And I wanted him to recognize the woman he couldn’t keep his hands off three weeks ago.
I was sick.
There was something wrong with me.
“Ms. Carter,” my lawyer greeted unhappily.
“Mr. Cavanaugh, I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”
He made a grunting noise I didn’t know how to interpret. “They’re waiting for us.” His wrinkled arm swept toward a hallway. “This way.”
I followed him around the corner and found Nick leaning against a doorframe I could see led to the conference room. A rush of nerves washed over my body. It started at the top of my head and deluged my entire being with sharp shivers and a cold sweat.
I shouldn’t be here.
No, wait. This was exactly why I was here.
I had to face him.
I had to end this.
My heart clenched at the way his eyebrows scrunched together and the fierce concern in his blue eyes. Oh, god, why had I ever wanted them to come alive again? Why had I ever hoped that he would see me again? I should have wished for his gaze to stay lifeless.
At least around me.
It was too much.
He was too much.
“Are you all right, Ms. Carter?” Mr. Cavanaugh’s hand landed with a tentative thump on my shoulder. “Ms. Carter? Kate?”
I blinked my lawyer into focus. “Huh?”
“Are you all right?” he repeated.
Courage, I demanded from my body. Strength, I whispered desperately. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
His forehead wrinkle tripled with concern. “You stopped walking.”
My brave façade crumpled, “I, uh, I… I thought I was ready for this, but…”
He leaned in and I tried not to wrinkle my nose against his pungent cologne. It was enough to wake me from my Nick-induced stupor, however. “He can’t take anything from you unless you let him, Ms. Carter. We’ll fight every last thing to the bone if we have to.”
I let out a shaky breath and nodded my head even though I knew his words were a lie. Nick didn’t have to wait for me to relinquish anything. He’d already taken enough.
He’d taken too much.
My happiness. My heart. My soul.
So why did the sight of him like this physically hurt me? Why did I have the almost undeniable compulsion to throw myself into his arms and never let go?
Mr. Cavanaugh’s hand fell to my elbow where he nudged me forward. It didn’t take long before we reached a clipped pace, hurrying toward the conference room as if we couldn’t wait to be there.
I sucked in a sharp breath and held it as we passed Nick. Mr. Cavanaugh stepped aside to let me go first and I hoped to slip by Nick without incident.
His hand reached out and grabbed my wrist, “We need to talk,” he said in a low, gravelly voice.
I shook my head once, letting him know I would not discuss anything other than our reasons for being here. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? We’re going to talk about this maturely. We’re going to act like grownups.”
“Two minutes,” he demanded. “I want two minutes.” He tugged on his earlobe with his free hand and my tenacity drained out of me. He wasn’t playing fair.
It was on the tip of my tongue to agree. He wasn’t the only one that wanted to say something about the other night. I needed to make sure he knew it was a one time deal.
I needed him to acknowledge that it was a mistake.
I’d been afraid of that very thing until this moment. Until I stood before him and started to question my own resolve.
“Kate?” my lawyer urged from behind me. “We need to get started.”
Nick’s sapphire eyes flashed up to glare at my lawyer. “She’s paying you by the hour, isn’t she? Bill her.”
Bill me? Wait a second…
“Charming,” Mr. Cavanaugh mumbled.
“Let’s just get this over with, Nick. I don’t want to be here any more than you do.”
He stood up straighter and hit me with his steely gaze. “Yeah, but our reasons could not be more different.”
My mouth felt suddenly like sandpaper. God, since when did he start talking in code? Why couldn’t this be easy?
Or at least easier?
I walked into the conference room and closed my eyes against the sweet coolness that hit my face. This room was super cooled and even though the November chill had turned biting and ice-filled, I had been overly warm since I walked in this building.
Seriously, I was bordering on pit stains here. All this nervous energy gave me hot flashes straight from hell.
