by Amy Brent
I sighed. I probably should have known that was coming. And it wasn’t that I wanted to keep secrets from James either, but I was so sick of being emotional in front of him and I knew that telling him exactly who that man was guaranteed to put me back into a place I didn’t want to be.
“You don’t have to tell me if you’re not comfortable.”
“No, it’s not that, I… just…” Why the hell was I still letting Jason affect me so much? I had just stood up to him and read him to absolute filth. If I wanted to keep the peace, I had long since ruined that possibility. “It’s just a lot.”
“I understand. But I’ve got the whole day.”
Right. I took a deep breath and tried to figure out where to start.
“Okay. So, when I got out of college, I got a job in that same city at a call center. It wasn’t my dream job, obviously, or what I had gone to school for, but it paid the bills.
“Or, it did until they eliminated their bonus structure and commission set up and switched to minimum wage plus cents on the dollar for every sale. Suddenly my checks were going from five hundred dollars a week at thirty-five hours, to less than three hundred.
“I tried looking for another job, I really did. But all I had on my resume was fast food work and the one call center, so places that paid better wouldn’t hire me, and the places I used to work at weren’t enough to live off of.
“So, after four months of trying to make it work, I had to move back home. Back to Podunk town where people still call me oriental and marry their cousins. It wasn’t awful at first, mostly because I stuck to myself, but being unemployed left me feeling so empty. So useless.”
I could feel everything coming back to me. The anxiety, wondering if my degree was useless, thinking that I was a failure. What kind of twenty-two-year-old couldn’t get even the simplest of jobs?
“Day in and day out, I would fill out all these job applications online. I got a couple of interviews, but never managed to land the job. One person said that I was overqualified. Another wanted me to work overnights and my mom didn’t want me coming into her house at random times of the night or early morning. Two turned out to be scams. It just seemed impossible.
“Naturally, I started to feel bad about myself and I wanted some positive attention. So, I downloaded some dating app and started swiping. Almost everyone was a dud, except for this one guy.” Oh boy, here it was. I steadied myself, willing my temper not to spike. “He was handsome, a cop, and when I did some snooping, I found out that he was a real golden boy of the community.
“Of course, I agreed to a date after that! He took me to a great Mexican place and honestly, it was enchanting. Great conversation, he listened. I thought I had found a Prince Charming, and when he dropped me off at home, he gave me a kiss and wished me goodnight.” I belatedly thought it might not be the best time to tell James about my past crush and how great he thought I was, but it wasn’t like I was in a relationship with the billionaire.
“I went to bed excited and finally feeling better about my life, but the next day when I went to friend him, I couldn’t get into any of my social media. I had to reset all of my passwords via my back up emails, and by the time I got it all together, I found that almost all of my photos had been deleted, strange statuses had been posted and a bunch of messages were sent to random people.
“It took me all day to do damage control, but eventually I got it right and put it out of my mind. Jason and I started texting, planning our next date, and I offered to come over and cook for him.
“We set it all up for that weekend and I was on a cloud. But then, about the middle of the week, I came out of the grocery store to find all of my tires slashed. By then I was starting to be suspicious but ti was too late.
“Turns out that Jason’s ex was not nearly as charming, and she was determined to ruin me so she could get back with him. Of course, I didn’t find that out right away. By the time I did figure it out, she had already done too much damage.
“Posters all over town posted lies about me, rumors and edited screenshots of my social media were spreading to all the younger people in town. She knew the social network and I didn’t, plus she had that latent hometown racism on her side.
“It all happened so fast. In two weeks, I went from a nobody in town -which is how I liked it- to infamous. I hated it. Everywhere I went, there were whispers and looks. I had no peace, and I was constantly getting nasty messages online.
“But then, when someone wrote my number in several bathroom stalls around town, I couldn’t take it anymore. I went to Jason and I asked him for help. His ex was out of control and I needed his help. He was a cop after all, who better to help me?”
I snorted at that, remembering how naïve I had been back then. I had been so sure that he was going to help me. How wrong I had been.
“I will never forget how he looked at me, like I was the stupidest woman that he had ever met. He told me that it wasn’t really his business, and since he was trying to get the promotion to deputy, he couldn’t risk his reputation dealing with a civilian matter.
“I tried to argue with him, telling him that it was his ex who was doing all of this and if he had warned me about her in the first place, that none of this would ever have happened. He said that he had no way of knowing this would happen since his ex had left him alone for the past month.
“I couldn’t believe it. I thought I could trust this guy and he sold my reputation out for a stupid promotion that he didn’t end up getting anyways! So, I tried to survive. I tried to keep my head down and just find a job.”
I laughed at that, but it was dry and bitter. “I thought that it couldn’t get any worse, ya know. That I had hit the proverbial rock bottom. But then the rumors hit my mother’s bible study and someone broke the window in her car.
