The Pre-Nup Read online

  “I know.” Mara reached across Jen’s kitchen table for the bottle of Shiraz and topped off her glass again. “Why didn’t he just break out some brass knuckles and punch me in the face?”

  “Does this really mean what I think it means?” Jen squinted down at the tiny font.

  “Basically, it means I’m a filthy whore who needs to be threatened with legal retribution to make sure she keeps her legs closed.” Mara swilled her wine. “Mmm. This is pretty good stuff.”

  Jen rolled the wine cork between her thumb and index finger and chose her words carefully. “Let’s not overreact. I have excellent reading comprehension skills, and nowhere do I see the words ‘filthy whore.’”

  “Oh, it’s there,” Mara assured her. “Between the lines.”

  “Hmm.” Jen kept her expression neutral.

  “Don’t give me that prim little ‘hmm.’ Just come out and be scathing and judgmental. Why hold back? Go ahead, you can say it: Mara is a total slut.”

  “Aaand we’re cutting you off.” Jen made a grab for the wine bottle, but Mara clutched it to her chest.

  “Hands off my vino.” Mara abandoned her delicate stemmed glass and started swigging straight from the bottle. “Your friend Mara is a total slut and a drunk.”

  Jen rolled her eyes. “Why am I even trying to have a rational discussion with you right now?”

  “I’m drunk, not irrational. Don’t patronize me.”

  Jen had to admit that, even into her fourth serving of wine, Mara’s sensibilities were holding up quite well. Mara had always claimed that law firm happy hours were akin to frat parties with forty-year-old Scotch instead of kegs, and her tolerance was impressive.

  “If I drank as much as you have in the last hour, I’d be passed out under the table,” Jen marveled.

  “That’s because your poor liver is utterly defenseless. Too many smoothies and sunrise yoga sessions.” Mara paused to stifle a tiny belch with the back of her hand. “ ’Scuse me. Anyway, the man is clearly sick and depraved. He sprung this on me while we were shopping for wedding bands. That’s, like, the mark of a sociopath. I’m not marrying a sociopath.”

  “Then I guess this isn’t really an issue anymore.” Jen folded the pre-nup draft in half and passed it back to Mara.

  “I guess not. Let’s open another bottle to celebrate. Got any champagne?”

  “How about a gallon of water and a hearty bowl of quinoa with fruit instead?”

  “You suggest quinoa at a time like this? Really? Remind me again why we’re friends?”

  Jen grinned. “Because some admissions staffers at ASU had a warped sense of humor when they assigned freshmen roommates.”

  Mara grinned back. “Talk about sick and depraved. Anyway, health food would just work against me right now. I have a wedding cake tasting appointment in an hour, and I need to be good and blotto.”

  “But you just said that you’re not going to marry Josh.”

  “Of course I’m not. The man called me a filthy whore.” Mara waved the pre-nup. “But the baker’s expecting me and it’d be tacky not to show. Besides, I would kill for a slice of chocolate cake right now, and I know I’m not going to find it in your pantry.”

  “I have carob chips,” Jen offered.

  “You’re killing me. Come on, let’s go gorge ourselves on refined sugar and trans fats. And, hey, we should pick up Ellie on the way. She needs a therapeutic dose of chocolate even more than I do.”

  As they stood under the vast, arched stone portico of the Barton house, they could hear crashes emanating from within: sharp, staccato shatterings punctuated by muffled slams and thumps.

  Jen’s eyes widened. “Wow. Do you think she’s beating him to death in there?”

  “With his golf clubs, sounds like. We got here just in time to save her from a homicide charge.” Mara rang the bell and yelled, “Ellie! Put down the weapon! You have potential witnesses out here!”

  No response, but Mara wasn’t easily deterred. She hammered away on the heavy brass door knocker until Ellie finally opened up.

  “Ladies. How lovely to see you both.” Ellie’s pink polo shirt and fitted dark jeans were splotched with patches of fine white dust, and her right hand was bleeding. She smoothed wisps of dark brown hair back from her face. “What can I do for you?”

  Jen tried not to gawk. “Are you okay in there?”

  “Yeah, the jig is up.” Mara craned her neck to peer down the hallway. “We know you’re sending Michael to the great nineteenth hole in the sky.”

