The Pre-Nup (17 page)

Mr. Dawes frowned. “Where exactly are you going with this? I already told you that my client is in dire financial straits. We’ve accounted for all of his income and holdings. Ms. Barton signed tax returns that corroborate his accounts. You have absolutely no grounds to suggest that my client has ever hidden any assets, before or after the marriage.”

“I have the firsthand account of my client.”

He rolled his eyes. “Well, no offense, but I’d venture that Ms. Barton’s current perspective is somewhat colored by emotion.”

“I’ll go to court for an injunction if I have to,” Karen warned.

“Go right ahead. You have no evidence, and we have nothing to hide.”

“You’re sure?” Karen said. “No offshore accounts, no assets recently transferred to family members?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Not even Ms. Barton’s recently liquidated retirement accounts?”

Terry Dawes didn’t even blink. “My client used those funds to pay off jointly held debts before they separated. It inured to the benefit of both of them.”

“Check his computer files,” Ellie said to Karen. “His laptop. That’s where the real dirt is going to be.”

For the first time since he’d sent her off for the spa day from hell, Michael’s face registered the tiniest flicker of guilt. He immediately reached down and clamped a proprietary hand on his briefcase, which never left his side and which always contained the laptop in question.

Karen tapped her pen against the table. “If you have nothing to hide, certainly you wouldn’t object to a forensic accountant reviewing your client’s computer files?”

“Out of the question,” Michael’s lawyer blustered. “First of all, my client has no undisclosed accounts and any suggestion to the contrary is malicious slander. Secondly, before we would even consider granting access to his personal files, my client would need ample opportunity to go through and redact all private and unrelated material.”

Michael tightened his grip on his briefcase.

“My client has sensitive information on his computers,” Terry said. “Correspondence that is protected by attorney/client privilege, medical records, contact information for his new girlfriend. Plenty of fodder for harassment. No judge is going to grant that injunction, and you know it.”

Ellie tuned out the attorneys’ sniping and stared down the tall, dark and handsome conniver she had mistaken for Prince Charming. She knew he was lying about the money. A few hours alone with that laptop would blow their pre-nup to hell. But how would she ever persuade him to turn it over to her?

Her husband had always underestimated her. She’d been too sweet and soft to ever pose a threat. But that had been before he’d uttered the words that were going to seal his doom:
full custody.

Prince Charming was about to find out that, when pushed far enough, even Snow White had a dark side.

Mara
Chapter
20

H
ey, Julie, have you seen the DeLorenzo documents?” Mara gave her overloaded assistant a hopeful look. Monday mornings were always hectic at the firm, but today was especially crazy with deadlines and demands.

Julie didn’t look away from her computer screen. “Sorry, but no.”

“Are you sure? I thought I gave them to you to proofread.”

“You did, but then you asked for them back, remember?”

“Vaguely.” Mara conducted a mental inventory of her town house and office, trying to puzzle out where she might have left the contract drafts.

Julie squinched up her face before sneezing into a crumpled tissue.

“Bless you,” Mara said.

“Thanks. I think I’m coming down with something. My throat tickles and my nose has been running—”

“Well, take it easy,” Mara said. “Lots of fluids. Cough syrup. Zinc. You name it, I’ll have it messengered over ASAP.”

Julie grinned and blew her nose again. “You just don’t want me to take a sick day.”

“You wound me.” Mara glanced at the pile of Kleenex heaped in the wastebasket under Julie’s desk. “Take a nap at lunch. You can use the couch in my office.”

Her assistant looked shocked. “Aren’t you working through lunch?”

“Not today.” Mara drummed the fingers of her now ringless left hand on the door frame. “I think I just remembered where I put the DeLorenzo files.”

Good thing she had hung on to her key to Josh’s apartment. She’d tried to return her engagement ring via messenger, but Josh had refused delivery, and so now it was moldering in her safety deposit box at the bank.

She hadn’t spoken to him since he’d dumped her at the Black Diamond. She had, however, spoken to the wedding planner. And the caterer. And the florist. And her mother, who had said, “You couldn’t have decided this
before
invitations went out?” and then hung up in a huff.

Mara knew that she should try to glean a bit of wisdom from the smoldering wreck that had once been her love life. She should track down Josh and tell him everything she knew to be true: that she wished him well, that she accepted full responsibility for sabotaging the only semihealthy relationship she’d ever had, that she would never entirely get over him. She should finally say what she meant and mean what she said.