“That was apparently the line for her, because she wanted me out. She said I was ruining her place in town and that I always came off like I thought I was better than everyone else. We’ve mostly made up about it now, but it crushed me then. My last vestige in the world was gone.
“So that’s why I left and went to Vegas. I wanted to go somewhere so completely different where I would just be a cog in the machine and no one would know me from Eve.” I chuckled again, thoroughly amused. “And we all know how that went.”
“We do,” he said, sharing my laugh. Despite how tense our morning had started, it was much better now that both of our secrets were out. “You certainly had a rollercoaster of a few months.”
“I really did,” I said, sighing. Now that I had just spelled out one of the worst experiences of my life, I was feeling a little emotionally empty. “I’m sure you get now why I have such troubles trusting people. Everyone I’ve ever let in has always hurt me for their own self-interest. So, when I thought I could be pregnant, I knew I had to run. I couldn’t risk that you were just like everything else.”
He reached forward, his large hand covering my own. “I can’t blame you for what you did. As much as I wish we could have worked through this together from the start, I understand exactly why you did what you did. To be honest, if I was in your shoes I probably would have done the same thing.
“You are an incredibly strong woman, Nicole. And I’m sure you know a part of that, but I don’t think you get just quite how incredible you are.”
I blushed. How did this stern, intimidating billionaire always know what to say to turn the situation on its head? It was uncanny -not that I was complaining.
“Well, I don’t know about that…”
“I do,” he let go of my hand and sat back, pulling out his cellphone. “So, how about we see what’s available for delivery this early?”
I nodded, more than eager to put everything behind us and never think of bankruptcy or Jason or terrible exes. “That sounds great. After that, we can call the lawyer and actually do something productive.”
“Perfect. So, are you feeling traditional, or do you want to shake it up a little?”
; Chapter Twenty-Nine
~James~
I drove along, Nicole be bopping to some sort of pop song in another language. I had given her the aux cord and now I was regretting it slightly.
But considering how terribly our morning had started, I was pretty happy with how the mood had changed.
I still couldn’t believe what Nicole had told me. All it had taken was one jealous woman to completely ruin her experience in her home town. Just that fact that there was someone so vindictive and vile got me pretty angry, but then when I heard how Jason had completely left Nicole to the sharks, and then her mother too, I was livid.
From what I could tell, Nicole was a hardworking, funny woman who didn’t ask for anything from anyone. And the moment that she finally did need help, no one had been there for her.
Maybe it was because she was so different from everyone else. I’d met a whole lot of people in my life, but none of them were quite like her. She was a complicated mix of sarcastic and open, loving and guarded. She was beautiful and funny and most importantly, kind. Of course, she was far from perfect, but who wasn’t? She was a far better person than I could ever be, and I knew that she was going to be a great mother to our being.
But all of that also made me feel that much more protective of her. For being my future ex-wife, I was certainly invested in her future. I had a feeling we were going about this entirely the wrong way, and that we definitely needed to stop sleeping together and getting to know each other, but life seemed very determined to keep pushing us further and further into each other’s business.
Getting things dealt with on Trevor’s end would no doubt help as well. We were lucky that he was willing to meet with us on a Sunday again. I was paying out of the wazoo for the impromptu weekend hours, but I was sure the fat paychecks was one of the reasons Trevor was so willing to meet with us.
We arrived before him again, but the receptionists lead us right to the same room as before and got us a set of drinks.
“This guy’s not very punctual, is she?” Nicole asked, looking to me with a bit of a bored expression. If I had to guess, working her boring nine-to-five job was probably less than fun for her, so she looked to the weekends for fun. I imagine fighting with a man she’d gone to one date with and then talking with a divorce lawyer was less than an ideal break for her.
Hopefully, we would be able to get this over with and get onto something she would actually enjoy.
“Hello there, sorry for making you wait again,” Trevor said, speed walking in with his briefcase just as before. “You think, after ten years of living here, I’d know to calculate for after-church traffic, yet here I am.”
“Here you are,” I said neutrally, not wanting to sound too hopeful in case there was a hitch in our plans.
But there wouldn’t be a hitch, right? People got married and divorced all the time, so why would there possibly be anything wrong now that we finally had the woman half of our little equation?
And why was that disappointing to me? Did I want there to be a hitch? Why on Earth would I want a hitch? It had taken months and months of scouring the country and literally hiring a team of PIs to find this woman, why would I ever want to throw away all that good effort by having the divorce fall through?
Thankfully, Trevor started talking and saved my mind from itself.
“So, I was able to get everything all in a row and I have a whole plan written out for you two. First of all, an annulment is out of the question just due to how long its been since you were married, so we’re looking at divorce. And naturally every state is different in what they require because who cares about consistency, right?” He paused as if we were supposed to laugh, but neither of us really got the clue.
