Kate made a noise behind me that suggested she didnotagree with this approach, but I kept a light hold on her hand and explained. “Emma was real but we never met in person. We only talked online.”
Hinds frowned slightly, looking more confused than ever. “Is that supposed to make it better? Because it still sounds like?—”
“Give me a minute,” I said. “I know it doesn’t make sense yet, but it will. So let me explain or I’ll let Kate do it.”
Hinds held his hands up. “No, no, go ahead.”
I nodded. “Emma and I met online and we talked for years, but even though we’d never met in person, she mattered to me. A lot.”
Behind me, Kate had suddenly stopped moving. She just sort of leaned into me a little and I took a breath, tightening my grip on her arm. “After Kate agreed to marry me, Emma and I set a meeting. To see each other in person and say goodbye. When we arrived, we realized that we already knew each other.”
“What?” Hinds asked, his head tilting. “What do you mean?”
“Emma was a fake name Kate was using online, and I had been using an anonymous name as well. So the person who arrived, Abram, was Kate. There is no other woman.”
Hinds fell back against his chair, blinking rapidly. He jammed one hand through his hair and dragged the other down his face. “I’m sorry. Emma and Kate are the same person?”
“Yes.”
She squeezed my hand and I pulled her just a fraction of an inch closer. “I’ve been in love with Kate for years.”
Hinds stared at me for a long moment after I said it, like he wasn’t sure if he believed me, but before he could question it, I gave him the shortened version of everything that had happened, keeping it simple with no unnecessary detail.
“When this marriage was first proposed,” I said, “I didn’t know Kate was Emma yet, so I went to talk to my brother about it all. He suggested that I meet with Emma and tell her in person that I was marrying someone else. I was going to break it off with her before the papers were signed, but obviously, that didn’t happen because she was the person I was marrying.”
Hinds frowned. “So the affair?”
“Never happened,” I said. “Not at all and certainly not in the way the papers are suggesting. My brother and I must’ve been overheard one night when we were discussing it and whoever was eavesdropping obviously didn’t have the whole story, but that didn’t matter. They’ll publish anything for clicks.”
“So you haven’t been having an affair?” he asked again, looking like he was either clarifying or still trying to understand. “Or rather, there was one, but it was with your wife.”
“Exactly,” I said. “There was an emotional relationship between me and a woman. A very real relationship, but it never existed outside of a screen, and once I knew I was marrying Kate, I was ending it. Obviously.”
Hinds looked between the two of us. “And the timing of all this?”
“Well, that was unfortunate,” I admitted. “Our marriage was obviously big news, but I kept my relationship with Emma to myself for a long time. Until after I got engaged, to be honest. In that context, the timing makes sense. Our engagement leaked to the press, which made them interested in our story, and after we got married, someone overheard me clearing things up to my brother. Probably figured they could make some money since we’d been in the news.”
Kate snorted softly, but I wasn’t blind to what this might look like to him. “Had it not been for the eavesdropper, I’d like to think that Kate and I would’ve eventually come out with the fact that our relationship existed before the arrangement came up, but honestly, we’re still trying to process everything ourselves.”
Hinds exhaled through his nose, long and slow, like a man who had aged five years in the last fifteen minutes. “This is the truth?”
“Yes.”
“The complete and total truth?” he pressed. “There is nothing else?”
“No,” I said, but then I realized that wasn’t all of it. There was something else that not even Kate knew about yet. “Actually, there is one more thing.”
Hinds’ eyebrows swept up. “There is?”
“Yes.”
Kate shifted, looking up at me with worry flickering behind those gorgeous eyes. “Nate?”
“When the idea of a Westwood marrying Kate to seal the deal was first being discussed, the plan wasn’t for her to marryme,” I said carefully.
Her eyes widened to the point of what looked like pain, her face draining of color and her lips parting.
Hinds frowned. “It wasn’t?”
