The Pre-Nup (13 page)

As soon as she flipped on the garage lights, Jen started cursing. Her car sagged to one side with a flat tire, which, upon inspection, proved to be the result of a giant nail puncturing the rubber tread.

Eric had always predicted that sooner or later, all the debris from the custom home construction sites would wind up in their tires. But she hadn’t spent a lot of time worrying about it; he coddled their cars and always stayed on top of the oil changes and tune-ups. Plus, he was an expert tire changer, so speedy and competent that she had never bothered to learn how to do it herself.

She hauled her suitcase out to the driveway and called the only person she knew she could count on for help.

“I wouldn’t be asking you this if I weren’t truly desperate,” she wheedled. “We’re talking the Rory Reid show here. My whole career is on the line and I don’t have time to wait for a cab.”

“I understand that,” Ellie replied, “but Hannah finally went down for her nap and there’ll be hell to pay if I wake her up.”

“Why can’t she just sleep in her car seat?” Jen asked.

“Spoken like a woman who has no children.”

“I’ll read her bedtime stories on the way!” Jen promised. “Sing with her, tell her stories, whatever you need.”

“It’s the middle of rush hour. The airport’s forty minutes away with no traffic.”

“Car pool lane,” Jen said. “
Please!
If you do this for me, I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you. Money, slave labor, hit man duties, you name it.”

“I might take you up on that last one. Guess what I got in the mail today? A certified letter from the brokerage firm that used to handle my retirement account.”

“‘Used to’? That sounds ominous.”

“Yeah, they were forwarding a notice from the IRS demanding a bunch of penalty taxes for liquidating my account before reaching retirement age.”

Jen sucked in her breath. “He
didn’t.
”

“Of course he did. So now, on top of all the legal fees I can’t pay, I have a bunch of tax bills I can’t pay, and no IRA.”

“We’ll plot revenge on the road.”

Ellie sighed. “Oh, all right. But you better offer me early buy-in when the Noda corporation goes public. I’m gonna need some lucrative investments to support me in my old age.”

“I love you,” Jen gushed. “Oh, and uh, one more thing: We have to make a quick stop on the way.”

“Why does it smell like rancid chocolate in here?” Mara wrinkled her nose as she climbed into the backseat of Ellie’s BMW.

“I threw up,” Hannah announced proudly. The little girl was strapped into her car seat wearing a pink princess nightgown and clutching a battered stuffed fox. “Mommy’s mad.”

“Hey, cute outfit.” Mara blew her a kiss. “What’s new, kangaroo?”

“Daddy doesn’t live at our house anymore,” Hannah said. “Do you have gum?”

“Go to sleep, honey,” Ellie urged. “It’s naptime, remember?”

“I’m not sleepy.”

“I have some Xanax in my bag,” Mara offered.

“I’ll take some,” Jen said.

“What’s Xanax?” Hannah asked.

“Go to sleep!”
all three women chorused.

And finally, after ten minutes of inching along the freeway and several rounds of “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” in three-part harmony, Hannah’s eyes fluttered closed.

Ellie glanced at her napping daughter in the rearview mirror and announced, “You wake her up, you walk the rest of the way to the airport.”

Jen turned to Mara and whispered, “Okay, so what’s the deal with telling Josh to—”

“Shhh!” Ellie hissed.

“She’s sleeping,” Jen pointed out.

“She’s
drowsing.
Big difference.”

“I’ll try to keep it down, but aren’t you dying to know why Mara told Josh to go have a torrid affair?”

Ellie gasped. “You what?”

“A one-night stand,” Mara corrected. “Not an affair. Don’t exaggerate.”

“Spill your guts,” Ellie commanded.

Mara glanced pointedly at Hannah. “Can’t, sorry. I don’t want to walk the rest of the way to the airport.”

“You’ll walk the rest of the way if you don’t start talking right now.”

“There’s a word for this, you know: extortion.”

