firm was our future. Our future. And I’d just completely believed him.
“I want to pay the property taxes I owe on my aunt’s house and get the tree off my front porch—that’s it.” My voice sounds shaky even to my own ears.
Gina sets her coffee cup and saucer down on Nick’s desk, pivots in her chair, and looks at me head-on. “Girl, I’m going get you that and so much more. Karl is racking up debt to make the firm look insolvent on paper and making sure your name isn’t on any paperwork, ever. Too bad he doesn’t realize that no one fights for a Jersey girl like another Jersey girl. This is real fuck-around-and-find-out shit, and Karl is about to find out.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to prove he’s trying to defraud Mallory?” Nick asks, leaning forward as if he’s as invested in the outcome as I am.
“Is rum cake delicious?” Gina asks. “You can count on it.”
If I were a better person, I wouldn’t have images of Karl chasing after ambulances for the rest of his miserable life dancing in my head, but I’m certainly not going to feel bad about it after the news I just got. And for the first time since I came back to Jersey, it seems like I finally have the world on my side.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I step outside Nick’s office flush with triumph and excitement. One, I have a divorce attorney. Two, I have a job. And three, Nick agreed to help me out around the house a few hours a week. With the extra body and strong arms, I might actually get everything organized and livable in half the time.
As I climb into Jimi, though, I’m not thinking about my new job or redecorating plans. Instead, I am laser-focused on the white-hot fury I’ve been holding at bay for the past hour. Any doubts I had about fighting Karl in the divorce crumbled like ashes as Gina continued to explain exactly how much money Karl has been robbing me of over the years.
I totally understood getting paid so little in the beginning, when we were trying to get the firm off the ground. But to have kept me there for years even when the firm was making money hand over fist and there was no reason for it? It made me want to tell Karl off all over again—and myself for never following up or taking the time to look at comparable salaries. Then again, who expects your husband, the man you love, to screw you over so incredibly?
I vow right then and there that I will never give another man power over me again. I might be a lone boat in the ocean, but at least it’s my choice if I sink again.
By the time I get home, I have to force myself to stop thinking about how pissed off I am. I pour myself a well-deserved glass of wine, then wander up to my bedroom to take off my makeup and change into yet another pair of leggings.
I consider taking a nap—the bed looks so inviting after a night of tossing and turning—but I am supposed to report to work bright and early Monday morning. That means I only have the rest of today, Friday, and the weekend to make serious inroads with my cleaning plans.
I still have the remainder of the dining room, living room, and Aunt Maggie’s office to do downstairs, but since I’m up here, I decide to take the day off from the main floor. Seriously, it will be really nice to wake up in the morning and not nearly die if I step an inch off the path I’ve managed to carve to the bathroom on my first day here. Which means it’s time to start cleaning out Aunt Maggie’s room.
Just the thought makes me a little sad, because clearing out in here means clearing out everything that made Aunt Maggie who she was. Her feathered boas, her sparkly shoes, her magnificent clothes, and the boxes upon boxes of costume jewelry she had forever.
When I was a kid, she’d bring me up here before our tea parties and let me pick out whatever jewelry I wanted to wear. Inevitably, I would drape myself in faux diamond bracelets and colorful necklaces and earrings—anything that made me feel beautiful. It seems sacrilegious to just throw it all away now.
Still, I can’t keep living out of suitcases. I’m starting a new job in three days. I have