The Suspicious Proposal (6 page)

She took a step toward Logan. His eyes grew wide and his face paled.

"I can't believe you, Logan! I thought you loved me! I thought you were this incredible man who met me, fell for me, and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, because guess what, Logan? That's what I wanted.

“I said yes to your marriage proposal because I do want to spend the rest of my life with you. I do want to be your wife, because I love you! You know what? I guess I'm just a fool then, because you had me believing it, Logan... all of it." She glared at him hotly and her voice went up as she continued.

"It all makes sense now... how you wanted me all the time, how you never told me you loved me, how you didn't want to be a couple at first; remember that when I told you I wanted to date you exclusively and you told me no? I remember. Then you turn right around and ask me to marry you! Boy, did my head spin, right along with my heart, and I thought that you meant it.

“I thought that you finally admitted to yourself that you love me, that you did want to be with me, and that you wanted to spend your life with me. I thought you were moving a little fast but I thought, hey... it's true love. When it's the real thing, then why wait, and you played me for such a fool, Logan. You really had me going. Now here we are engaged and your little plan with your attorney is almost in place."

She walked close to him as he looked at her in shock, and she gritted her teeth at him angrily. "All you have to do is get me pregnant, is it? Then you get everything? And then what, were you going to divorce me? Is that why you made me sign that prenuptial agreement? It makes perfect sense to me.

“You romance me, you make me fall in love with you, you ask me to marry you, you have me sign the prenuptial agreement, and you get me pregnant, and then you have a kid before your birthday, you get all your money and your house and everything else and then you divorce me. I don't get a single cent from you because I was stupid enough to sign the prenuptial agreement! Then what, I just have to raise the child on my own with no support from you? That's great, Logan."

Brittany reached her right hand over to her left hand and grasped the big diamond on her finger.

As she pulled it off, she grabbed his hand and turned it palm up. "Well, here you go, Logan. I'm going to save you the trouble of being with me and having to go through all of that. Why don't you just go hire a girl to do it for you.

"Lena and Darren both tried to tell me to be careful, and they both thought that you were up to something, but none of us ever saw anything like this coming. You are a bastard, Logan. You are. You were tricking me and lied to me so you could get an inheritance from your father.

“What kind of a father leaves his son with nothing? Not a loving one, that's for sure, and maybe that's where you learned to use people instead of really loving them. I don't think you have it in your heart to ever really love anyone, but lucky for me, I found out before it was too late.

“Here's your ring back. I'm not going to be your wife. I'm not even going to be your friend, Logan Grayson. There's nothing left between us, and there won't ever be. I'm done. Go use someone else."

Glaring daggers at him, she dropped the ring in his hand and shook her head at him, struggling to hold in the tears she felt that were trying to fill her eyes.

"Go to hell,” she said coldly, and then she turned and walked to the door.

"Wait!" Logan called after her, panic seeming to suddenly come over him.

She ignored him. He called after her again and came hurrying behind her, but she walked through the office door and slammed it shut behind her, leaving both men inside.

Brittany was out of the house and in her car in moments, driving down the road as Logan ran outside and waved to her, calling her name out and running after her a short distance before giving up.

The moment his massive home was out of sight, but well before she was off his driveway and onto the main street, the tears she had been holding back spilled from her eyes and she began to let out the emotion that was choking her. She felt the cries in her, strangling her as she began to let them out in sobs.

He was going to use her. He had been using her all along for nothing more than money. Everything he had done with her and for her had been a lie. Everything he had said to her, everything he was doing and planned to do with her, had been nothing but a lie, and she meant nothing to him at all.

The horror of it made her want to vomit. She wiped her eyes as she drove, trying to get back to her home in one piece before she broke down any further.

By the time she got home, she was trembling with pain and rage and Logan had been blowing her phone up with phone calls and texts, but she had ignored it and left it in her purse where she had tossed it when she saw the first phone call he had made to her.

There was nothing that he could say to her that would change her mind or make her think that he was anything more than what he was; a monster. She had believed everything, and now here she was with the worst broken heart she had ever had in her life.

Brittany parked her car in front of her house. She made it up the steps and into the door, locking the door behind her. Then she nearly crawled to her bed where she curled up in a ball beneath the blanket and sobbed until her body was shed of every tear and she could no longer breathe. She fell asleep in complete and utter exhaustion.

When she awoke, it was several hours later and she felt raw and broken and beaten. She felt as if her insides had been hollowed out viciously, and there was nothing left in her. She had no desire to leave her bed, and no desire to do anything but go back to sleep and block the world away.

She called in sick to work and told them she didn't know when she would be in. They told her to take all the time she needed and she was sure that she could never take enough time to heal the hole in her heart that Logan Grayson had put there.

The memories in his office flooded back to her. Listening to him talk with Sherman, and then going in and seeing both of them. They were talking about it as if it was a business deal. Nothing more than a business deal. She was nothing to him. Nothing at all. It had seemed so mundane to them. She could not believe it as she laid there in her bed and felt like the entire world had ended.

