“It means, if I don’t get the inheritance, I won’t be able to afford the alimony terms we laid out. I won’t be able to afford any of this.” I gestured around at the penthouse. “And the legal fees on fighting this shit, just trying to escape with anything left and start over, will probably ruin me financially on top of everything else. This life… it’s a Davenport life. I’ll barely be a Davenport anymore. Things will look a lot different than they do now.”
“What are you talking about?” she repeated, quietly. “Why are you going on about alimony right now?”
I stared at her, trying to read her. I could not tell what was going on behind those dark eyes. Sadness? Regret?
Maybe she was finally realizing the absolute shit show I’d roped her into. My life. It wasn’t fair to drag anyone into this.
“That was the deal,” I said. “Alimony after we divorce, right?”
“I figured the deal had changed,” she almost whispered.
“What? Why?”
She didn’t answer me. But I could tell, by the change in her face, the terrible, raw, almost wounded look that overtook her, that everything had changed. For her.
I had no idea.
I was fucking stunned.
I had no idea she’d even consider giving me any kind of extension on this deal. This marriage. This… whatever this was.
I got up and walked over to her.
“I thought that was what you wanted,” I said carefully. “A divorce, after I get my inheritance.”
Devi just shook her head at me, the brief flash of pain replaced with fire. Her nostrils flared. She looked fucking pissed. At me.
Of all the things that we just talked about,nowshe was pissed off at me?
I just stood there, confused, as she turned to grab her purse.
“Well, if that’s the plan,” she said, “honestly, why wait? We’ll just separate now and no one even has to know. You need me as arm candy at any events? Just send a car to collect me and tell me what to wear. I’ll show up at your birthday and smile pretty for your grandmother. And meanwhile, we don’t have to put up with each other’s shit anymore.”
“Devi, I don’t—”
The steel door slid shut in her wake.
I didn’t chase after her.
I’d tried that with Tina, to get her to hear me out.
Didn’t work.
I collapsed into the nearest chair and looked around at the empty apartment, feeling numb. I wasn’t even sure why it still surprised me, at all, that when the shit hit the fan, the women in my life really didn’t want to hear anything I had to say about it.
You’d really think that, by now, I’d be used to it.
But there was nothing that could’ve prepared me for Devi walking out on me. I wasn’t sure I’d be ready for it in three months, even though I asked for it.
I definitely wasn’t ready for it now.
But I had no idea what to do about it.
Fight for her, a voice somewhere inside me said.
But I didn’t get up.
Chapter Thirty-Six
