The Pre-Nup (2 page)

She spun the combination lock, opened the safe, and put the emerald earrings next to the rectangular cases that contained the matching necklace and bracelet. Her pinky finger brushed the pre-nup and she snatched her hand away as if burned. Then she slammed the safe shut, turned off all the lights, and climbed into the bathtub, which by now was full to the brim. Vanilla-scented water sloshed over onto the slick marble tiles as she submerged herself up to her chin and listened to the overflow drain’s steady, slurping gurgle.

She soaked for what felt like hours, staring into the dark, waiting for the familiar whirr of the garage door opening.

Jen
Chapter
2

S
o? What did he have to say for himself?” Jen Finnerty demanded the next morning as she, Ellie, and Mara Stroebel power-walked the three-mile circuit around the Mayfair Estates golf course. The rising sun was still cresting over the mountains, and the women had bundled up in windbreakers and sweatpants against the cool Arizona winter morning.

“Nothing.” Ellie faltered in her stride and took off her baseball cap, revealing bloodshot eyes ringed with faint purple half-moons. Her thick brown hair was gathered into a sloppy ponytail and her cheeks were sunken and pale despite the chilly breeze. Jen had always considered Ellie the optimist among them—she exuded a wholesome, girl-next-door sweetness—but today she looked utterly defeated. “I didn’t know what to do. I stayed in the tub until the water got cold, and then I got into bed. He came in an hour later, and I just lay there, pretending to be asleep. Then this morning…I think I’m in shock.”

“That would explain why your shoes don’t match,” Mara agreed.

Ellie stared down at her feet. Her left foot sported a white Nike, while her right was laced into a red Saucony. “Oh. Oops.”

Jen shot Mara a filthy look, then squeezed Ellie’s elbow. “Of course you’re in shock, honey. Of course. Hell,
I’m
in shock. You and Michael are—”

“The perfect couple,” Ellie finished dully. “A match made in heaven.”

Jen winced. “You guys did seem happy together.”

“Oh, we’re ecstatic. Except for when he sneaks out at eleven o’clock at night to rip a red thong off some cyberslut.” Ellie shook her head and lifted her chin. “Look, we don’t have to talk about this now. I know you guys are busy and I’m supposed to be hitting you up for help with the cancer benefit.”

“Screw the benefit. We’ll get to that later.” Mara pulled her long, shiny platinum blond hair back into a ballerina’s knot. Despite what she often described as her “stultifying” job as a trust and estate attorney, she always looked like she could be starring in a prime-time courtroom drama. Even in their college days, Mara had had an air of total certainty and self-possession—except when it came to men—and while Jen refused to be bossed around, Ellie wasn’t always so resolute.

“This is a code red, all-hands-on-deck emergency,” Mara declared. “So let’s get down to business. What are you going to do?”

Ellie waved her hands in vague loops. “I’m not sure yet.”

Mara was having none of this. “Well, he doesn’t know that you know yet, right?”

“
I
don’t even know exactly what I know,” Ellie said. “I mean, yes, obviously he’s up to something, but I don’t know with who or for how long or why—”

“The important thing is that you’ve busted him and he doesn’t know it yet. You’ve got the upper hand!” Mara’s blue eyes gleamed. “Now you can get all your ducks in a row before you make your move. You’re going to take him for everything he’s got. He’ll end up penniless and alone, begging you to take him back, but you’ll spit on—”

“Excuse me,” Jen finally broke in. “When did this turn into a bad honky-tonk song?”

“If it were a honky-tonk song, she’d just grab his shotgun off the front porch and blow him away,” Mara said. “Listen, El, here’s what you do: First, install a keystroke logger on his computer, get all his passwords, and keep track of the messages going to and from this Vixen_MD harlot. Second, call your cell provider and get copies of his phone records for the last six months. In the meantime, I’ll help you find a positively rabid divorce attorney. Oh, and don’t forget to make photocopies of all your tax returns and investment portfolio and put them in a safe place. And you might want to make an appointment with your doctor for STD testing, just to be on the safe side.”

