I am going to puke.
He waved the step-by-step list I had made to become a millionaire’s wife at me.
“Seems like you have expensive taste after all,” he remarked.
“I just got caught up in the moment,” I cried, trying to explain. “I wanted the fantasy. I was young and stupid and had never had a boyfriend. Freddy was nice to me when all the guys like him in high school had treated me badly. He made out with me after class and told me that he wanted to date me. Turns out he already knew about the scrapbook, and it had been making the rounds through all the fraternities and sororities. Linneah was my freshman roommate. We rushed together. She pretended to be my friend, but she screwed me over. They trapped me at this awful party while Freddy berated me listing off why someone like him would never be with someone like me.”
I let out a sob, covering my hand with my mouth.
Chris was unmoved. “Stop trying to manipulate me.”
“I’m not!” I insisted, needing him to believe me. “That was years ago! I’m a small business owner!”
“Stop with that stupid shtick,” Chris roared, making me jump. “It was all part of some twisted plot to make me want you, to make me fall so stupidly in love with you that I didn’t notice how you were setting your sights on my fortune. Thank God for my father, or I wouldn’t have found out until you were pregnant.”
“I would never!” I said in horror. “Your father is lying to you.”
“My father never lies to me. He has always been there for me.” Chris was breathing hard. “There was proof. Addison had recordings; she played them for me.”
I looked up at his face, screwed up in fury, through the tears in my eyes.
“Linneah has pages and pages of proof.” Chris threw the papers at my feet. “People don’t change. You’re a manipulative gold digger. It’s all right there.”
I was blinking hard, trying not to cry. The truth was, I didn’t have a good excuse for the scrapbook. It looked pretty incriminating.
“Also,” Chris sneered at me, “you can go ahead and try to squeeze money out of me that you never earned and have no right to, but just know, your little company here”—he pointed to my friends and the office—“will be mine if you try to fuck with me. As your husband, I have just as much a right to part of it as you have to part of my wealth.”
That made me furious. “You bully!” I raged at him. “You’re paranoid and crazy. I don’t want a thing from you!”
He held out a hand to silence me. “I don’t want to hear another word from you. From now on, you have to go through my lawyers.” He took two business cards out of his pocket and tossed them at me. “I’ll see you in court.”
After Chris had stalked to the elevator, my friends gathered around me.
“What the hell?” I sobbed, angry and frustrated.
“Addison must have gotten to him.”
“She probably poisoned him,” Amy suggested.
Elsie shoved a mug of tea in my hands.
“What am I going to do?” I wailed. “He’s going to ruin our company. And I didn’t even do anything wrong! I thought he loved me.”
“We always knew he was mentally unstable,” Brea said, clucking her tongue as she massaged my scalp. “From the moment you first laid eyes on him, it was clear something was not right with that boy.”
“I have some lawyers I used to work with in my accounting days,” Elsie assured me. “I’ll call them and start them working on your divorce.”
“Maybe you’ll be able to buy a condo for you, Gran, and the parrot,” Amy said brightly.
“Oh no, Gran!” I moaned. “We’re going to be homeless.”
“You can stay here,” Ivy assured me.
“Gran cannot live here.” I sniffled. Then I blew my nose and composed a text to Gran. “She does naked yoga. It will not work.”
My phone chimed.
Gran:Guy with a dick that big has to be a dick. The apartment has been fixed, so timing is perfect! We will be single ladies on the town! I’ve been flirting with the doorman, and I bet I can convince him to pay for your movers and bill it to Chris.