Nick’s lawyer was young and attractive. He exuded an energy that made me feel like chum in shark infested waters- meaning, I could tell he was good at his job before he ever opened his mouth.
The conference room matched him. A huge, gleaming table sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by tall, comfortable leather chairs. Floor to ceiling windows took up one entire wall, boasting a beautiful view of the city and the busy traffic down below.
I glanced back at dear, old Mr. Cavanaugh and realized he hadn’t given me his first name. I knew it from when I looked it up, but he’d asked me to specifically call him Mr. Cavanaugh.
Nick was without a doubt on a first name basis with his lawyer. They probably went golfing on Saturdays because that was the kind of client services this kid provided. Then Nick would get a bill in the mail for six thousand dollars and an invitation to do it all over again.
I hated the guy before he ever jutted out his hand and introduced himself as Ryan Templeton.
“Kate Carter,” I said in return and gracefully extracted my hand.
“Normally I would say it’s a pleasure to meet you, Kate, but…”
“It’s not,” I finished for him.
His smile told me he was used to this response. He waved at a chair for me to take and I did so I wouldn’t have to small talk with him anymore.
“I’m just going to grab Marty and tell him we’re ready.”
Marty Furbish was the man we’d hired to mediate. He came highly recommended from Mr. Cavanaugh and apparently Nick’s camp agreed. I hoped he was as nice as his name made him sound. I had a feeling I would need all the help I could get today.
Mr. Cavanaugh sat down next to me and opened his briefcase on the table to pull out the documents we would need. He handed me a legal pad and a pen and told me I could take my own notes if I wished.
I thought that was thoughtful of him. I immediately doodled my name and today’s date in the right-hand corner. Teacherly habit.
Nick took the seat directly across from me and I breathed a little easier with the heavy, wide table between us. Ryan ushered Marty Furbish into the room, showed him to his seat at the head of the table, then took his seat next to Nick.
We were officially ready to begin.
The beginning of the proceedings was beyond tedious. There was a lot of legalese spoken and a long retelling of everything I already knew. I was the plaintiff, filing for divorce, or dissolution of marriage. Nick had decided to be a jackass and make every single thing as difficult as he could so forth and so on.
Ryan slid me an itemized list of all of the material possessions Nick considered his. “Among the items we have listed here, which my client claims are his,” I began to peruse them slowly, ticking off everything with begrudging approval, “my client would also like full ownership of the house. Ms. Carter may willingly give up her portion or sell fifty percent of the appraised-”
“What?” My murderous glare found Nick’s and if looks could kill, I wouldn’t need to file for divorce, I’d be able to collect his life insurance.
Neither his stare nor his voice wavered. “I want the house, Katie.”
“But you can’t afford the house!”
“I can.”
“You can’t.”
“I can.”
“You forget that I know what you make, Nick. You can’t afford it! Besides, you already agreed to give it to me!”
Mr. Cavanaugh tried to settle me down. “Ms. Carter, if you would-”
Nick spoke over him, “You have no idea how much I make, Kate. You don’t even know where I work.”
Ryan spoke over both of them, “If you look at this, I think you’ll see that my client is perfectly capable of paying for the cost of the house and any costs related to it.”
I looked at the next piece of paper that Ryan passed over. I rubbed at the numbers and figures laid out before me. I couldn’t make sense of them. I stared at them senselessly, hating that I felt close to tears again… hating that I felt stupid and unintelligent because I couldn’t comprehend them.
The room was silent as I absorbed Nick’s new salary.
Finally, with a gentleness I didn’t deserve, he explained. “I got a new job.”
“I can see that.” Hating that I snapped at him when he had been nice to me, I lifted my eyes and met his. “Where?”
“A record label.”
“A record label?”
“Thrash and Sway,” he continued softly. “They’re kind of an up and coming-”
“I know who they are.” And I did. I’d been married to Nick long enough to have an idea of who was who in the music industry in Chicago. Thrash and Sway Productions had been a dream for Nick. They produced the kind of music he played, they catered to the indie scene and they had a promising future. “So you work there?”