“Mara! A little tact, please!” Jen admonished.

“I’m giving her good advice, free of charge. Tact is your department.”

“Shut up before she passes out.” Jen regarded her friend with growing concern. “Ellie? Honey? Are you okay?”

Ellie was still staring down at her shoes. Her complexion had taken on an alarming green undertone.

Jen shucked off her sweatshirt and spread it on the dewy grass next to the asphalt path. “Here, sit down. Put your head between your knees. Do you want me to get you some water?”

Ellie sank to the ground, swallowed hard, and said, “No, I’m okay. But Mara’s right. I have to get it together and figure out what I’m going to do.”

Jen shook her head. “You don’t have to decide anything right now. Take all the time you need. We’re here. We’ll support you, no matter what.”

“Yeah, we’re here for you.” Mara flashed Jen a discreet thumbs-up and mouthed, “Tact!”

Ellie emitted a strangled bleat that was half laugh, half sob. “Well, I have to leave him. Right? He cheated on me. An affair is a deal breaker; everyone knows that.”

“Calm down.” Jen squeezed Ellie’s shoulder. “Breathe.”

Ellie gulped for air. “If you had asked me twenty-four hours ago what I’d do if I found that text message, I’d have said ‘Drop him flat.’ Wouldn’t hesitate. But now…it’s not that simple. I mean, what about Hannah? She’s only three! What’s the good-mother thing to do here? Stay, so she has an intact family, or leave, so she sees me as a strong, independent role model?”

“You have to do what’s right for you,” Jen said. “No one else can make this decision for you.”

Ellie turned to her with wide, wild eyes. “What would you do?”

Jen coughed to stall for time. “If I found out Eric was having an affair?”

“Apples and oranges,” Mara objected. “Jen wouldn’t care if Eric were having an affair.”

“Don’t say that! Of course she would!” But Ellie looked a bit dubious when she whispered to Jen, “You would, wouldn’t you?”

Jen knelt down to retie her shoelace. “I, um…Look, we’re not talking about me.”

They heard the distant thwack of a golf club, and Mara threw her arms up to shield her face.

“Relax.” Jen laughed and pointed out the foursome across the fairway. “They’re not even aiming in our direction.”

“I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve almost been clocked in the head out here,” Mara said. “And I’m sure I’m not the only one. This golf course is a personal-injury lawsuit in the making, I tell you.”

“I have to confront him.” Ellie dusted off her palms and got back on her feet. “It’s the only way. I’ll tell him exactly what I found and demand that he—”

“No!” Mara shook her head so fast, her hair came free and whapped her cheeks. “Do not give him a heads-up. You want the element of surprise on your side.”

“Screw the element of surprise.” Ellie squared her shoulders. “I just want answers. I want brutal honesty.”

“Then hire a private investigator! Get dates, names, photos, whatever you need. But don’t confront him until you have enough evidence to nail his balls to the wall.”

“You are crazy hard-core,” Jen marveled. “Remind me never to cross you.”

“I’m just getting started,” Mara shot back. “Ellie can’t think rationally right now, so someone has to look out for her best interests. I.e., me.”

“No. I can do this by myself.” Ellie started walking again, gathering speed and indignation with every step. “He’s my husband and I will handle him.” She was practically running now. “I’m smart, I’m strong, I—I’ll unleash the bitch within!”

Jen and Mara exchanged dismayed looks as they hurried after her.

“Maybe you’re right,” Jen murmured. “She’s too emotional right now.”

“Well, she’s madly in love with her husband.” Mara said this with genuine sympathy and then added, with even greater sympathy, “It’s not like with you and Eric.”

Mara was wrong,
Jen chanted over and over in her head as she headed home after the walk.
Mara was wrong.

