Mike was married to Karen Walker, who was the head of a large NGO in Colombo and had pretty deep connections at the American embassy. Karen’s job did most of the heavy lifting, and from what I could tell, Mike simply bounced around from five-star hotels to beachside bars. He had some experience in security, or intelligence, or something, because he’d taken a break from doing shots of arrack and chain-smoking to run some checks on an American hedge fund my dad was interested in investing in at the time, and my dad said he did good work.

And so when I wanted a background check run, discreetly, I figured he was the best person to do it.

Don’t get me wrong. There were worse things than marrying Spencer. I think back to my classmates—most of them married already, with a child or two to boot. Husbands who have affairs at the office that the wives turn blind eyes to, probably because they were fucking someone else on the side themselves. Colombo society was nothing if not incestuous. Everyone was related to everyone some way or another, which made love triangles even more complicated than they typically would be.

But that’s why my deal with Spencer felt comforting in a way. And I certainly wasn’t under any delusions. It definitely was a deal.

I’d pushed aside my doubts and embraced it, like brides were supposed to. Colombo society was going to think I was knocked up for sure, but I guess they’d shut up when there was no baby nine months later.

Then I got a call from the lady who managed Pink Sapphire’s donations in the US. A check had bounced, she said. It was probably nothing. Just a bookkeeping error. But the check was from Spencer’s company.

It was just a tiny, nagging thought that started in my mind. Pretty soon it started to itch, and then it started to fester. I was paying attention to things that I never thought about before—

Who was picking up the bills for everything? Mostly me. It didn’t make sense to pay international charges on his credit card, he said, and I agreed. I mean, his money was going to be our money soon. I didn’t want to be wasteful.

Where was he living? At one of the swankiest apartments in Colombo, owned by my dad, who said that family shouldn’t have to pay rent.

Was he paying for the wedding? He claimed he was—at least for the homecoming portion of things, as he should. But as far as I knew, my dad had paid the deposits for everything because Spencer hadn’t transferred his money across from the US just yet.

My dad was building us a house.

My dad was giving him the reins on our new showroom.

It seemed like a much too convenient arrangement, if you asked me.

But maybe all of it was just in my head, which is where Mike came along. I’d reached out to him two weeks ago and asked him to run a background check on Spencer. I was sure that everything would be fine. That it was just pre-wedding cold feet kicking in. That this was all some sort of misunderstanding and Mike would clear everything up and I’d go along with my marriage of convenience like I had planned.