“I can have my lawyer talk to yours,” he said pleasantly. “I think some kind of annual amount would be fair, maybe a signing bonus when we get married,” he said with a broad smile. “And I guess these days people prenegotiate a divorce, in case there is one, alimony and a settlement.” It sounded like a great arrangement to him, and the outrageousness of it didn’t strike him for a minute. “And let’s face it, Hope, I’m a lot more famous than you are, a rare commodity, and a hell of a deal for you at any price. At your age, guys like me don’t come along. I could be the last train out of the station for you. I think you need to keep that in mind.” What he said to her was breathtaking, and it was the first time he had made an issue of his fame, and belittled hers. She was surprised, but thought it wisest not to comment on any of it, but it was shocking, even to her.
“Sounds like an expensive deal,” she said quietly, as she poured herself another cup of tea, still stunned by what he’d said and what he was doing.
“I’m worth it, don’t you think?” Finn said as he leaned over and kissed her, as Hope looked at him with eyes full of tears. He was insane. Even she knew it now. “Something wrong?” He saw the expression on her face and the sag of her shoulders, which seemed surprising to him.
“I think it’s very depressing to be talking about money instead of love and the years we want to spend together, and prenegotiating alimony and a divorce. That’s a little too businesslike for me,” she answered, looking at him sadly.
“Then let’s just get married and forget the prenup,” he said simply. But there was no way they could do that. She was worth a substantial fortune, and Finn had nothing but debts, bills, and a lawsuit. She couldn’t be that irresponsible. Without a prenup, she’d be completely vulnerable to him financially, and he knew it. The whole conversation made her feel sick. There was no way they could ever marry. Finn was in a very good mood. He thought he had her trapped.
In the end, to pacify him, Hope said that she would think about it and let him know what she thought. She didn’t want to set him off by telling him there was no question of his getting the money he wanted, or her marrying him, and she didn’t want to give it to him either. She thought about his demands all day, as she edited some photographs, went to the FedEx office, and went for a walk alone in the woods. She didn’t see Finn again until late that afternoon. And he was as loving as he ever had been. The trouble now was that Hope no longer knew if it was about love or money, and she never would, he was slowly wearing her down, demoralizing her, and making her feel crazy and off balance. His financial demands were insulting and insane. She was trying to stay calm, but it was just too hard fighting with him all the time. He always had some obsession, whether it was getting her pregnant, getting married, or giving him millions of dollars for his own use. Hope was feeling overwhelmingly sad. The dream of love and trust that she had shared with him was crumbling in her hands like butterfly wings. They went from one upsetting subject to another, and had resolved nothing so far. It was all about money now, and he had asked her to prove her love for him by putting five million dollars in an account in his name. That was a lot of love. And what was he planning to give in return, other than his time? Even Hope herself was well aware that she was getting screwed. Worse than that, she felt like she was trapped in a spiderweb of deceit. He was the spider and it was becoming ever more clear that she was the prey.
Finn invited her to dinner in Blessington that night. She agreed to go, for distraction in her despair, and for once not a single difficult subject came up. Not money, not babies, not weddings. She was depressed at first, and surprised that they had a good time together like in the beginning, and once again, it gave her hope. She was constantly ricocheting now between hope and despair. And she was having more and more trouble getting up each time she got knocked down. Ever since Paul had died, she was tired. And Finn was slowly beating her down.
But miraculously, for the next several days, just as she had begun to lose hope, everything seemed to be all right again. Finn was in a good mood. He was writing. She was starting a new book of photographs of Ireland, and enjoying some projects in the house. It was beginning to feel like the early days when she had first bought the house. And she tried to put out of her mind the outrageous things he’d said to her, and the money he had asked for. Just for now. She needed the respite. And then a letter came by FedEx from New York. She took it up to Finn and left it with him, and when he came out of his office again, he looked like a black cloud.
