Chapter 31: The Friend I Lost Before Gina

Caroline and I had been friends since university.

She knew my family, my ambitions, and every doubt I had about marrying Bastian.

Then one night, she called and told me she had kissed him.

Bastian denied it.

Caroline insisted.

I believed Bastian.

Within a week, Caroline left the city.

I had not spoken to her since.

"You asked her to lie?" I said.

Bastian looked sick.

"I told her I needed to know whether you trusted me."

"Why would she agree?"

"She did not at first."

"Then what changed?"

"I told her you had been saying she was jealous of our relationship."

I had never said that.

"You turned us against each other."

"Yes."

The counselor said nothing.

There were moments when silence was the only honest response.

"Where is she?" I asked.

"I don't know. Gina said she heard Caroline moved back last month."

I left the treatment center without another word.

Thayer found Caroline's current address through a public professional directory.

She worked as an architect at a small firm on the east side.

"Do you want me to come?" he asked.

"No."

"Are you certain?"

"This is one part of my life Bastian damaged before you were involved. I need to face it myself."

He kissed my forehead.

"Call if you want me."

Caroline's office occupied the second floor of a converted warehouse.

She stood behind a drafting table when I entered.

For a moment, neither of us moved.

She looked almost the same.

Shorter hair.

Sharper eyes.

"Meredith," she said.

"Bastian told me."

Her face closed.

"Told you what?"

"That the kiss was a lie."

Caroline set down her pencil.

"It took him long enough."

"Why did you agree?"

"I thought I was helping you."

The answer made anger flare.

"By lying to me?"

"He said you were planning to marry him because your parents expected it. He said you needed a reason to admit you did not trust him."

"And when I believed him?"

"I realized I had made everything worse."

"You could have told me the truth."

"I tried."

"No, you left."

"After you called me jealous, desperate, and disloyal."

I remembered the argument.

The words had been mine.

Bastian had built the trap.

I had still delivered the cruelty.

"I was wrong," I said.

Caroline looked surprised.

"I believed him because I wanted the relationship to be safe. When you threatened that belief, I punished you."

"You were not the only one who did something wrong."

"No. But I am responsible for my part."

She sat slowly.

"Why are you here?"

"To apologize without asking you to make me feel better."

The room became quiet.

"I missed you," Caroline said eventually.

My eyes burned.

"I missed you too."

"That does not mean we can return to what we were."

"I know."

"I have a life here."

"I am not asking you to leave it."

"And you are married now."

"Yes."

She gave a faint smile.

"To the terrifyingly polite Sinclair man?"

"That description is accurate."

We spoke for an hour.

Not enough to restore years.

Enough to begin.

Before I left, Caroline gave me a storage key.

"Bastian left a box at my old apartment," she said. "He told me to keep it until you married him."

"What is inside?"

"I never opened it."

The storage unit was registered under Caroline's former address.

Inside the box were letters, photographs, and a contract.

The contract was a private agreement between Bastian and one of his friends.

It described a bet.

If Bastian married me before turning thirty, his friend would transfer him a ten-percent interest in a luxury development project.

The condition was not simply marriage.

The contract required proof that I had signed a prenuptial agreement granting Bastian control over certain Hale family assets.

My hands went cold.

The date was two years before our breakup.

Bastian had planned to profit from marrying me.

The humiliation tests had not only been about control.

They had been preparation.

Lower my expectations.

Isolate me from friends.

Make me believe marriage was inevitable.

Then place the agreement in front of me.

Thayer read the contract beside me.

"Did Bastian ever present a prenuptial agreement?"

"His lawyer sent a draft three weeks before the bachelor party. I never read it closely because my father said he would review it."

My father found the draft in his files.

The asset clause was there.

Hidden beneath pages of standard language.

He had already rejected it.

Bastian had never told me.

I sent the contract to the Wilson attorneys and Bastian's counselor.

The friend named in the agreement was questioned.

He admitted the bet was real.

He claimed it was a joke.

No one laughed.

Bastian requested another call.

I refused.

I had heard enough confession to understand the pattern.

Consequences no longer required my presence.

That evening, Caroline sent me a message.

[Coffee next week? No promises beyond coffee.]

I answered.

[Coffee is enough.]

Then my phone rang.

Mrs. Wilson was crying.

"Meredith, Bastian left the treatment center."

"Did he check out?"

"No. He disappeared after reading the contract."

Security found his room empty.

On the bed lay one sentence.

I need to undo the first lie before I can live with the rest.