JENNIE's POV
"I have to run to a meeting, but make yourself at home." Kaye said. "Just remember the house rules. Put your dishes away, no shoes on the carpet, and no feeding The Fish outside of the prescribed hours and amounts, which are taped to the table next to his bowl. Any questions?"
"No. All sounds good." I mustered a small smile. "Thanks again for letting me stay here while I figure things out. I promise I'll be out of your hair soon."
Out of all of my friends—of which there were only three or four total, but that was an issue for another day—Kaye was the least warm and fuzzy. However, both Rosé and Tzuyu lived with their significant others, and despite her general lack of visible emotion, Kaye always went to bat for her friends.
I was tired of living in a hotel, and she hadn't hesitated when I'd asked if I could stay with her while I went apartment hunting. And she'd greeted my arrival with a mug of coffee, a stiff hug, and a Karambit knife wrapped with a bow—for basic defense or offense, depending on how pissed I was at Lisa, she explained.
"Don't worry about it." Kaye's face softened the tiniest smidge. "We'll get drinks later. You and I can talk shit while Rosé and Tzuyu pretend they're not in sickeningly sweet relationships."
My laugh came out rusty but genuine. "It's a plan."
It'd been a week since I told Lisa I wanted a divorce. None of my friends seemed surprised by my decision to leave her, which said all there was to say about how other people perceived our relationship.
My phone lit up with an incoming call.
Lisa. Again. She'd been calling nonstop over the past week, and everytime her name popped up, it was a fresh stab in my chest. Still, I couldn't bring myself to block her just yet, so I let her calls roll to voicemail. I haven't listened to any of them since the first one; it hurt too much.
"What do you mean she's in Mykonos?" Kaye's quiet fury chilled the air as she left for her meeting. She was well-known professional CEO who ran her own boutique engineering firm among other things. "That is unacceptable. She knows she should be here for the meeting..."
Her voice faded, followed by the slam of the front door. Lisa's call also ended, and I breathed a sigh of relief only to tense again when another incoming call rolled right into her missed one.
Pearson, Hodder, and Blum.
Waves of anxiety buffeted my stomach. I wasn't sure what was worse, hearing from my wife or from my divorce attorney.
"Jennie, this is Cole Pearson." The deep voice settled some of my nerves. Cole was one of the top divorce attorneys in the country. He cost an arm and a leg, but he was the only one who stood a chance against Lisa's fleet of high-powered lawyers.
"Hi." I put him on speaker while I unpacked suitcase. I needed something to do with my hands or I'd dissolve into an even bigger mess. "How did it go?"
The waves intensified as I waited for her answer.
I'd filed for divorce a few days ago and, in true Cole fashion, he'd expedited the process so he could serve Lisa the papers today. I wanted to get the divorce over with quickly before I lost my nerve or she somehow convinced me to go back.
Most days, I was sure I was doing the right thing, but there were other days when I woke up in an empty bed and missed her so much, it hurt to breathe. I haven't been happy for a while, but I couldn't forget eleven years together just like that.
"We served her the papers," Cole said. "As expected, she refused to sign."
I closed my eyes. Knowing Lisa, she would drag this out for as long as possible. She had the money and power to tie us up in the courts for years, and the thought of sitting in limbo for that long made me nauseous.
"Luckily, we have provisions for that." Cole didn't sound too worried, which made me feel slightly better. "We'll push the divorce through one way or another, but I want you to be prepared. This is Lalisa Manoban. It could get ugly."
"Even though we don't have children and I don't want any of her assets?" The penthouse, the cars, the jet. Lisa could have it all, I just wanted out.
"The problem isn't the assets, Ms. Kim," Cole said. "It's you. She doesn't want to let you go, and unless you can convince her otherwise, it's going to be a long fight."
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"I'm so sorry, but Ms. Manoban is in meetings all day." Lisa's assistant, Martha, sounded only marginally apologetic. "However, I can take a message and have her-"
"It's an emergency." My fingers tightened around my bag strap. "I'd like to speak to my wife directly." I emphasized the second to last word. It didn't matter that she would be my ex-wife soon if I had my way; as long as we were married, I had certain perks, which should include seeing her without an assistant treating me like I was a vagrant who'd wandered in off the street.
Her eyes swept over me, probably taking in my lack of visible injuries and physical distress, "I understand, but I am afraid she's booked back to back. Like I said, I'm happy to take a message and have her call you back at her earliest convenience." She ripped a Post-It note off the pad on her desk. "Is this related to a social event or a home issue?"
My skin flushed. Normally, I wasn't a violent person, but I was hungry, tired, and irritated after my call with Cole. It took every ounce of willpower not to grab Martha's coffee and toss it in her smug, condescending face.
"Neither." I dropped my polite tone. "If Lisa is currently in a meeting, I can wait. I assume she has to eat lunch at some point, correct?"
Martha pursed her lips. "She has a lunch meeting at Le Bernardin. Ms. Kim, please, I must insist you-"
"What's going on?" A cold voice interrupted her mid-sentence. We both froze for a spilt second before our heads swiveled toward the now-open door to Lisa's office. The sun backlit her frame, and the width of her shoulders filled the doorway, making her look even more imposing than usual.
My throat dried, and the leather bag strap dug into my palm before I forcibly relaxed my grip.
