“And you still thought you were in love with him?”
“Absolutely. But when my senior year started, I really began thinking about our future. We spent a weekend together during my fall break, and I broached the topic of him leaving Linda.” She shakes her head at herself. “I was having my doubts that Barclay loved me. I tried to assure myself he must, but I still wanted him to prove it in some way.”
“What was his reaction?”
“He said he wanted to divorce Linda, but he had to move money around or she would bankrupt him. He said it would take a while. I understood him not wanting to give her half of his life’s work. Remember, I’d known Linda most of my life, too. She’d always been cold and unlikeable—at least to me. So I convinced myself their problems were of her making, probably so I wouldn’t have to see Barclay’s faults…or my own.” She shrugs. “Anyway, his answer disappointed me, but I was young. I had time. So I resolved to be patient. Then he moved from Maui back to LA and suggested I come to work for him after graduation so we could spend more time together while he got everything in order. I thought those were signs that he wanted to be with me.”
More so he could keep fucking her under everyone’s nose. “When did you figure out you two had no future?”
She’s quiet a long time. “At first, it was little things. The day I started at Reed Financial, this guy who reported to him—a total jerk named Byron—called me the ‘fresh meat.’ He said he wasn’t surprised that Barclay had hired me to replace his last assistant, who had just turned twenty-eight, since she was way past her prime.”
“He sounds like an absolute jackass.”
“A hundred percent. Then he said there was an office pool among his managers as to how long it would take Barclay to nail me. I was flabbergasted, but when I asked Barclay about it later, he told me Byron was an ass looking to stir the pot and that I should ignore him. Then I started hearing rumors about Barclay’s flings with past assistants, along with the fact that he’d also talked to them about wanting to leave Linda, but never did. During all this, Barclay and I would sneak away for quickies in cars, conference rooms, and airplanes. Occasionally, we’d find ourselves a hotel suite. But I began to feel like a convenience, not a girlfriend. Not the woman he wanted to spend his life with. Eventually, it hit me that we never had sex in either of our respective beds. My first few months out of college, I shared an apartment with Harlow to manage expenses, so Barclay never wanted to spend the night there. Of course, he never invited me to his house with Linda unless my whole family was in town. But it occurred to me that if we were going to have a future, shouldn’t we start telling the people in our lives about us? He just kept brushing me off, saying it wasn’t the right time. And before you comment, yes, I should have known by then he had no intention of marrying me, but I didn’t know how to stop hoping. I believed with all my heart that I loved him.”
“What ended it?”
“I got pregnant. He claimed he’d had a vasectomy…so I went off the pill. What was the point of taking it if I didn’t need to actually prevent pregnancy? My periods had always been regular…but I missed my first one after that. At first I told myself that my body was taking a while to restart normally, but when I vaulted out of bed one morning because I had to throw up, I knew.”
“And you told him?”
“Immediately. In a way, I was relieved. I’d been stunned when he told me he’d gotten fixed. How were we going to have kids in the future if he’d had a vasectomy? Yes, he had children with Linda, but I was going to be his new wife and I wanted kids.” She scoffs at herself. “When I told him I was pregnant, his first reaction was to grin, so I thought he was happy. Then he literally patted himself on the back and said he still ‘had it.’”
Just when I’m convinced Reed couldn’t be any worse, she proves me wrong. “What an asshole.”
“And I really didn’t figure that out until I asked him what we were going to do about Linda, his divorce, our future… He looked at me as if I was an idiot and told me he wasn’t planning on doing a damn thing. He would leave Linda on his timetable, not mine. Then he said he’d been trying to figure out when I’d catch on to the fact that I was just a convenient hole. He’d enjoyed getting me pregnant, but he had enjoyed knocking up more than one of his assistants in the past, too. He, Byron, and some of the other managers even had a betting pool on me, and he won because he’d managed the feat so quickly. But he didn’t want me anymore, especially since he hated fucking pregnant women. And he’d never loved me anyway. It probably sounds stupid, but