“Good to know, counselor.” Ellie winked at Jen. “Now out with it.”

Mara cleared her throat. “Well, Josh and I may or may not have had a fight about the pre-nup.”

“Again?”

“And I may or may not have told him to go, uh…” Mara glanced sideways at Hannah “…engage in carnal relations with someone else in Vegas.”

“Why on earth would you do that?” Ellie asked.

“Because I was piss—pardon me, highly vexed. I told him he should do to me what I did to him and then we’d be even.”

“And he
agreed
?”

“Well, not at first. He kept saying I didn’t mean that, so I said oh yes I did.”

“But you didn’t mean it!” Jen said.

“Well, no, not really, but once I’d said it, I couldn’t back down.”

“Why not?”

Mara coughed. “That would be because of my foolish pride.”

“Aren’t you the one who always says to keep a level head in a romantic crisis?” Ellie said.

“Turns out it’s a lot easier to do that when it’s somebody else’s romantic crisis. Anyway, the point is, now Josh isn’t answering my calls so I need you to give me Eric’s cell number.”

Jen frowned. “You want to call Eric?
My
Eric?”

“Well, yeah. He’s at the bachelor party, isn’t he?”

“I have no idea.”

“You have no idea where your husband is?” Ellie asked.

Jen didn’t reply.

“Jennifer?” Mara said. “Anything you’d care to share with the rest of the group? Before Ellie starts with the extortion threats again?”

“I can’t talk about this right now,” Jen murmured.

Ellie reached over and gave Jen a maternal pat on the head. “You might feel better if you talk about it. Or, you know, smash a stack of plates.”

“No, I have to stay focused. Tomorrow is Noda’s national TV debut.”

“Forget Noda,” Mara said. “Does Noda keep you warm at night? Does Noda promise to love and cherish you for as long as you both shall live?”

“No. But neither does Eric.” Jen covered her face with her hands as the SUV came to a stop in a snarl of grid-lock. “He moved out on Monday. And as for Noda…Mara, I have a pre-nup question for you. A big one.”

Jen
Chapter
16

I
didn’t know you and Eric signed a pre-nup,” Mara marveled. “All these years and you never said a word? I’m your best friend!”

“
We’re
your best friends,” Ellie chimed in.

“True, but you both kept your little secrets. And my pre-nup was nobody’s business.” Jen scrunched up into a semifetal position in the front seat.

“Then why are you telling us now?” Mara asked, obviously offended. “Seeing as you’re such the paragon of privacy and all?”

“Because Eric said he’s filing for separation, and our fifth anniversary is next week, and…” Jen screwed her eyes shut and clutched the door handle with both hands. “If we don’t make it to the five-year mark, it’s possible that I could lose the company.”

“That’s stipulated in your pre-nup?”

Jen nodded.

Mara whistled through her teeth. “Why on earth would you ever agree to that?”

“It was my idea,” Jen wailed.

“I’m so confused,” Ellie said.

“Me, too,” Mara said. “The whole point of a pre-nup is to protect you when the shit comes down. So why would you deliberately screw yourself over…” She trailed off as realization dawned. “Oh boy. Please tell me this isn’t going where I think it’s going?”

“Why does it have to go anywhere?” Ellie said. “I understand completely, Jen. You got married when you were young and madly in love, and you never even considered the possibility of—”

“I wasn’t in love,” Jen whispered.

Ellie tapped the brakes hard, and they all pitched forward. “Come again?”

“I wasn’t in love with Eric.” Jen swallowed. “When we got married. I did love him, but it wasn’t…we weren’t
in
love.”

“Well, he was definitely in love with you,” Mara said. “His face at your wedding…If I could have bottled the bliss and sold it on the street, I’d be set for life.”

Jen curled herself up even tighter. “I never should have said yes when he proposed. It wasn’t right. I tried to talk him out of it, a month before the wedding. But he got so upset. He insisted that my feelings would grow over time, and he was so emphatic, I started to believe it, too. Plus, by then he’d given me all this money to start Noda, and I felt so guilty. Hence, the pre-nup. I got married on the rebound.”