His smile was a little self-deprecating when he said, “I started as an intern. I fetched a lot of coffee. I mean a lot of coffee. I was promoted to an assistant shortly after I started and it was an actual paid position. I thought I would stay there for a while, but, recently I’ve been working with Mike Stanson; he’s a producer and director and he does some other stuff… anyway, they promoted me to a scout position recently.”
“It’s a dream job for you.” My words were nothing but a whisper. I couldn’t breathe through the thickness in my throat, the tears welling up inside me threatening to flood this room. Maybe the whole office building.
I felt betrayed. I felt tricked. I felt… stepped on.
No, trampled on.
This was what I wanted for him. This was what I wanted for years for him. I had never wanted him to walk away from music completely. I just… I didn’t want the late nights. The weekends that were wrapped up in shitty gigs that paid nothing. I was tired of the girls throwing themselves at him and the stench of smoke and booze. I was tired of the look on his face when he would come home… the one that said he knew better.
The one that cut me so deep I thought I would bleed out right there on the floor of our bedroom.
“It is,” his voice was equally quiet.
My vision blurred as the tears pushed to the surface. I blinked rapidly, desperately trying to keep them at bay.
“Kate,” he whispered. “I didn’t do this to hurt you.”
“But you did anyway.”
“Can we continue?” Ryan’s smooth voice penetrated the stifled air and I jerked in my seat.
I’d forgotten there were other people in the room. I swiped my cheek with the back of my hand and struggled to compose myself.
“Let’s come back to the house,” Nick suggested. “Give her some time to think about it.”
“There’s nothing to think about.” My voice trembled, but there was steel behind it. Grit. I would not back down.
That was my house.
That was the only beautiful thing I would get to walk away with after this.
“Right, we’ll come back to it,” Ryan mumbled sardonically. “Next up, joint-custody.” He slid more papers toward me.
“Joint custody of what?” I blinked at more papers that I didn’t understand.
Ryan didn’t seem as confused. “Of the child.”
“What child?” My anger and hurt quickly swirled into out of control confusion. Honestly, what the hell was he talking about? Was it possible that Nick was also married to someone else? And they were also going through a divorce? And they’d had a child?
And that divorce had somehow gotten mixed up with my divorce???
Because that was the only explanation that would make sense here.
“The child you might potentially be pregnant with,” Ryan explained concisely.
“The child… What?!” I slid forward in my chair, nearly falling out of it.
I felt Ryan’s hard stare on me, but I couldn’t see anything. His voice was harder when he asked, “Did you or did you not recently have sexual relations with my client? As recently as twenty days ago?”
“I… I… I…”
Ryan wasn’t finished. “And did you or did you not forego the use of a contraceptive or take preventative measures?”
I slammed my eyes shut and rubbed my forehead with the heel of my palm. Oh, my god. This could not be happening. This could not be happening.
Keeping my eyes tightly closed because I could not look at any of these men right now, I started stuttering, “I mean, I guess…” That night flashed in my mind. Nick’s body against mine. His naked body against my equally naked one. A flush suffused my body, boiling with its intensity. I felt every inch of my skin turn bright red. Nick’s mouth on mine. His hands all over me, giving me what I wanted… what I needed. Nick inside me, making me his again… proving that I had never been anything but his. “Oh, god,” I gasped and opened my eyes to escape the vivid images that were doing nothing to soften my blush. I found Nick immediately, a smug expression on his face and a wicked little smirk playing on his lips. That cocky bastard! “No, I’m not pregnant!” I practically shouted my verdict. Mr. Cavanaugh jerked next to me. I’d surprised him.
“Did you take any measures to prevent pregnancy?” Ryan asked steadily.
“No,” I hissed. We hadn’t taken measures to prevent pregnancy in over two years.
“So you can’t be certain,” Ryan concluded.