  “Oh, Michael’s not here right now. He’s having a leisurely lunch with his mistress, and Hannah’s at a play date, and I am systematically smashing all of our wedding china.” Ellie glanced down at her right palm as if surprised to see the thin ribbon of blood. “So I’m a bit busy at the moment. Come back later?”

  “You shouldn’t be alone right now.” Jen braced her hand against the open door. “Why don’t you come with us and—”

  “Can’t.” Ellie shook her head. “I still have the soup tureen, the teacups, and the serving platters to take care of.”

  “We’re going to get cake,” Mara coaxed.

  “Sounds lovely, but…” Ellie’s vacant smile was both disturbing and serene. “The soup tureen. Duty calls.”

  Mara threw Jen a look, then patted Ellie on the shoulder. “You want the soup tureen destroyed? Show me the way. Turns out, I’m having kind of a crockery-smashing day myself.”

  Ellie ushered them into the elegant dining room done up in warm, red-toned wood and accented with cream and green silks. The doors to the sideboard were flung open and shards of porcelain littered the floor, where the plush green patterned rug had been rolled back to expose the varnished hardwood.

  “Jeez.” Mara whistled. “You’ve got quite the pitching arm.”

  “Remember my wedding day? It was perfect. Perfect weather, perfect dress, perfect couple. And now he’s cheating and lying and I’m keying cars and vandalizing with vomit.” Ellie rummaged through the sideboard and pulled out a huge oval serving platter, which she lifted high above her head. “Watch out for shrapnel.”

  Jen flinched as the platter slammed into the floor.

  “Okay.” Mara seized Ellie’s shoulders and spun her toward the doorway. “Time out. Go wash your hands and get a box of Band-Aids. Jen, start the car. We’re going—all of us—to have cake and regroup.”

  Ellie resisted for a moment, then relaxed and nodded.

  Jen had to ask. “How exactly does one vandalize with vomit?”

  “Never mind the vomit—you actually keyed Michael’s car?” Mara regarded Ellie with newfound respect.

  Ellie hung her head. “I don’t know what came over me. Hannah got carsick and Michael was standing there giving me the puppy-dog eyes and denying everything, and I just lost control. And it wasn’t Michael’s car, it was hers. Her cheesy, cliché red convertible with vanity plates that actually said, swear to God, VIX MD.”

  “No way.” Jen started to laugh. “You’re making this up.”

  “I wish I were.” Ellie covered her face with her hands. “I was so angry, I scared myself. The whole thing was, well…it was very unladylike. I’m turning into the kind of woman they gossip about at Pampered Chef parties.”

  Mara slung one arm around her and gave her a squeeze. “Welcome to the other side, babe. We’ve been waiting for you.”

  “So we’re here to taste wedding cakes but we’re not allowed to talk about the wedding?” Ellie clarified as the three women trooped into the Golden Tulip Bakery in an upscale shopping plaza in North Scottsdale.

  “Correct.” Mara opened the door, letting the mouth-watering aroma of vanilla and cinnamon waft out. “Sugar good, men bad.”

  “But…” Ellie glanced to Jen for guidance, but Jen just shook her head and muttered, “Leave it. Trust me.”

  Mara waved to the white-aproned pastry chef behind the counter and announced, “I have a three-thirty appointment for cake-tasting. Last name Stroebel.”


  The baker ducked into the back room and emerged with a silver serving plate adorned with paper lace doilies and an assortment of cake slices.

  Jen’s salivary glands kicked into overtime as she eyed a thin wedge of what the chef described as Bavarian lemon with raspberry filling. “I can feel my thighs expanding already.”

  “Me, too.” Ellie threw up her hands. “And I was so good this week. I did three days of cardio and two days of circuit training, and now it’s all going to be erased with two bites of…Oh, dear lord, what is that pink one with the white frosting?”

  “That’s the strawberry champagne cake. Our specialty,” the baker said proudly.

  Jen winced. “Dare I ask how many calories?”

  “Don’t ruin this with calorie talk.” Mara seized a fork and dug in. “We may live in Mayfair Estates, but we don’t have to drink the sugar-free Kool-Aid and give ourselves eating disorders.”