She did love Eric; she had for years. Was it a story-book romance bursting at the seams with fate and soul-mates and all that Cinderella crap? Of course not. But what they had was better in the long run: a rock-solid relationship that could go the distance. No drama. No surprises.

No one home. Jen twisted her key in the lock and dashed over the threshold to punch in the code on the alarm panel. Bright golden sunlight poured into the foyer through the skylight above the glass tile mosaic inlaid on the floor.

“Hello?” she called down the hall. “Lotus? Here, kitty, kitty.”

But the plump black cat didn’t appear. Lotus was a former stray, now spoiled rotten and selectively deaf (though he could hear the metal scrape of a can opener from a hundred yards).

Jen kicked off her damp sneakers, padded into the kitchen, and pried open the massive stainless-steel refrigerator doors. The muted hum of the appliance motor was the only sound in the house. Four bedrooms, an office, a living room, a dining room, a family room, a three-car garage, and a huge in-ground pool all to herself, plus a master bathroom big enough to play racquetball in. (The Mayfair Estates crowd was very big on status bathrooms.)

She grabbed the remote control on the countertop and clicked on the small television next to the microwave. The chirpy patter of a morning talk show kept her company as she spooned some cottage cheese into a bowl, then added plain yogurt and a sprinkling of whole-grain oat cereal for texture. High protein, high calcium, and lots of complex carbohydrates. She curled up in one of the wrought-iron kitchen chairs and gazed through the French doors toward the golf course. This was shaping up to be a perfect Scottsdale Saturday: sunny and mellow with a hint of early spring warmth. Other women in the neighborhood were probably getting ready to play tennis or go shopping or…do whatever it was normal suburban wives did with their husbands on the weekends.

Jen ate slowly, gazed out at a pair of golfers trying to pitch their way out of a sand trap, and tried to figure out why she wasn’t looking forward to an afternoon of solid, uninterrupted work time. It wasn’t as if she had no other options. If she wanted to, she could give herself the afternoon off to go to the movie theater or the spa. She could get her short, wavy blond hair dyed auburn or buy a whole new wardrobe. She could do something wild and spur-of-the-moment.

And yet.

Five minutes later, she rinsed out her dish, trudged into her cluttered home office, and fired up the PC. She opened a series of data files and glanced at the latest sales reports for Noda, the health drink she’d spent the better part of a decade creating and marketing. She’d just hired a new sales rep and a publicist, and wanted to make sure the expenditure was paying off. Her company was her passion—her
obsession,
according to Ellie and Mara. But no matter how Jen tried to focus on the numbers, she couldn’t keep herself on-task today. Finally, she turned away from the screen and dialed the cordless phone.

“Hey, honey,” she said when Eric picked up. “How’s New York?”

“Frigid and claustrophobic. How’s the weather there?” Her husband sounded distant and distracted, but business travel exhausted him, so Jen chalked it up to the strain of too many time zone changes and room service meals.

Jen sighed. “Gorgeous. As usual. Do you have a minute to chat?”

“I think I can pull myself away from the division account books.” His tone was wry. The year after Jen founded Noda, Eric had passed the CPA exam and worked his way up to head auditor for a telecommunications firm headquartered in Phoenix. As the company expanded, so had his responsibilities, and he spent an increasing amount of time out of town, meeting with regional accounting staffs. Eric’s job was definitely
not
his passion (he often joked that his response to “And what do you do?” would kill any cocktail party conversation in under sixty seconds), but so far he’d resisted looking for other positions.

“What’s up with you?” he asked. “Let me take a wild guess: you’re working?”

She paused, making a concerted effort not to tense up. “Just going over the new sales reports.”

“It’s like I’m psychic.”

“Either that or I’m incredibly boring and predictable.” She summoned all her nerve, and forged ahead. “But listen, I have an idea. Do you want me to fly out there?”

“Where, New York?”

“Well, yeah.” She laughed, suddenly girlish and flustered. “I could go online right now and book a flight. Be there by midnight.”