And she would.

Someday very soon.

But on this chilly, overcast Monday afternoon, it was all she could do to force herself to drive over to his apartment building and cruise the parking lot to ensure that his car wasn’t in its customary spot. Then, just to be sure the coast was clear, she dialed his home number and held her breath while the phone rang four times before his answering machine clicked on.

She climbed the carpeted stairs to the third-floor apartment and tried to remember precisely where she’d left the drafts she needed. Probably in the huge chrome bread box on the kitchen counter. Josh had picked up the hulking relic from the 1950’s at a garage sale, and had offered it to Mara as a makeshift filing system since “you get mad when I use your work papers as coasters, and now, when you’re at the firm and your paperwork smells like doughnuts, you’ll think of me.”

The mere thought of doughnuts made her stomach lurch. She hurried down the hallway, slipped her key into the deadbolt on Josh’s door, and told herself that she must be coming down with Julie’s bug. Queasiness and headaches were classic flu symptoms. Same with soul-crushing remorse and the urge to weep openly.

“Josh?” A female voice called out when the lock clicked open.

Mara froze.

“Josh?” The voice sounded closer this time, and Mara heard rustling on the other side of the door. The key started to swivel as someone turned the deadbolt from the inside, and then, before she could flee or even attempt to disguise her expression of horror, the door swung inward and Mara found herself face-to-face with the perfect, petite, auburn-haired stripper from the Black Diamond.

Bentlie/Alex’s eyes widened when she recognized Mara, but she quickly recovered her composure. “Well, well, well. Fancy meeting you here.”

Mara didn’t bother trying to dredge up a witty rejoinder. She was too busy hyperventilating. “What are you wearing?”

The dancer had traded in her sequins and platform heels for a comfy ensemble of gray sweatpants, a navy sweater rolled up at the sleeves, and an Arizona Diamond-backs cap pulled low over her tousled red hair.

“What?” Alex glanced down at the outfit with evident amusement. “I’m still not covered up enough for you? Wow, you
are
the jealous type. What do you want, a burka?”

“That’s Josh’s hat,” Mara said. “And his sweater. I gave him that sweater.”

“Yeah, and?” Alex shrugged. “I don’t go prancing around in Day-Glo spandex on my days off, you know.”

“What exactly are you doing here?”

Alex volleyed back with “What are
you
doing here?”

“I asked you first.”

“Didn’t twist the knife enough in Vegas?” Alex shook her head in disgust. “Had to come back to make sure he’s miserable without you?”

Mara tried to barge into the apartment, but the tiny dancer wouldn’t back down. “There’d better be a good explanation for this.”

“Oh, there is.” Alex’s face was solemn, but her hazel eyes sparkled. “A very simple one. Come on, use your brilliant lawyer brain to connect the dots.”

“No. Uh-uh. There is no way,” Mara said with more conviction than she felt. “Josh would never take up with—”

All humor vanished from the other woman’s expression. “With a skank like me? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

“No.” Mara shook her head and backpedaled furiously. How had she been relegated from offense to defense in the space of two minutes? “But, I mean, we just broke up.”

“Trust me, babycakes, I’m the perfect rebound girl.” Alex pursed her plump, pink lips into a sexy pout. “Fun, frisky, and no mind games. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m right in the middle of
Law and Order,
so…” She started to close the door.

“I do mind, actually.” Mara shoved the door back open and darted into the apartment, which smelled of freshly microwaved popcorn. The kitchen and living room were tidier than she’d ever seen them. Either Josh had finally hired a cleaning service or his houseguest had marked her territory with a Swiffer and a bottle of Windex.

The DeLorenzo documents were still safely nestled inside the bread box. Mara retrieved them without comment, then marched back toward the door. “This is not over,” she informed Alex icily.

“What’s that?” Alex eyed the file folder.

“None of your business.”

“Actually, it is my business if you rob the place while I’m standing right here.” Alex made a surprise grab for the file folder and a brief, high-pitched scuffle ensued on the threshold.

Mara gasped and flailed wildly as Alex caught a fistful of her hair. “You—ouch! Let go!” She dug her nails into the sleeve of Josh’s sweater.

Alex yelped. “I’ll let go when you do!”

“Ow!”

“Ow!”