"Mrs. Manoban!" Martha jumped from her chair. "Your call ended early. I was just telling Ms. Kim that you-"
"Repeat that." Lisa stepped into the main office. The shadows peeled away from her form, revealing a chiseled cheek-bones, stormy eyes, and a frown that could deter Satan himself.
She wasn't looking at me. Instead, she pinned her attention on Martha, who shrank beneath her ire. "I said I was telling Ms. Kim that-"
"Mrs. Manoban." The words were lethal in their quietness. "As in my wife. If she wants to see me, she sees me. Don't ever prevent her from doing so again or the only part of a New York office you'll see is the outside when I throw you out. Understand?"
Martha's face paled to the point of resembling chalk. "Yes, ma'am. I understand."
Vindication battled with sympathy for dominance. In the end, the latter won out.
"That was harsh," I said quietly as I followed Lisa into her office. She still hadn't looked at me.
"Not as harsh as she deserved." Instead of sitting, she leaned her back against her desk, the picture of cool confidence, but when her eyes finally met mine, the exhaustion in them tugged at my heart strings in a way that had me biting back my concern.
It doesn't matter. It's not your job to make sure she's getting enough rest.
Lisa's gaze swept over my face, lingering on my eyes and mouth. "You're not getting enough rest."
My skin heated. "Thanks a lot." I guess she wasn't the only one who looked tired.
I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear with a self-conscious hand. I hadn't been getting enough sleep. I'd thrown myself into researching how to open physical store for Floria Designs, which was a longtime dream, and when I wasn't working, I was agonizing over the divorce. Anxiety and overwork weren't exactly a winning beauty combo.
"You know what I mean." She brushed a thumb over my cheek with agonizing tenderness. "Sleep or not, you're always beautiful."
My chest clenched, if only she was this attentive when our relationship wasn't on the brink of ruin.
I usually got a small brush of her lips or brief, blissful moments of our bodies connecting in the middle of the night, but she hadn't touched me like this in ages.
I should move away and put some much-needed distance between us, but I couldn't help leaning into her. One minute, that's all I need.
"I'm not the only one who hasn't been sleeping." Her dark circles and sallow complexion gave her away, but still, she was so beautiful it hurt.
"It's difficult to sleep when your wife refuses to pick up your calls," she said quietly.
A painful lump blocked the flow of oxygen to my lungs. Don't let her get to you.
I forced myself to step back and ignore the flash of hurt in her eyes. "I'm not here to discuss our sleep habits," I said, purposely skipping past the second part of her statement.
Lisa's confident mask slipped back into place, erasing any hint of vulnerability, but her gaze burned into mine with unsettling intimacy.
"Then why are you here, amour?" The velvety nickname caressed my skin and sent an involuntary wave of nostalgia crashing over me.
"I can't believe you speak French." I shook my head, still in disbelief over how she'd conversed with my family over dinner in their native language. "When the hell did you learn how to speak French?"
"I've been attending lessons at the Foreign Languages institute every Wednesday night." A tiny grin tugged at her lips as she rinsed the last plate and placed it on the rack. We'd offered to do the dishes since my brother had prepared the food and my mother had disappeared immediately after dessert with her latest boy toy.
"Close your mouth, amour, or a fly will get in."
"You told me you were working Wednesday nights," I accused.
"I was, I was working on learning French." Lisa shrugged, a hint of color rising on her cheekbones. "This is my first time meeting your family. I figured it would be a nice thing to do."
An ache unfurled behind my ribcage. "You didn't have to do that, they would've loved you regardless."
Learning foreign languages didn't come easily for her, but the fact she'd done it anyway because she wanted to make a good impression on my family...
The ache deepened. God, I adored her.
"Maybe, but I wanted to." Lisa's face softened. "Je ferai n'importe quoi pour toi (I'd do anything for you)"
The weight of the memory nearly crushed me before I sucked in a painful breath and shoved it aside.
That was then. This was now. Focus on the now. "Cole told me you refused to sign the papers."
My answer doused the room in ice.
The warmth from vanished from her expression, and Lisa's jaw flexed as she straightened to her full five feet, ten inches. "On a first name basis with your lawyer already, I see."
She might as well have slapped me in the face.
Anger flared hot and sudden at her implication. "Don't even think about playing the jealous wife card. Not when you didn't care who I spoke to or hung out with before I dented your ego-"
"You think this is what this is about? My ego?" Her eyes flashed. "Dammit, Nini, it's been a week. One week, and you already have that asshole lawyer serving me divorce papers. We haven't even tried to fix things yet. There's marriage counseling-"
"We tried that once, remember?" I fired back. It'd been a few years ago, when I'd been so frustrated by her long hours, I'd talked to her about going into couples' therapy. "You didn't show up because of a work emergency."
She probably didn't even remember. I hadn't asked her to go again because the only thing more humbling than exposing our relationship woes to a stranger was having your wife skip the appointment altogether. The memory of the counselor's pitying gaze stung to this day.
Lisa's mouth snapped shut. Her throat worked with a hard swallow, and silence thundered in the wake of my response.
"You have two weeks to sign the papers, Lisa." I said. "Or this will turn into a war, and we both know that'll hurt your bottom line more than it does mine." She had a multibillion-dollar company to run; I didn't.
I didn't want to get into a legal fight with her, but if that's what it took, that's what I'd do. I needed to take control of my life, and I couldn't do that without closing this chapter with Lisa.
No matter how much it hurts.