"Lauren Mallory?"
"A question with a question. You're stalling."
"Are you asking because you really want to know, or want confirmation from an article you read?"
I knew I should have googled it.
"I haven't read any articles."
That was the truth.
"Then how'd you come across her name?"
"I'm asking the questions here."
"Bella, it's called a conversation and the benefit of the doubt. I've proven to be generous, and I am, in more ways than one. If you haven't read an article, either print or online, someone must have told you. Give me a name."
Slowly, I took off my boot and dig out the slip of paper. It had fallen farther than I expected in the time it had taken to get here.
"This was in with the box of earrings Grace gave me earlier."
I watched his face contort with pain as he read.
He'll trash you just like the rest. Maybe you should ask him what happened to Lauren Mallory.
With a sigh, he threw the slip of paper to the floor and seemed to collapse on the sofa.
"Lauren is complicated."
"Uncomplicate it or I'm gone."
"I had hoped you'd come to know more about me, to like me, before discussing this."
"Edward, respect me enough that I don't have to ask you again. I've given you the courtesy of allowing you to provide your perspective."
"And if I don't? If I choose to keep my private life private?"
"Then you can keep everything you've purchased and I'll leave with the stuff I came in. I can make my own way in the world."
"I meant what I said, Bella. It's all yours."
"Sounds like you have no plan to come clean."
He didn't look like he'd planned to lie to me, but I had been wrong before.
"Lauren and I were high school sweethearts."
"You say that like it's simple."
"For me it was."
"Simple doesn't warrant a stealthy note tucked away with apology earrings."
"No. I suppose it doesn't."
Tentatively, I took a seat on the loveseat across from him. Something told me that I'd need to be sitting for this.
"I loved her. And she destroyed me. That is simple."
We let the words hang there. I could tell they were difficult for them to say.
"Edward. If I'm going to stay here, I need to know."
"We dated through high school. We dated through college, both engineering majors. It was natural for us to start Cullen Engineering together. We graduated from MIT together, and naturally, it seemed like the next step was to get engaged."
He smiles then, a far away sad smile that breaks my heart. I shouldn't have asked. I'm filled with regret at watching the beautiful man in front of me break himself because of my curiosity. And while I feel awful, I know that there isn't any other way. If I'm going to stay here, for however long it is, I need to know him. I need to know this.
"The plan was always for Lauren to be a silent partner. She didn't even want to collect a salary or work, especially in the beginning. She was seemingly content to help my mother with charity work, and when we started to turn a healthy profit, to shop with my credit card. I should have known that was a red flag. The more successful Cullen Engineering became, the more unhappy she was. She started bitching about the hours I worked and the fact that she had a chemical engineering degree from MIT, wasn't married, and already felt like a housewife. I loved her, so naturally she got whatever she wanted, and what she wanted, was a job."
I felt my eyebrows shoot up into my hairline then. I wasn't expecting that.
It's like Edward was reading my mind. He smiled then, not so sad this time, more rueful.
"It was a shock to me too. It was such a simple request on the surface. I knew she knew her stuff. If a job at the company we'd founded together was enough, well, I would've hung the moon for that woman. I made her a Senior Vice President in charge of research and development, and personally didn't care if she did the job or not. And having her around the office was nice."
Slowly, I got up from the loveseat and came to sit next to him. I felt him tense suddenly, and then react. The movement screamed of resentment for making him relive the bad memory, but he felt safe sharing it, as bad as it may be.
"About six months into her employment, she started taking meetings with "grad students" in the name of recruitment. Emmett found it weird. He thought we should've left recruitment solely to HR. While I thought he had a point, I was glad to see her taking an active interest in our company. I encouraged her to continue, even set her up with an expense account and found a tax loophole. She got to wine and dine potentials and it didn't have to come out of anybody's pockets."
He stands up suddenly then, his hand in his hair twisting and pulling, pacing back and forth.
"The first time she came home, showered and in a different outfit than before, she told me that she'd been in the office late. I thought it was odd. Nobody spent more time in the office than me. But Lauren was my everything, so I didn't ask questions. But the late nights became more and more frequent. Maybe I didn't ask questions because I was secretly happy that she wasn't complaining about how absent I was. Had she not changed, I may have never known."
His pacing had picked up in speed. He looked almost distraught now.
"In addition to the fact that she was having an affair with some fucking grad student, she was stealing from me. By the time I caught it, by the time Mr. Hotshot CEO was smart enough to figure out the fucking math, she'd made off with 40 million dollars of my money! Mine because the moment Cullen Engineering got off the ground, she was no longer interested. Those long nights of hers were spent bent over my fucking desk. I never saw the guys face. Cameras all over my office and to this day, I have no idea who he was. But he fucked her in my office for at least six months. How many times had I laid with her after he'd had her? She knew I wanted a wife and children and a legacy and she took that knowledge and threw it back in my face! She was fucking him, secretly taking birth control and flushing our wedding budget down the toilet on fucking Chanel!"
Suddenly he sat again. I saw the anger, the hurt and betrayal written all over his face. Was satisfying my curiosity worth this?
"As bad as all of that was, what happened next was the worst. I fired her. Cited the morality clause in her contract, called off the engagement and kicked her out of the penthouse. Two weeks after she picked up her last box of shit, she sued me. She wanted half of my company, despite the fact that she tried everything she could to tear me and it down."
"Edward a lawsuit of that size would've made the papers."
"It never did. Partially because Emmett used to be very persuasive with female reporters, and partially because I keep a team of very expensive lawyers on retainer. I couldn't walk away and leave her nothing, but there was a way to completely cut away the cancer. On the advice of my attorneys, I settled with her for the exact equivalent of what she stole: an additional 40 million dollars. We both signed non-disclosure agreements regarding company fraud and the settlement. I thought she was gone for good. A month after the settlement, she went to every gossip rag she could get her hands on and sold them the same sob story: I left her in the cold without a reason. Lauren's little false allegory is the reason I'm now considered to be Chicago's most eligible bachelor.
And the icing on the cake? The reason I'm so damned bitter about it? Refuting it either breaks the NDA, or makes me look like a liar since I can't give all of the details. The frigid bitch won. She's ultimately $80 million richer, free to fuck whoever she wants, and when it's all said and done, I still have to see her at fundraisers."
Again, we let the words hang there. Before I knew it, Edward was up, and shoving a box of tissues at me. I hadn't realized I'd been crying.
"I don't need your pity, Bella. Is it fucked up? Definitely. But I learned from it, and I can thankfully never be hurt again."
"No? Why's that?"
"Because I know what we are. Friends at best. At worst, money for college for you, and a pretty, young, intelligent woman on my arm for me."
"Is that all I am to you Edward?"
"Bella. You have to be.