“Shuddup or I’m calling the cops!” a deep voice boomed from down the hall.

“Good! Tell them I’m being robbed.” Alex wrestled Mara out into the hall, then snatched the file folder, pivoted, and triple-locked the apartment door before Mara could regain her balance.

Mara leaned against the wall for a moment, panting and swearing under her breath. Then she pounded on the door until the ornery neighbor down the hall started yelling again.

“Open up,” she demanded, pressing her cheek up against the cold metal door panel.

No response from Alex.

“Just give me that file folder and I’ll leave you alone,” she tried.

Nothing.

“Please?”

All she could hear from inside the apartment was the upbeat music from a television commercial.

“Fine.
Fine!
I didn’t want to drag Josh into this, but you leave me no choice. Pack up your pasties, woman, ’cause you’re going to be on the first flight back to Vegas.”

Mara charged into the Second Dawn Center and headed straight for Josh’s makeshift office next to the break room. Cosmetically, the nonprofit center was the polar opposite of her posh law firm: industrial green paint on the walls, haphazard stacks of papers atop battered filing cabinets, the scent of coffee and chemical cleansers ground into the carpets. The staff here didn’t get bloated expense accounts or private bathrooms. Instead, Mara imagined, they got a sense of fulfillment and good karma, though Josh had often remarked that the day-to-day reality of his job—writing grant proposals, monitoring investments, navigating political bureaucracies, and hitting up corporate donors for money—was more tedious than transcendent.

His office door was ajar; he sat inside with his back to her. She could see the very beginnings of a bald spot peeking through his brown hair. The small, pale patch of skin stopped her in her tracks for a moment as she realized how vulnerable he was underneath his outward demeanor of affable capability.

She shook off her apprehension and announced herself with crisp efficiency. “Question: What is that stripper from Vegas doing in your apartment?”

Josh jumped about a foot and banged his knees on the underside of his metal desk. “Mara! God! What are you doing here?”

“Considering filing assault charges,” she answered. “Your busty little friend practically bludgeoned me to death this afternoon. She’s a lunatic and probably a felon. I hope the sex is worth it.”

He grimaced and rubbed his knee. “You went to my apartment?”

“I needed some work documents I’d left in the kitchen. I still need them, actually, because when I tried to recover what was rightfully mine, she attacked me. She’s violent, I tell you, and I…I will
sue
!”

Josh looked like he was trying to suppress a smile. “You’re going to sue?”

“That’s right! Do you have any idea how much I spend every month on my hair? Cut, color, conditioning? And she ripped out half of it, at least.”

Josh’s chair squeaked as he leaned back to assess the damage. “You look fine to me.”

“Well, you can’t see the emotional pain and suffering I’ve endured,” Mara blustered. “She’s devious and unstable and
what the hell is she doing in your apartment wearing the sweater I gave you for Christmas?
”

“Ah.” Josh nodded. “So that’s what this is about.” He templed his fingers under his chin and gave her a long, appraising look.

“You said nothing happened between you two! Liar!”

“Don’t jump to conclusions. She asked for help; I’m helping.”

“Helping her. I see. Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

“You should try to have a little compassion. Not everyone has had the advantages you have.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to move them into your apartment and dress them up in the double-ply cashmere sweaters that your ‘compassionless’ ex-fiancée gave you! And stop laughing, it’s not funny.”

“I can’t tell which you’re more upset about,” Josh said. “Me or the sweater.”

“She’s a menace to society.”

“She’s probably going to be my new volunteer coordinator.”

Mara’s dismay intensified. “You’re hiring her?”

“I might. She wanted a career change, and she’s having trouble getting back on her feet after—”

“I don’t believe this. Why can’t you just come home from Vegas with an STD or a tattoo like everyone else?”

“She deserves a chance to start over.”

“You know what your problem is?” Mara fumed. “You’re too good for your own good. She’s taking advantage of you!”

“Hey.” For the first time, his tone was tinged with anger. “Back off. I’m allowed to have a houseguest, and you…Well, you don’t get a say anymore.”

She gazed up at the water-stained ceiling tiles. “I know. And I’m sorry, Josh. I really am. I hate myself, if that makes you feel any better.”

“It doesn’t.”

“See? Too good for your own good.” Charged, heavy silence fell over them for a moment, then Josh started rearranging the contents of his desktop.