He Texted Me Divorce, So I Took 20 Million and Vanished novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Offer
The day Louisa learns she's carrying quadruplets, her husband texts twenty million and a divorce; she signs in the morning, his sister dumps her suitcase on the lobby floor, and Leo steps out of the elevator two days early.
The day I found out I was having four babies, my husband texted me twenty million dollars and a divorce.
The gel on my stomach was still cold when the doctor went quiet.
She leaned toward the monitor.
She took her glasses off, rubbed her eyes and put them back on.
"Mrs. Fontana, it's not bad news," she said. "Please don't panic."
"Then why do you look like that?"
She turned the screen toward me and touched it with the tip of her pen.
One dark circle.
Two.
Three.
Four.
"Four sacs," she said. "Four heartbeats. You're carrying quadruplets."
I laughed, because nothing else came out.
Then I pinched the inside of my wrist, hard enough to leave a mark.
It hurt.
She printed the image and handed it to me, a strip of shiny paper with four gray smudges on it.
I walked out onto Fifth Avenue holding it.
I had $142,000 in student loans.
I had a master's degree I'd never used.
I had a mother who'd been in the ground for six weeks.
And I had a husband I'd seen maybe nine times in a year.
My name is Louisa Lambert.
A year ago I married Leo Fontana, the CEO of Fontana Capital, in a judge's chambers with two lawyers for witnesses.
It wasn't love.
His grandfather's will gave him the chairman's seat once he'd been married a full year.
My mother had stage four ovarian cancer and no insurance worth the name.
His family paid every bill until the day she died.
I wore his ring and lived in his penthouse and stayed out of the way.
That was the deal.
Halfway down the block, my phone buzzed.
Leo.
He never texted me.
I opened it on the sidewalk while people shoved past me on both sides.
"Twenty million dollars. Divorce."
That was all of it.
No hello.
No name.
I read it three times.
Then one very clear thought pushed everything else out of my head.
Twenty million dollars.
Four cribs. Four car seats. Four college funds.
My thumbs were shaking, but I typed fast.
"Oh my God, why didn't you lead with that?"
I hit send.
His answer came before I'd put the phone away.
"Tomorrow. Ten. My lawyer will bring the papers."
I slid the ultrasound into the inside pocket of my bag and put my hand flat on my coat.
"Okay," I whispered. "We're moving."
When I got back to Park Avenue, the dining room was lit up.
Leo's mother sat at the head of my table.
Teresa Fontana always sat at the head of every table.
His sister Angela was pouring wine for a blond woman in a pale pink dress.
I knew her from the society pages.
Blythe Carrow.
The woman Teresa had wanted him to marry.
"Oh," Teresa said, without turning around. "The arrangement is home."
Angela laughed into her glass.
There were three place settings.
"There's a plate for you in the kitchen," Teresa said. "We're discussing family matters."
I looked at the flowers on the sideboard.
White lilies.
They were from my mother's funeral, the ones I'd brought home because I couldn't throw them out.
Angela followed my eyes.
"Those are dead, by the way," she said. "Kind of like the whole year."
Blythe giggled and touched her stomach.
I didn't eat in the kitchen.
I went to the bedroom I'd slept in alone for a year and pulled one suitcase out of the closet.
It was all I'd come with.
It was all I took.
The diamond earrings, the watches, the bags still in their dust covers, I left all of it in the drawers.
I put my wedding ring and both credit cards on the vanity in a straight line.
At the bottom of the suitcase I tucked my mother's gold locket into the inside pocket, next to the ultrasound.
The next morning, at 9:59, the doorbell rang.
Leo's lawyer stood there with a leather folder.
"Mrs. Fontana," he said. "Please take your time with these."
I opened the folder to the last page and signed.
He blinked.
"I'd advise you to read the property terms."
"I don't need to," I said. "When does the money land?"
He looked at my one suitcase by the door.
"Within an hour of your signature."
"Good." I held the door open. "I won't walk you out. I'm still packing."
I wasn't, but I wanted him gone.
Ten minutes later I wheeled the suitcase into the elevator.
When the doors opened on the lobby, Angela was waiting by the front desk in her fur collar.
"Stop right there," she said, loud enough for the doormen to look up. "Open that."
"Excuse me?"
"You're not walking out of my brother's building with his things."
She grabbed the handle, yanked the zipper and flipped the whole case over.
My sweaters slid across the marble.
My mother's reading glasses skidded under a bench.
My underwear landed at the feet of the doorman who'd carried my groceries for a year.
He looked away.
Angela crouched and pawed through it all.
"Just checking," she said. "People like you always take a little extra."
I got down on my knees on the cold marble.
I folded every sweater.
I didn't say a word, because I was going to be gone in five minutes.
Behind me, the street doors swung open and let in a gust of February.
Angela's face went white.
I turned.
Leo Fontana stood inside the doors with his overcoat over his arm and a travel bag in his hand.
He was supposed to be in Singapore until Thursday.
He looked at my clothes on the floor.
Then he looked at me, on my knees in the middle of them.
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