Divorce Me Today, Beg Me Tomorrow novel · Chapter 1 of 16
Chapter 1: The Doorway
On their tenth anniversary Rebecca finds Trevor in bed with her sister Kristen, learns she's inherited 4.7 billion, and agrees to a divorce; then the lawyer tells her Trevor's company belongs to her.
On our tenth anniversary, I came home early and found my husband in our bed with my little sister.
I had a cake box in one hand.
Lemon, his favorite, from the bakery by the hospital.
The bedroom door was half open.
Trevor's bare back was to me.
Kristen's blonde hair was spread across my pillow.
She saw me over his shoulder.
She didn't stop.
My phone buzzed in my scrub pocket.
A New York number.
I don't know why I answered it.
I think my hands needed something to do.
I pulled the bedroom door shut, very quietly, and walked into the kitchen.
I set the cake on the counter.
"Hello?"
"Mrs. Langley? My name is Daniel Pruitt, of Pruitt and Associates in Manhattan. I'm afraid I have difficult news."
Behind me, through the wall, my sister laughed.
"Your grandmother, Evelyn Hale, passed away this morning."
I gripped the edge of the counter.
I had never heard her voice.
I had never seen her face except in one photo my mother tore in half.
"She named you her sole heir," Mr. Pruitt said. "Hale International, and her personal holdings. The estate is valued at roughly four point seven billion dollars."
I stared at the cake box.
Someone had written Happy 10th in blue icing through the little plastic window.
"There's a condition," he said. "Until the transfer closes, you tell no one. Not your husband. Not your family."
"Why?"
"Mrs. Hale said you'd understand once you saw who came crawling."
The bedroom door opened.
Kristen walked out wearing my silk robe.
The green one Trevor gave me last Christmas.
She tied the belt slowly and smiled at me.
"Rebecca. You're home early."
Trevor came out behind her, buttoning his shirt.
He didn't look ashamed.
He just looked relieved.
"Good," he said. "Now we don't have to do this over the phone. I want a divorce."
I didn't hang up.
I didn't even lower the phone.
I just held it against my chest and looked at him.
Ten years.
I'd worked doubles in the ER so he could finish his MBA without a loan.
I'd sold my mother's ruby ring to keep his first company alive for three more months.
I'd held his hand at his father's funeral while he cried into my shoulder.
"You've gotten small, Rebecca," Trevor said.
He'd practiced it. I could tell.
"I'm about to make VP at Sterling Group. I need a partner who fits where I'm going. Kristen understands ambition."
He glanced at my scrubs.
"You understand bedpans."
Kristen slid her hand into his.
"Don't make it weird, sis. Some women are wives. Some women are placeholders."
I looked at the two of them in my kitchen.
My husband. My baby sister.
My robe.
Neither of them knew that a minute ago I'd become one of the richest women in the country.
"Okay," I said.
Trevor blinked.
"Okay what?"
"Okay, I'll sign. Tonight, if you want."
His face went blank for one second.
He'd come ready for tears.
He'd come ready for screaming, and a fight over the house and the savings.
He had nothing ready for okay.
Kristen's smile slipped.
"That's it? You're not even going to fight for him?"
I picked up my purse and my car keys.
I left the cake.
At the front door, I turned around.
"Trevor. One question. If I ever got rich, really rich, would you be sorry?"
He laughed.
He actually threw his head back and laughed.
"Rebecca. Sweetheart. You're a thirty-two-year-old nurse with eleven hundred dollars in checking. The only thing you'll ever inherit is your mother's bad knees."
Kristen laughed too, a beat late, to be on his side.
I looked at his face for a long moment.
I wanted to remember it exactly.
"Remember you said that."
I walked out of the house I'd paid for.
I got into my dented Honda in the driveway.
The phone was still against my chest.
The call timer was still running.
"Mr. Pruitt? Are you still there?"
"I'm here, Mrs. Langley." His voice had gone very dry. "I heard all of it."
"I'll be in New York on Friday."
"Good."
"And the condition. Telling no one."
Upstairs, the bedroom light came on.
Kristen stood at the window in my robe and pulled my curtains shut.
"That won't be a problem," I said.
"I thought not." Paper rustled on his end. "Mrs. Langley, your husband said Sterling Group. Sterling Group, the freight company in Columbus?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Your grandmother bought Sterling Group six years ago."
I stopped with the key halfway to the ignition.
"Every share of it," he said. "Which means as of this morning, your husband works for you."
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