Ellie nosed the SUV into the right-hand lane. “It all comes back to Patrick? But you and Eric were so happy. Even when you were just friends.”

“That’s the problem; I think we’re better at being friends than at being spouses. And it’s my fault,” Jen concluded gloomily. “I never should have let him talk me into taking it to the next level.”

“It’s no one’s fault,” Ellie said. “You can’t help who you fall in love with.”

“Yeah, but you can help who you marry,” Jen said.

“True. But there were mitigating circumstances,” Mara said. “And you didn’t do anything to lead him on. He took one look at you at freshman orientation, and bam! Poor bastard never had a chance.”

“Yeah, he knew what he was getting into,” Ellie agreed. “You told him that there was no chemistry.”

“Well…” Jen hedged. “I wouldn’t say we have
no
chemistry.”

“I would,” Mara said. “Considering it took him six years and practically an entire bottle of Absolut to wear you down.”

“No! Wrong, wrong, wrong,” Jen protested. “That’s not what happened.”

“That’s what you told me,” Mara said. “You said you two went to a bar, you went a little crazy with the vodka tonics, and then you finally took pity on the guy and put out.”

Ellie frowned. “Why have I not heard this story?”

“You were probably too busy with your secret law school applications,” Mara said.

“Maybe,” Ellie mused.

“Listen.” Jen was practically frothing at the mouth. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I will have you know that Eric happens to be excellent in bed. Excellent.”

“Were you still in love with Patrick when you married Eric?” Ellie wanted to know. “Truth.”

“No!” Jen exclaimed.

“It’s okay,” Mara said. “You can tell us. We won’t judge.”

“No. When I say I got married on the rebound, I don’t mean I was still in love with Patrick. I wasn’t in love with anyone.”

“So why couldn’t you love Eric?” Ellie asked softly. “Considering how great he is, not to mention excellent in bed?”

“I could have,” Jen said. “Lots of times. But I
wouldn’t.
Do you remember how awful that breakup was?”

“I remember,” Ellie and Mara said in unison.

“Stupid Patrick Spillane with his stupid perfect body and his stupid medical degree and his stupid humanitarian crap.” Jen paused. “I would have waited for him, you know. If he had just asked, I would have done the long-distance thing for years. I would have put everything on hold. But he never asked me to wait.”

Ellie cleared her throat. “So you’re making Eric wait instead. For you.”

Jen lapsed into a long, moody silence. Finally, when it became apparent she wasn’t going to offer any more details, Mara said, “Okay, then. So the pre-nup?”

Jen sighed. “Right before we got engaged, Eric invested almost every penny he had in Noda. I was trying to get the company off the ground, and I really needed the capital, but my bank was not too enthused about the market prospects for an ‘antisoda.’” She finally cracked a smile. “I was way ahead of my time.”

“How much money are we talking here?” Ellie asked.

“Enough,” Jen said. “Enough that I didn’t feel right about taking it with no strings attached, which is what he wanted. He kept saying I should consider it a wedding gift or an investment in our joint future, but I said that if something, you know, unfortunate happened in our joint future—”

“Something like what’s happening right now,” Mara clarified.

“—that he deserved to be protected. I mean, he was ready to just hand over his life savings and the inheritance he got from his grandparents, but I couldn’t let him do that. So we drew up some papers.”

“And you didn’t even consult me?” Mara sniffed.

“My engagement wasn’t exactly the high point of my life,” Jen said. “I didn’t want to admit to myself or anyone else what a huge mistake I was making.”

“So to make up for not loving him enough, you gave him a majority stake in your company,” Mara translated.

“Only in the event of divorce. The deal was, if we made it to our fifth anniversary, the money he staked me would be considered a gift.”

