Page 41 of The Moment You Know

Now, however, she hated what she was wearing … and she’d left her walk-in closet a disaster.

The silver lining was that cleaning her closet would give her something to do when she got home.

The divorce hadn’t taken as long as she’d thought it would. She’d assumed it would take much longer to dissolve a marriage and render it dead, but it hadn’t. Legally, it had been fairly painless. Apparently, the process was pretty easy if limited assets were involved, neither party was putting up a fight, and there were no children—all of which were true in this case. She had been told by more than one well-meaning person that it was a blessing there weren’t any children, because they could make a divorce drag on for months because of child support and custody negotiations.

But they didn’t know what the fuck they were talking about.

The next well-meaning person who told her this was going to get hurt. And then told to shove something sharp up their ass.

Her lawyer was a woman named Ellen and had been recommended by Jules. Ellen was a nice enough person and gave Paige a smile that she struggled to return, just as David’s lawyer, Michael, came out to the waiting room. He greeted them both, then escorted them back to a small conference room and had them sit in chairs that were actually rather comfortable. Although, given the firm’s hourly rate, it shouldn’t have been surprising that they’d sprung for the expensive furniture.

Ellen had told Paige that she and David would be signing at different times and that she probably wouldn’t see him. Despite that, Paige had still sort of expected him to be in the room and when he wasn’t, she was oddly disappointed. She hadn’t seen him in over a month—and that had only been for an hour when he came to the house to get the last of his things.

On the table were Paige and David’s divorce documents, which Ellen immediately slid toward Paige so she could look through them; it was pretty much a formality, since everything had been agreed upon weeks ago. Feeling slightly nauseated at the thought that a signature would make her a divorced woman, she almost didn’t hear Michael when he spoke to her.

“There’s been a last-minute addendum, which I’ve documented on the last page,” he said as he sat down.

Ellen flipped to the last page and she and Paige started reading.

When Paige was finished, she looked up. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“The house is yours,” Michael explained. “David relinquished any legal claim to the house.”

“That’s very generous,” Ellen said, clearly pleased.

“No. I can’t let him do this. I won’t let him do this.” Paige felt like she was going to cry. “We agreed to sell it and split the proceeds, since neither one of us could buy the other one out.”

“He changed his mind. He wants you to have it,” Michael said. “He’s relinquishing any legal claim so you don’t have to buy him out, allowing you to keep the house.”

Paige got to her feet. “Where is he? Is he still here?”

“No. He left fifteen minutes ago.”

“I’m not signing this.”

“It’s what he wants, Paige. He was very clear on that.”

“And if I sell it and give him half of the proceeds anyway?”

Michael leaned forward, hands clasped together in front of him. “He said if you do that, he’ll track down that girl named Angela that you hated in college—the one who wouldn’t stop hitting on him—and give her the money.”

If the situation wasn’t so sad, David’s outrageous threat would’ve been funny. “Damn it,” she whispered, blinking back tears.

She was the one who had destroyed them and he was bestowing this generosity on her.

She didn’t deserve it.

And she didn’t know it then, but there would come a time when she wouldn’t want it.

She didn’t know a lot of things that day in the law office of Goodman & Goodman, with the soothing cream colored walls, high-end furniture, and beautiful artwork.

Paige sat back down, and signed the papers with shaking hands, unable to picture her life without David. Who would she be without him? And, the thought that she didn’t want to think about … who would he be without her?

She knew he wouldn’t be alone for long and it killed her.

But sometimes life wasn’t fair. Sometimes life ripped you a new asshole and then packed it with salt.

This was one of those times.

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