“Continuing on then, it’s not a big deal at all, luckily enough. According to the statutes of St. Louis, we need a mandatory and documented three-month separation. Then, once that is done, all you have to do is come in, sign an uncontested divorce document and then you two will officially be divorced. Easy peasy, right?”
“So what,” Nicole asked curiously. “Do we just say that we’re gonna not live together and that’s that?”
“Well no, you need to sign a separation form and list your addresses then give me a couple of pieces of mail from each address.”
“Then let’s get on that,” she said eagerly, leaning forward as if she was ready to go. “I didn’t bring mail though; can I send it to you tomorrow?”
“Can you mail me mail? Yes, I think the United States Post office allows that.”
“Cute,” Nicole shot back. “Do you get paid extra for the sarcasm or is that just a free service.”
“Considering it a complementary benefit of my services.”
The two bantered back and forth for a minute and I couldn’t quite tell if it was good natured or not. Mostly because I was only listening with half my brain. The other half was working itself up into a frenzy, trying to over-analyze why I wasn’t thrilled at the news.
I wanted this divorce. I couldn’t be married to a woman I hardly knew. Even if I liked her now, and she was having our baby, that didn’t mean I wanted to tie my future, my assets and my dreams to her.
But at the same time… was I making the wrong choice? Was it crazy to think that fate had brought us together?
Probably. Fate was something hopeless romantics and unambitious people used to excuse why they ended up in terrible situations of their own doing. And yet what else explained how relentlessly we kept being forced together, and how much fun we had when we did meet up?
Because that’s what it was like every time I visited her. Sure, there was the sexual tension, and today hadn’t exactly been a walk in the park, but on the whole, being with Nicole was enjoyable in a way that so many things weren’t. And I didn’t even need drugs or alcohol to make the situation bearable. Just her and me was enough.
Although it’d be better with one hundred percent less Jason and fifty percent less Trevor.
“Alright, so who’s ready to get to signing?”
Speak of the devil. But I certainly couldn’t express my doubts now, so I went along and signed the paperwork. Besides, I knew that even if I was feeling strangely unassured right now, it was the right thing to do. We needed this divorce so we could move on.
We finished up and headed back to my car, Nicole practically skipping. Or at least that’s what I interpreted her jerking, hopping motion to be. The woman was certainly getting more and more pregnant by the day.
“We finished a bit earlier than I thought. You want to go get something to eat?” I asked.
“Sure,” she said, smiling brilliantly. “my treat.”
“In your dreams.” I said with a laugh, reaching towards the GPS.
“You stop that!” She batted my hand away and started fiddling with it herself. “Alright, if you’re paying, where do you want to go?”
“How about some Chinese?”
“Sit down or take out?”
“You know what, let’s continue our lazy day theme and order out.”
“I like the way you think!” She said as she touched my arm. “Let’s just veg out until your flight. When is that again?”
“Seven pm tonight.”
“Aw, so we only have a couple of hours left.” I liked the way that she did actually sound put out about my absence, which was absolutely ridiculous. “Well, let’s make the most of it by gorging ourselves on MSG and watching a movie.”
“I’d like that,” I said, following the directions that the GPS was spitting out. I could enjoy our last bit together then get back to the real world, where hopefully I could come back to my senses and get on track with the divorce.
I hoped.
Chapter Thirty
~Nicole~
Somehow, in the span of just a couple months, my life turned from a horror story into a fairy tale.
And I loved it, I absolutely loved it.
I was almost through my fifth month of pregnancy and the morning sickness had worn off q
uite a bit. I still got it from time to time -especially if I smelled something a bit too obnoxious- but those instances were getting further and further apart.
My belly was also really starting to take off. I went from a rounded stomach that looked like it was probably pregnancy, to full on there’s a baby inside here in just a matter of a couple of weeks. When I had my next checkup, the doctor said that I was a bit bigger than average, but nothing to be worried about yet.
James had been relieved at that, because of course he had been there. So far, he had been to the two other appointments I had and stayed for the rest of the weekends.
Those weekends were the best part of the whole deal. We did everything from watch movies, to walk around St. Louis, we even went up in the arch. If either of us wanted to do something, instead of sighing and saying ‘well maybe someday’, we got up and did it.
Except for sex.
It was weird. After that amazing time in the bathtub, I would be absolutely lying if I said I wasn’t tempted to have James throw me down and work me up and over again, but something was stopping us. Don’t get me wrong, we slept in the same bed every night, cuddling and holding each other and honestly that was legitimately magical, but there was no hanky panky at all.
Perhaps that was for the best. Because I was pretty sure that I could maybe be falling in love with him.