his neck at that moment. I took a deep breath and counted to ten.
My ex-husband was a powerful man. Rich as all get-out, all of it inherited from his grandfather’s luck in the mining business before Greg was even born. Greg owned and operated several businesses of his own, all started with capital from his family’s massive reserves. Most of them failed, but as soon as one went bankrupt, he started another and could always keep up the appearance of success. The family money wasn’t going to run out anytime soon, so he was set for life no matter what stupid decisions he made. I’d once told him he’d have better odds making money from his inheritance by throwing it down on a craps table in Vegas than starting another business, but that just earned me a lecture about “my place” and how I should “stay out of his business affairs” since I was a woman.
A myriad of comebacks rushed through my head, but in the distance, I heard my daughter's sweet voice. The more I pissed him off, the more he’d try to punish me for it - and that usually entailed my innocent child in some way or another. He never hurt her; he was a good father even if he was a terrible husband, but he knew if he took her away from me, I’d be destroyed.
“I’ll take care of it,” I said through gritted teeth.
“You better,” he said before the line went dead.
I stood in the hallway in silence for a moment, the urge to scream deep in my chest. I wanted to cry, not from sadness or pain but from frustration.
Why did you agree to the terms to keep this place? I cursed at myself. Except I knew the answer - I’d had little choice.
Greg had bought the property for me to run my business from while we were still married. The house we lived in had been a rental at the time, just some extra income in Greg’s pocket to justify the cost of the rescue. But since that day, he held the favor over my head - using it to manipulate me into doing whatever he wanted.
It gave him control over me, and I hated it. I wanted to be free from the debt, but the only way to do that would be to buy the place outright and I didn’t have that kind of money. I was paying out my ass in legal fees, thanks to him taking me to court for every little thing, contesting everything even if he’d later agree to it - all to punish me for leaving him.
I took a deep breath and remembered the man in the other room. The potential client. My heart sank as I thought about taking him on. As much as I wanted to, the reality was, I wasn’t really set up for this type of thing right now. I needed work to repair the damage to the property, but I wasn’t sure how I could work when the property was in the shape it was. It was the Catch-22 from hell.
I walked back into the room and painted a fake smile on my face.
Mason took one look at me and furrowed his brow. “Everything okay?”
“Oh, yeah, everything’s fine,” I lied.
I hardly knew the guy; I wasn’t about to confess to him about all my personal problems. No matter how kind he seemed or how easy on the eyes he was, I still didn’t trust him. He was a man, after all, and based on my experiences with men, even the good ones didn’t stay good forever. I took a seat next to him, mentally scolding myself for socializing with him so freely before. I’d showed him around the house. He’d met my daughter. That needed to stop right now. We needed to focus on business.
I cleared my throat. “So, there’s just one problem with your request,” I said. “I currently don’t have a training facility, and right now, all my available dogs are split between different rescues across Utah. I usually prefer working with dogs I already know, since I’m familiar with their personalities and can gauge whether they’d make a good service dog, but without a facility and all that, I really don’t think I can help you right now.”
“Well, I’m happy to pay you very well for your time,” Mason said. “I’ll pay double - no, make that triple - what you’d normally charge per hour. It’s very important that