Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 70185 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 351(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70185 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 351(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
PAUL
That bitch! How did she know I had embezzled funds? I’d put that money back as soon as possible, but it had been so easy the first time I kinda got into the habit of doing it every once in a while. But I was always good for it.
It's not like I was gambling it away or anything. It’s just when a place I was interested in came on the market when I was low on funds; it was easy to dip into the corporate account to take care of things and then put it back over time.
No one ever missed the money, so what was the big deal, right? But how did she know? No one knew, not even Melanie. Speaking of which, how did they know about her substance abuse? That was used against me as well because the kids can’t be around her and I lived with her.
I feel like I got kicked in the balls. First, that bitch broke my arm, and now this. I haven’t even had a chance to get my thoughts together about how to handle the divorce, and Justine came out swinging.
She’s never been docile or anything, sure, but she didn’t have as many resources here as I did. I have friends and work colleagues, while all she has are the other stay-at-home moms; what power do they have?
Her family was miles away, and they didn’t have the kind of money that would afford someone like that slick lawyer of hers. He looks and smells like money. He must be very good at what he does because he’d just got me to agree to everything they wanted.
My lawyer had advised me to do it if I didn’t want to end up in jail, and the lawyer had promised not to tell my boss as long as I signed the papers. What choice did I have? None of this was turning out the way I expected.
JUSTINE
“Wait-wait-wait, no, this is too fast. Let me catch my breath. Say that again and talk slow.”
“I said, your divorce is…. Damn Marcus.” One minute, I was talking to Monique, and the next, I was being dragged away.
He pulled me along behind him out into the lobby, where there were about six different phone operators for the different divisions in the company. It looked like something out of a Katherine Hepburn Spencer Tracy black and white film. Not one of them looked up as their boss dragged me out of the building and into his waiting car.
“Where are we going?”
“We had a deal, remember.”
“Deal?” He looked at his watch.
“My place is about seven minutes from here if I speed. That’s closer than the nearest hotel, I think.”
‘I’ll light up all the candles all around. Show me to the subway; I’ll go down.’ Justice is singing, Joe.
‘It’s a good thing you washed your ass this morning before coming to work. Wait, which drawers you got on? Don’t embarrass me, you hear?’
Shut up and let me think. “Is the divorce really final? How’d you do that?”
“Money!” He was gripping the steering wheel hard enough to snap it in half. Now, my heart was racing with excitement, anticipation, and fear.
What if, after all this build-up, it’s a big old flop? What if he decides he doesn’t want this after all? It had only been a few weeks since the papers were filed. Weeks where the tension kept building more and more each day to the point that I was sure others could see it.
The only distraction I had was in the evenings when Carl and Mo would bicker with each other nonstop, and I had to play referee. Marcus had made poor Carl come over since the incident with Paul, and when the two of them left late at night I could swear I saw the secret agents walking around the property.
Marcus tends to go overboard with everything, and if I dare try to say anything, he just makes it worse. My damn house looks like a toy store. Everything they have at the daycare that my girls like to play with, he buys one for the house.
My kids are so spoiled they’ve taken to running to him or their Aunty Mo-Mo if I tell them no about something. Why am I rambling in my thoughts?
‘Because he’s about to break your chassis in half with that monster dick of his. He’s about to rub it, flip it, slap it down. Ooh yeah. Save a horse and ride a cowboy. Eh, you think Daddy would wear spurs for us?’
I’m freaking out, and this bastard has a whole album of songs on repeat. I was gripping the door handle so hard my knuckles were white. He barely waited for the gates to his home to open before driving through them, and I’m almost certain I saw someone sitting in a security booth or something at the gate.