For her it was everything and for them it was nothing more than a deadline. It was nothing more than just a way to keep his money, and she would have been tossed out with the trash at the end of it, probably just after he got his inheritance.

She fully understood the prenuptial agreement then and why it was necessary; so she wouldn't try to take him for anything when he kicked her out of his home and his life, and what would she have done then? Gone back to her old life? Gone back to whatever she could muster up as a single parent on her own with nothing?

She closed her eyes and images of what her life would have been raced through her mind. She would have had a hard and difficult life, and he would have been living larger than he was already living when she met him; single, carefree, and not at all interested in anything that had to do with her or the child she would have had that would have enabled him to keep his money.

The idea of bringing a child into the world just for money was unthinkable to her. She might have fallen in love with one of the worst men she had ever known, but somehow she was lucky enough to figure it out before her life was ruined. She knew she would hurt over him forever. She was so grateful that it was nothing more than a broken heart. She knew that he was probably going to have a hard time convincing anyone to marry him and have a kid with him immediately.

She hoped that he wouldn't put anyone else through what he was willing to put her through. No one should be used like that.

She stayed in bed for two days before Lena came over and used her key to let herself into Brittany's house.

"Are you here? Where the hell are you? I've been calling you for two days and I haven't gotten anything but a voicemail. I can't leave a message because your voicemail is full! Where are you?" Lena called out and then walked into the bedroom, pushing the door open and her eyes fell on Brittany.

"Oh my dear god. You look like hell!" Lena said as she hurried over to Brittany.

"What's going on with you? Why aren't you answering any calls or checking your messages? What are you doing in bed?" She walked over and sat beside Brittany.

Brittany sighed deeply and looked up at her friend in anguish.

"You were right about him," she breathed out.

Lena frowned. "I was right about who?"

Then Lena looked at Brittany's hand and grasped it in her own, looking at the bare finger that had been wearing a massive diamond the last time she saw it.

"Logan?" Lena asked in a whisper.

"Logan," Brittany said with difficulty.

"What happened?" 

Brittany closed her eyes and held her friend's hand. "I went over to his house and I didn't mean to listen at the office door, but I heard him talking to someone about me, so I stopped and listened, and he was talking to his attorney about how he was trying to get me pregnant, and about how he'd had me sign the prenuptial agreement." 

"His attorney? Why would he be talking to his attorney and why is he trying to get you pregnant? You never told me you two were talking about having kids so soon. Are you pregnant?"

"No,” Brittany said miserably.

"Well, that's probably a good thing since you aren't wearing a ring anymore." Lena rolled her eyes.

“His attorney asked him if I was pregnant yet. He said I had to have a baby by Logan's birthday or Logan was going to lose everything; his house, his money, all the stuff he has. He said it had to be that way because that was what his father had in his will. He told Logan that he had to be married, and that he had to have a baby by Logan's next birthday, and that there was no way around it or it was all going to be gone." She wiped a tear away as she remembered hearing it herself.

Lena gasped and her hand flew up to her mouth. "No! That can't be! Are you telling me that he's been planning this whole thing the whole time? Is that what you're saying?"

Brittany nodded and sniffed as she wiped her eyes again. "That's it. The whole time, everything has been lies. He's just been using me so he can get his father's inheritance and keep his house and his money. That's why he had me sign the prenuptial agreement; don't you see? So he could marry me, we'd have the baby, he'd get his money, and then he could divorce me and I'd be broke and not able to get any money from him to take care of the baby.

“He was going to leave us to fend for ourselves and struggle. I never would have thought it of him, but I heard them talking about it, and the whole thing was about money, all along. You should have heard him. He sounded like he didn't care at all, like it was business. Even when I broke up with him and gave him his ring back, he didn't say he was sorry or anything, he just kept trying to get me to come back, and I know why. He wants me back so he can get his money.

“He doesn't have time to trick anyone else into marrying him and having his kid; I'm his only hope or he loses everything. His birthday is eight months after the wedding. He was pushing it with me. He was so close to the cutoff time, but now that I'm gone, there's no way he will be able to find a wife and have a baby in time to get his money and save his house. I hate to see anyone lose their birthright like that, but he deserves to lose it!"

Lena shook her head. "I can't believe it. I just can't. This whole time, everything has been a lie. That's the worst thing I ever heard.”

Brittany cried some more and then wiped her face. "I can't believe it either! I was such a fool! How did I not see that? None of it! He never told me he loved me. Not once. Remember back when we were first getting involved and he said he didn't want a serious relationship, that he didn't want to commit to me, and then all of a sudden, he pulls out this huge diamond ring and asks me to marry him?

“I should have known then! I should have been every bit as suspicious as you and Darren. You two saw that he was full of crap, but not me. No... I believed him. I just knew he was falling for me and telling me the truth. I knew he was putting me first and making me the number one priority for the rest of his life, and I was just so amazed that you couldn't see it. Then there was the prenup, and did I see it then? No. Did you try to tell me? Yes. I never saw it. I was too focused on all the love."