“Bad news?” she asked, looking worried. Given the expression on his face, it would have been hard to believe it was good.
“They’re telling me that even if I deliver the book now, they won’t publish it. They’re going ahead with the suit. Fuck. And this is one of my best books.”
“Then someone else will publish it, and you may get a better deal.” She tried to sound encouraging, but he looked incredibly angry.
“Thank you, Little Miss Cheerful. They want their money back, and I’ve already spent the advance.”
Hope put a gentle hand on his shoulder, as he poured himself a stiff drink and took a long sip. He felt better when he did.
“Why don’t you let me ask Mark Webber to handle this, and see if he can negotiate something for you.”
Finn looked at her then with fury. “Why don’t you just fucking write them a check?” She didn’t like the way he had spoken to her, but she didn’t say anything to him about it, and refused to react in kind. She didn’t want another fight.
“Because a good lawyer can make a deal, and then we’ll see what we have to do.” She was trying to reassure him, without committing herself. It was hard to know these days where things were going to go with them. She was still hopeful, but realistically, less and less. Things weren’t going well. It was all about greed now, getting his hands on her money, and covering up old lies. As it said in the Bible, their house was built on sand.
“Is that a royal ‘we’?” he asked her in a nasty tone. “Or are you going to pay up, and stop making me hang by the neck about it? I need money. And I want my own account.” She was already clear about that. He had been saying it for weeks.
“But we don’t know how much you need,” she said quietly. Hope always got quiet when she was upset, either angry or scared.
“That’s beside the point. If you want me to stick around, I don’t want to be accountable to you. What I spend, how much, and what I spend it on is my business, not yours.” And yet he wanted her money to do it, but figured it was none of her business. It sounded pretty ballsy, even to her. “Let’s be honest about this, Hope. You’re forty-five years old, not twenty-two. You’re a pretty woman, but forty-five isn’t twenty-five or thirty. You don’t have a living relative in the world, no siblings, no parents, no cousins even, your only child is dead, and the last person you considered yourself related to, your ex-husband, just died last week. So who do you think is going to be around, if something happens to you, you know, say if you got sick? And what do you think would happen if I walk out on you, maybe because I found a twenty-two-year-old? Then what happens to you? You wind up fucking alone, probably forever, and one day you die alone. So maybe what you need to think about, if you don’t want to put that money in an account for me, is what your life is going to look like ten years from now, or twenty, when no one else is around, and you’re all alone. Looking at it from that perspective, you just may want to give some serious thought to making it attractive to me to stick around.” As Hope listened to him, she looked like she’d been slapped.
“Is that supposed to be a declaration of love?”
“Maybe it is.”
“And how do I know, if I set up these accounts for you in the right amounts, that you actually will stick around? Let’s say I do that, for five or ten million, and whatever you want when we get married, and then you meet the perfect twenty-two-year-old.”
“Good point,” he said, smiling. He looked as though he was enjoying the moment. Hope clearly wasn’t. “I guess you pays your money, you takes your chances. Because if you don’t put that money in the accounts, when Miss Perfect Twenty-Two-Year-Old shows up, especially if she’s some kind of an heiress or a debutante, then guess who won’t be sticking around to hold your bedpan in your old age.” She couldn’t imagine him doing that in any case, and the conversation they were having was beyond disgusting. She had never been so upset.
“So you’re basically suggesting that I buy you, as an insurance policy for my old age.”
“I guess you could say that. But look at the perks you’d be getting and already are. Sex anytime you want it, hopefully a baby, maybe even a couple of kids, if you take care of yourself. And I think we have a pretty good time.”
“Funny,” she said, the violet eyes shooting sparks, “you haven’t mentioned love. Or is that not part of the deal?” She had never been so insulted in her life. She was supposed to buy herself a guy. If she wanted Finn, there were no two ways about it, she had to pay the price.
And with that, Finn came and put his arms around her. He had seen the look on her face. “You know I love you,