“But since you’re just shy of five years…”

“It’s still technically a loan. I’ll have to pay it all back. Plus interest. Plus half the current value of the company, since Arizona is a community property state. And I can’t afford to cash out his initial investment right now, never mind the company’s value, because I have to pay the bottlers, the drivers, the warehouse, the publicist…the list just goes on and on. I’d need to get a loan to repay him, but no one wants to back a business whose co-owners are about to split up. I’ve already put out feelers. Too many ‘unforeseen risks’ is the party line. ‘Come back after the divorce.’ By which time it’ll be too late. I’ll have lost my husband
and
my career.” Jen rubbed the back of her neck. “But Eric says he doesn’t care about enforcing the pre-nup. He says he wants a clean, civil separation.”

“Yeah, right.” Mara snorted. “That’s what they all say in the beginning. When’s the last time you met anyone who had a clean, civil divorce?”

They both looked away from Ellie, who said, “I’m sure things will be different for you, Jen.”

“I don’t want a divorce, civil or not.” Jen felt the unexpected sting of tears in her eyes. “I want to stay married.”

“Did you tell him that?” Ellie asked.

“Of course!”

“Then why did he leave?”

Jen gazed out the window. “Take a wild guess.”

“Patrick
again
?” Ellie shook her head.

“I know that face,” Mara said. “You saw him, didn’t you?”

“Against my will,” Jen said. “But yes. He tracked me down. Last week outside the bakery and today in my own house. He answered the phone when Eric called.”

Ellie and Mara gasped. “No!”

“Yes. He says he wants to start fresh and be friends.”

“Could you pull over?” Mara asked Ellie. “I have to vomit.”

The traffic ahead came to a complete standstill.

“Argh!” Jen launched into a meltdown in the front seat. “Move, damnit, everyone
go
!”

“Well, look on the bright side,” Mara said. “At least your fiancé’s not about to sleep with some random hoochie because you dared him to. The glass is half full.”

“Of Noda.” Jen scowled. “And now Noda is all I have left. I have to make this flight.”

“You’ll make it.” Ellie jerked the car onto the shoulder of the road and gunned it for the nearest exit.

Mara yelped and made the sign of the cross. Hannah stirred in her car seat. Jen burst into tears.

“Why are you crying?” Ellie asked, alarmed. “You said you need to go; we’re going.”

“Okay, but if it’s not too much trouble, do you think we could get there alive?” Mara cringed as they rumbled over a discarded piece of plywood.

Ellie didn’t answer, just floored the accelerator and switched on her turn signal as they neared the airport turnoff. They were only a few yards away from the exit when they heard the police siren wailing behind them. “Uh-oh.”

“What’s happening, Mommy?” a fully awake Hannah demanded.

“Mommy’s gone rogue,” Mara replied.

“Don’t worry, sweetie.” Ellie sounded calmer and more confident than Jen had ever heard her. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

“Stop the car,” Mara urged. “Before they shoot out our tires and I get disbarred for aiding and abetting a fugitive.”

“And you say
we
exaggerate,” Ellie said, but did as Mara asked. When a tall, burly policeman walked up to the SUV, she rolled down the window and greeted him with a cheery “Evening, Officer.”

The cop peered in at the BMW’s occupants with evident dismay. While Jen wept silently into her shirtsleeve, Hannah started flailing against the straps of her car seat, and Mara yelled, “I told her not to do it, sir!”

The officer rested one hand on his gun holster. “What seems to be the trouble here?”

Ellie smoothed back her long dark hair. “In a word? Pre-nups.”

“Pre-nups,” Mara seconded darkly.

“Pre-nups.” Jen sniffled.

Hannah leaned forward as far as she could and yelled, “I threw up!”

The policeman stared at them for a moment, then straightened up and took a step back. “I’m going to let you ladies off with a warning. But, ma’am, be advised that this lane is reserved for breakdowns and emergencies only.”

Ellie nodded and flipped on her hazard lights. “Trust me, Officer, we qualify on both counts.”