Her Christmas Cowboy (The Wyoming Cowboy #5) - Jessica Clare Page 0,54
. and you have to make me believe it.
Amy wanted to vomit.
He was basically going to hold her money hostage. She would never see a dime of it. There’d be no way to get on her feet now, not with the alimony money gone. Her car payment was behind, and the small credit card limit she had was maxed. She was running out of things to pawn or sell. She was . . . well, she was screwed.
And Blake would send her some money if she groveled. If she called him and cried and stroked his ego. If she admitted she was “wrong” and he was “right.”
She knew how that went. She’d spent years in their marriage constantly apologizing if she so much as put a glass in the wrong spot in the dishwasher. If she’d worn a dress that clashed with his tie. If she hadn’t seemed “appropriately” supportive at an entrepreneurial conference or a business dinner. For years he’d controlled her life, doing his best to make her feel stupid and helpless and like she was the problem. Her parents had just contributed to that, too. They’d told her to go along with her husband, because he was the man in the relationship and clearly the one in the right.
She’d hated all of it. She’d never known how much she’d hated it until she went to a therapist because she was so . . . angry at the world.
Well, she wasn’t angry anymore. Now she was just frustrated at how awful Blake was and how he wouldn’t leave her alone. She scanned his texts again. The nervous pit in her stomach had returned, as it always did when she dealt with Blake.
The comment about the jewelry made her pause. He’d sent that? She laughed, the sound sour in her throat. What a fucking week.
The good news was that she could pawn that jewelry and not feel a thing other than bitter joy.
She’d never beg him for money. Never, ever again. She was going to be independent, even if it meant eating ramen for the rest of her damn life. She’d never give him the satisfaction of her asking for money ever again.
Even so . . . the loss of all that income stung. She chewed on her lip, thinking, and then dialed Layla’s office, intending to leave a voicemail.
To her surprise, Layla picked up. “Layla Schmidt Accounting.”
“Oh . . . you’re there? It’s Amy.”
“Hey! And, yeah, I’m at the office but I’m not officially working. I’d just left my crochet up here and came to retrieve it.” Layla’s bubbly voice was so fun and bright, completely at odds with the dry job of accountant. “I’m making winter cozies for the fire hydrants in town just because I thought it’d be funny to dress them up.”
Er, okay. Layla did love a weird project. Her office was filled with all kinds of cross-stitched slogans like “A Woman’s Place Is in the Resistance” and “Fight the Patriarchy” and “Do No Harm, But Take No Shit.” This winter, she’d been wearing crazy colored scarves that were absurdly long and also absurdly huge. Layla didn’t seem to care that she didn’t fit in with the conservative, traditional town—she marched to the beat of her own quirky drummer.
It made her fun. It made her easy to talk to.
“I have a problem,” she confessed to Layla. “My ex sent me a text and said I won’t get any alimony from him because he’s filing for bankruptcy.”
Layla clicked her tongue. “Boy, he’s really pulling out all the stops, isn’t he? Is he broke?”
“I don’t think so.” Amy thought for a minute. “It’s not the first time he’s filed for bankruptcy, either, I don’t think. He’s done it before with other businesses. He makes one, lets it run into the ground, then folds it and starts a new one. I don’t know for sure because he never let me touch the finances, though.”
“Mmm, a tax dodger. I’ve seen that before.”
“You have?” She was surprised.
“Yeah. It’s a shitty way to do business, but you see people do it more often than you’d like.”
“So what can I do?”
“Well . . .” Layla sighed. “Not much? Wait until his bankruptcy is filed and go before the judge to make them shake the pennies out of him? Lawyer up? Actually, lawyering up is the best idea.”
“I don’t have the money for a lawyer! He knows that.”
“Which is probably why he’s doing it, Amy,” Layla said sympathetically. “He knows you won’t fight