I married a man 41 years older than me because of his fortune — after his funeral, his lawyer handed me a box and said, “He made sure you got exactly what you deserved.”
Everyone thought I married Richard for his money.
They weren’t entirely wrong.
I was thirty-two years old, I was drowned in debt and only a lost wage away from running out of apartment.
Richard was seventy-three, he was rich, widowed and alone in a way that wealthy people sometimes try to hide behind marble floors, expensive clocks and huge houses.
We met at a charity dinner where I served champagne.
He asked me what he was calling me.
Then he looked at me and asked:
“Have you been standing up all night? They must hurt your feet.”
It was such a simple question.
But no man had been asking me if I was tired for years.
Three months later, Richard asked me to marry.
My friends thought I had lost my mind.
His children were even less kind.
“Do you really think you’re going to stay with this house?” his daughter Rebecca whispered to me after the wedding. “You will not receive anything.”