  “Just because I eat healthfully doesn’t mean I have an eating disorder,” Jen protested. “I happen to like quinoa and carob chips. There’s nothing pathological about that.”

  Mara snorted. “I beg to differ.”

  “I don’t have an eating disorder, either,” Ellie muttered. “Unfortunately.”

  “Well, you better keep your guard up,” Mara said. “That fundraising lunch you dragged me to last month? I’ve never heard such hullabaloo about carbs in my life. One chick spent literally ten minutes—I checked my watch—agonizing about whether the fructose in grapes would blow her diet. Panic in the produce aisle!”

  Ellie wrinkled her nose and sniffed. “Is that wine on your breath? At three in the afternoon?”

  “An entire bottle’s worth.” Jen tsk-tsked.

  They lapsed into a chocolate-fueled feeding frenzy for a few minutes, then Ellie put down her fork and slumped back in her chair. “You should have seen her at the café today. Vixen_MD. Whose real name is Victoria, by the way. She actually is a physician, did I tell you that?” Her big brown eyes shimmered with tears. “Why couldn’t Michael have the decency to cheat on me with some brainless bimbo? How am I supposed to compete with a doctor?”

  “Oh, honey”—Jen hunted through her bag for a tissue—“it’s not a competition.”

  “Yeah, ’cause she already won! She has the body, the degrees, the career, the car…” Ellie dabbed at her eyes with the Kleenex. “You know who Vixen_MD is? She’s the woman I could have become if I hadn’t gotten married so young and drunk the sugar-free Kool-Aid. I was accepted to law school two years after we graduated college, did you know that?”

  Mara’s jaw dropped. “No.”

  “I didn’t even know you applied,” Jen said. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “Because I didn’t want to have to be embarrassed if I didn’t get in.” Ellie blew her nose. “And then, when I did get in, Michael’s family was so insistent that I needed to help him get his career off the ground, and then, you know, it was one thing after another and then I got pregnant with Hannah…”

  “Which law school? When did you take the LSAT?” Mara pressed. “We could’ve been study buddies.”

  Jen elbowed her. “That’s not the point.”

  “The point is,” Ellie continued, “that Vixen_MD has an important job and a real life, and what do I have?”

  “The world’s cutest kid,” Jen said.

  “Kick-ass friends,” Mara added.

  But Ellie wasn’t listening. “A ginormous house and a sterling reputation as the belle of the benefit ball. And you know what the worst part is? I was happy. Blind and in denial and stupid, but happy. We were going to try to get pregnant again this summer. That’s what we wanted, both of us.” She drummed her short, varnished fingernails on the tabletop. “Well, that’s what he said he wanted. Apparently, what he actually wants is hot sex and red thongs. What am I going to do, you guys? I’m serious. What am I supposed to tell Hannah tonight when she asks why Daddy isn’t home for dinner?”

  Jen and Mara fumbled helplessly.

  “Well, you say, uh…”

  “Yeah, you could always, um…”

  “Exactly.” Ellie pushed back her chair and stood up. “There are no answers. Nothing I do or say is going to make any difference. He’s ripping our lives apart, and I have to sit back and take it.” She hoisted her brown suede bag onto her shoulder. “I’m going to use the ladies’ room.”

  Jen surveyed the balled-up tissues scattered among the ravaged smears of fondant and cake crumbs. “I’ll get the car.”

  Mara complimented the baker as he passed. “Superb. Love the strawberry champagne cake. I’ll get back to you with a final decision next week.”

  Jen’s eyebrows snapped together. “I thought you weren’t getting married?”

  “Please. Let’s be real here. What are the odds that I’m ever going to be attracted to another cute, smart, decent guy who’s not a total scumbag?”

  Jen did a quick mental inventory of Mara’s many ex-boyfriends. “Well,” she admitted, “that would appear to be a long shot. But maybe—”

  “Maybe nothing. I argued him into this stupid pre-nup, now I’ll just have to argue him out of it.” Mara looked grim and resigned.

  “Ah, true love.”

  Mara scraped back her chair. “You bring the car around. I’m off to the restroom to check on our girl.”

  Jen felt an unexpected rush of relief as she headed back out into the afternoon sun. Everyone had marriage problems. Everyone. And she and Eric would never have to endure such heart-wrenching doubt and betrayal. They’d never wavered in the promises they’d made the night before their wedding.