My eyes snapped up and I leveled him with my glare. “I can be certain. We didn’t need to prevent pregnancy because I can’t get pregnant.”
Ryan raised one of his eyebrows and I knew this question was prompted by Nick. I mean, I couldn’t prove that it was, but if I had to bet my life, I would say it came straight from him. “Is that a medical absolute?”
Losing my temper completely, I shoved back in my chair and jumped to standing, “It’s a we-tried-for-more-than-two-years-to-conceive-and-never-did absolute! Yeah, it’s a goddamn absolute. I’m not pregnant!” I was so angry my body started shaking. I ground my teeth together so forcefully I was convinced I was going to crack every last one of them. I turned my attention to Nick. “How dare you.” He opened his mouth as if he wanted to respond, but I hit him with another, “How dare you.”
He pushed to standing too, meeting me eye-to-eye. He leaned forward menacingly and rested both hands on the table. Marty Furbish, who had done absolute jackshit stood too, trying to pacify both of us by pumping his hands. I ignored him. I ignored everyone in the room but my very-soon-to-be ex-husband.
In a growling voice that packed quite the punch, Nick argued, “The truth is, Katie, we didn’t use protection. And I’m not going to piss away rights to my child by ignoring the very real possibility that you are pregnant.”
I leaned forward too, feeling as though I were about to spit venom. “Fine, Nick. If you want to believe I might be pregnant, then good for you. But other than humiliating me, I’m not sure why you felt the need to bring it up now before we could possibly know one way or the other! I would never keep a child from you! I would never take away your rights as a parent!”
Nick stared at me, his eyes piercing deeper than I thought possible. He raised one mocking eyebrow at me and issued a challenge. He didn’t trust me. He didn’t trust me to give him permission to see our child. If we had one.
Which we wouldn’t.
It was impossible.
My hands landed on my stomach and I had to fight with everything I had left not to crumble in front of these people. They had no idea what this fight m
eant to me, how deep it cut.
They saw two people acting crazy, but they couldn’t possibly understand how hurtful Nick’s accusations were.
I wanted nothing more than a baby. I wanted nothing but for my nights to be interrupted by feedings and my arms to be filled with the likeness of Nick or me. I ached with the need. My bones hurt and my spirit shattered with the frustration and disappointment of not being able to conceive.
This was the lowest he could go.
This was the very bottom.
I stood up straighter and sniffled. “We’re finished.” I started gathering up my papers. “I’m done for tonight. We’ll have to reschedule.”
Ryan tried to argue, “But we’re not-”
Mr. Cavanaugh leaped to my defense. “That’s an excellent idea, Ms. Carter.” He turned his attention to Ryan. “We’ll be in touch when we want to reschedule.”
Ryan glanced wildly at Nick. “It’s fine,” Nick nodded. “This was a lot for one day.”
My chin trembled with the effort to hold back my tears. I swallowed thickly and brushed at the corner of my eye.
I took a step back, the high back leather chair rolling smoothly out of my way.
“There’s one last request that we didn’t discuss,” Ryan’s cold voice caught me before I could leave the room. “I think it’s in your best interest if we bring it up now. That way you’ll have time to digest his demand.”
My words tasted like sand and dirt, “What is it?”
“The dog, Ms. Carter,” Ryan answered coolly. “My client would like ownership of the dog.”
I saw red. My vision literally blanketed in crimson red and I thought for a second I would fly over the table and choke the life out of Nick. I couldn’t even see his face when I responded. I couldn’t see anything except red and violence and pure, unadulterated fury.
“Fuck you.” And with that graceful, classy reply, I fled the conference room, the office building and if I had had anywhere to go outside of Chicago, I would have fled the state too.
Instead, I went back to my house and crawled into bed without changing clothes or even taking my coat off. Annie jumped up on the bed with me and with sweetness only she could show, licked my nose and laid her little head on my hand. That was when I finally lost it. Completely.