“You claim you haven’t been with anyone else since we married,” I stated, while trying to find a way to word this, and at the same time deflecting from his original question.

“It’s true, not just a claim.”

“Yet, you invited two women you planned on hooking up with to be witnesses at our wedding.” He flinched at the mention of those women. “If you hadn’t seen me in the casino that night, would you have brought them back to the suite?”

“No.” His answer was curt and quick, but there was an underlying appearance of guilt in the way his shoulders rolled up and forward, as if he needed to hide from the simple answer.

“You would have taken them somewhere else then?”

“Do you really want that answer?”

“Yes,” it was a simple, quiet demand.

“Then yes, that was the plan.”

“And would they have still been witnesses to our wedding the next day?” His head snapped up and our eyes locked again.

“I wouldn’t have done that. It was pure coincidence that we saw them on the way to get everything set up.” I nodded my head again.

“If I hadn’t left that night, where would you have spent our wedding night?” It was a question I had been pondering since I decided to catch that earlier flight and he and Wes had followed me.

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Where would you have spent the night, if we had stayed in Vegas as you originally planned?”

He sighed and looked away. That’s what I thought. It wouldn’t have been with me. “I’m not sure what you want from me here. This whole thing is new, and not exactly something I would have jumped into on my own if there weren’t much bigger responsibilities at stake.”

“I get it. I just need you to see why I assume things are the way I do. You have shown me that they’re true, both in words and actions. Yet, you want me to open up to you about my reasons for agreeing to do this. Some of which are things I have not trusted to another soul in this world.” His eyes were boring a hole in the side of my head, since I refused to face him as I spoke. “I gave you my faithfulness, even if you never touch me, because it’s mine to give. The rationale for why I did so will also remain mine because you’ve given me no reason to trust you with that answer. All I ask in return, is that you are overly cautious with what the public sees. If it were just about me, on a personal level, I wouldn’t care what people thought of me, but one day, I hope to be a successful author and the last thing I need is to have everyone think I’m someone’s pitiful little doormat. Since I won’t be able to explain the arrangement publicly, that’s exactly how I would come over.”

“Mina,” he called to me, but I was done.