  I’ll never hurt you and I’ll never ask for more than you can give, he had vowed. I’ll love you enough for both of us.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. She didn’t want to remember the resolve in her husband’s voice when he swore eternal devotion, the desperate determination in his eyes.

  This was what came of abandoning her work plans on a Saturday afternoon. Drinking, carousing, and wanton cake consumption. Plus guilt, lots of guilt. She should have stayed at home with her spreadsheets and marketing plans and—

  “Jen?” A man across the street called her name, then raised his hand in greeting. “Jen Finnerty?”

  The smooth, deep voice stopped her in her tracks. She struggled to arrange her face in a smile.

  Oh, dear God, no. No, no, no. I’m wearing ratty old yoga pants and no makeup. I can’t face him like this.

  “You chopped off all your hair.” Patrick Spillane loped across the concrete, rapidly closing the distance between them. “I love it.”

  Jen had spent a lot of time over the last six years mentally composing a cutting little speech to deliver at precisely this moment. Too bad she couldn’t remember a word of it.

  “What are you doing here?” she blurted out. She couldn’t bring herself to look him in the face.

  He didn’t seem to notice on her discomfort. “Just got back into town last week. I’m looking to join a practice out here. Thinking about buying a place in Fountain Hills.”

  “You’re so…tan.” Strike two.

  Patrick threw back his head and laughed. “That’s what a few years in sub-Saharan Africa without sunscreen will do to you. So really, how are you, Jen?”

  She stared up at the sky and said loudly, “I got married.”

  “I heard. Eric’s a lucky guy.”

  She couldn’t detect any trace of mockery in his tone.

  “Look at you. All grown up. It’s been a long time.” He leaned in and brushed his lips across the thick waves of hair above her temple. “Let’s get together soon and catch up. You, me, and Eric. I’ll be in touch.” Then he walked away without a backward glance.

  Jen remained rooted to the ground for a few minutes, watching him go. Her face burned against the brisk winter wind. Who the hell did he think he was? How dare he kiss her after all that had happened? How dare he have an opinion about her hair, her life, her marriage?

&nbs
p; But that was the thing about Patrick Spillane: He always dared.

  She whipped out her phone and speed-dialed Eric. Talking to him would bring her back to herself; besides, he deserved to know that she was thinking of him while he was away.

  But Eric didn’t pick up. And as Jen pressed the phone to her ear, listening to the mechanical ringing and reeling from the sensation of Patrick’s lips so close to her face, she had to admit she felt relieved that her husband wasn’t available.

  Ellie Chapter 6

  Ellie, darling, I just heard and it’s dreadful; no way around it.” Michael’s mother looked simultaneously apprehensive and relieved when Ellie opened the front door. “I had to come over to see how you’re holding up.”

  Patrice Barton exuded an air of effortless chic and endless hospitality. A fixture on the Scottsdale social circuit, she was sweet, petite, and always perfectly put together. This Saturday afternoon was no exception. Her thick blond hair (shot through with just the right amount of silver) was freshly blown out, her blue blazer was classic silk tweed, but her smile couldn’t quite disguise the anguish in her eyes.

  “Patrice!” Ellie sloshed a bit of lukewarm coffee from her mug onto the floor as she took a step back. “What a surprise!”

  “Good surprise or bad surprise?”

  “Well, good, of course. I wasn’t sure when I’d hear from you, given the, uh, circumstances.”

  Patrice nodded. “May I come in? I know I should have called first, but…”

  “Don’t be silly. You know you’re welcome anytime.” Ellie beckoned her inside. “This coffee is cold and vile, but if you wait ten minutes, I’ll brew a fresh pot.” She called into the kitchen. “Hannah! Look who’s here!”

  “Gramma!” Hannah scampered in and threw her arms around Patrice’s knees.

  Patrice scooped up the little girl and twirled around the foyer. “Hello there, kitty cat! Goodness, you’re getting big.”

  “Did you bring me a prezzie?”

  Ellie gasped and put her hand on her hip. “Hannah Rose Barton! That is rude. You do not ask your grandma—or anyone who comes to this house—to give you—”