in my life that didn’t become about Amber.”
“That is an awful thing to say.”
“Is it inaccurate?”
Dad sighed.
“Your sister is engaged. Of course she’s excited.”
“She wasn’t engaged six weeks ago.”
Nobody answered.
I continued.
“When I graduated, Amber cried because she hadn’t finished school yet, so we left my dinner early.”
“That was years ago,” Mom said.
“When I got my first job at Boyd Creative, you spent the celebration discussing Amber’s breakup.”
“She was devastated.”
“When I got promoted to senior designer, Amber announced she was moving into the condo you bought her.”
Dad spoke.
“We helped both of you when you needed it.”
“No. You helped Amber when she wanted it.”
Mom inhaled sharply.
“That is simply untrue.”
“Did you pay for my college?”
“You chose night school.”
“Because I couldn’t afford full-time tuition.”
“You never asked.”
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
The family sentence.
You never asked.
I had learned not to ask because the answer was always that Amber needed something more.
Dance camp.
A car repair.
Rent.
Tuition after she dropped another semester.
A condo.
“I was eighteen,” I said quietly. “You were my parents. I shouldn’t have needed to submit an application.”
Dad went silent.
Amber laughed bitterly.
“Oh, please. So now you’re rewriting your childhood because you married money?”
Alexander’s jaw tightened beside me.
I put my hand on his knee.
Stay.
Let me do this.
He understood.
“I married a man,” I said. “Not money.”
“Easy to say when the man has billions.”
“Why does my husband’s bank account bother you this much?”
“It doesn’t.”
“It bothered you enough to slap me.”
“I slapped you before I knew.”
Exactly.
That sentence hung in the air.
Amber seemed to realize too late what she had admitted.
I spoke slowly.
“So when you thought I was still just Jessica, you believed hitting me was okay.”
“No.”
“That’s exactly what you said.”
“Don’t twist my words.”
“I don’t have to.”
Mom cut in.
“Everyone is emotional.”
“No, Mom.”
I was finished allowing that word to erase responsibility.
“Amber was violent.”
“It was one slap.”
“And if I had slapped her?”
Silence.
I waited.
“If I walked into a store and hit Amber across the face because I thought she was acting superior, what would you say?”
Mom didn’t answer.
Dad finally said, “We’d be upset.”
“No. You’d be furious.”
Again, silence.
I felt tears sting my eyes.
Not because I was weak.
Because finally saying something you have known your entire life can hurt more than discovering it.
Amber spoke quietly.
“You always hated me.”
I almost dropped the phone.
“No.”
“You did.”
“No, Amber. I spent most of my life trying to get you to like me.”
For once, she said nothing.
Memories came rushing back.
Eight-year-old me giving Amber half my birthday candy because she was upset she didn’t receive presents too.
Twelve-year-old me letting her borrow my new jacket, then saying nothing when she lost it.
Sixteen-year-old me covering her shift at the boutique because she wanted to go to a party.
Twenty-year-old me sending her money when she overdrew her account.
Twenty-four-year-old me designing invitations for another one of her abandoned business ideas.
I had never hated Amber.
I had kept sacrificing pieces of myself hoping one day she would stop treating me like competition.
She never did.
Mom’s voice softened slightly.
“Come to dinner Sunday.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“We cannot fix this over the phone.”
Maybe she was right.
Or maybe she simply wanted everyone back inside the familiar environment where Amber had always held home-field advantage.
I looked at Alexander.
He raised an eyebrow.
My choice.
“Fine.”
Amber immediately said, “Do not bring him.”
I almost laughed.
“Why?”
“This is family.”
“He’s my husband.”
“Six weeks doesn’t magically make him family.”
I felt Alexander stiffen.
My voice went cold.
“Then I won’t come.”
Mom rushed in.
“Jessica, wait. Alexander is welcome.”
Amber objected.
“Mom!”
“He is her husband.”
There was something new in Mom’s voice.
Not courage exactly.
But maybe the first crack.
“Sunday at six,” she said.
“We’ll be there.”
I ended the call.
Alexander watched me.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good answer.”
I leaned against him.
For a minute, neither of us spoke.
Then he said, “There’s something else.”
I looked up.
“What?”
“Your sister’s fiancé.”
“Trevor?”
Alexander nodded.
“What about him?”
“Mercer Development was reviewing a commercial partnership with his company.”
My stomach tightened.
“Was?”
“Our legal team froze it this morning.”
I pulled away.
“Alexander.”
“Not because of Amber.”
“Then why?”
“Because after yesterday, I asked for a routine conflict review. Trevor has been telling people he has a personal relationship with me.”
“What?”
“He doesn’t.”
“How personal?”
“Enough that he has apparently implied he can guarantee Mercer contracts.”
I stared at him.
“That sounds like Trevor.”
“It gets worse.”
Alexander took his phone from the nightstand.
He showed me an email.
A company called Prescott Commercial Group.
Trevor’s employer.
Several weeks earlier, Trevor had submitted a proposal for redevelopment rights connected to one of Alexander’s projects.
Attached to the internal correspondence was a statement Trevor had apparently made to his supervisors.
My future sister-in-law has direct access to Alexander Mercer.
My blood went cold.
“But Trevor didn’t know we were married.”
“No.”
“Then what did he mean?”
Alexander met my eyes.
“That’s what I want to know.”
I read it again.
Direct access.
Future sister-in-law.
The proposal had been submitted three weeks before Amber saw Alexander walk into Bellamy’s.
Three weeks before she supposedly discovered he even knew me.
Someone had known.
I thought about Sunday dinner.
Amber announcing her engagement before I could share my promotion.
Trevor barely looking at me.
Mom acting strangely when I mentioned Boyd Creative’s newest client.
Then I remembered something.
Our newest campaign.
Mercer Commons.
One of Alexander’s developments.
I had never told Amber I was dating Alexander.
But everyone knew my agency handled Mercer work.
Had Trevor assumed I could influence Alexander through business?
Or had someone told him more?
I looked at my husband.
“When did Trevor submit this?”
“June eighteenth.”
That date made my stomach drop.
Two days after our courthouse wedding.
Only four people had known we got married.
Me.
Alexander.
His attorney.
And Natalie.
My boss.
Unless…
I stood.
“What?”
I grabbed my phone.
“Three days after our wedding, my mother came to Boyd Creative.”
Alexander frowned.
“Why?”
“She said she was nearby.”
“Was she?”
“No.”
The realization settled over me.
Mom had sat in reception waiting for me.
Behind the reception desk was a photograph from a charity event.
Alexander and me standing beside each other.
I had been wearing my wedding ring.
Mom had looked at it.
She’d even asked if it was new.
I’d said yes.
She hadn’t asked anything else.
At the time, I thought she simply wasn’t interested.
What if she had been?
What if my family knew more about my life than they had admitted?
Alexander stood.
“Jessica?”
I stared at the proposal on his phone.
Sunday dinner suddenly wasn’t just about a slap anymore.
It was about finding out whether the people who had ignored my accomplishments for years had quietly tried to profit from one of them.
And for the first time, I wondered whether Amber’s jealousy had truly started inside Bellamy’s.
May you like
Or whether she had walked through those doors already knowing exactly who I had become.
---
