The Prenup - Lauren Layne Page 0,75

think now, is to prove that it was a marriage based on love, not the acquisition of a green card? Correct?”

He nods. “Yes. We want to ensure that a couple is married for the right reason.”

I take a deep breath, ready to deliver my grand finale, as Colin had put it.

I lean forward. “I know I said that Colin doesn’t love me, and I meant that. I can’t change that fact, and trust me, I have tried. But Mr. Price, if you want to know if this is a love match, I can tell you at least that I love my husband. I love Colin.” I reach down and take a document out of my bag. “And I can prove it.”

Chapter 38

Friday, November 13

San Francisco

“I still can’t believe you’re not coming back,” Kurt says. “It’s not right. Nothing about this is right.”

Lewis squeezes his husband’s shoulder as he comes to top off our Sauvignon blanc. “We talked about this, Kurt. It is right. You’re just sulking.”

Kurt pouts as he looks at me. “Okay, fine. I confess, this whole situation does have a certain appealing symmetry to it. But I don’t like it.”

“Not even my corner office, which you now get to keep?” I say, nudging his calf with the tip of my Tory Burch flat. “Hmmm?”

He gives a sassy little wiggle in his chair. “Well, okay, that part’s okay.”

“Thought so,” I say, smiling into my wine. I’m a bit surprised that my last night in San Francisco doesn’t feel sadder. Don’t get me wrong—it’s bittersweet to think that this will no longer be my home. I’ll miss the weather. I’ll miss my job. My colleagues. My girl squad. I’ll miss Kurt and Lewis most of all.

But as of today, I’m officially retired as the CEO of Coco. The reins have been handed over to Kurt as acting CEO, and the board of directors will have to vote on whether that’s a permanent position. But I’m on the board, and I feel pretty certain that the corner office will be Kurt’s to keep for as long as he wants it. He quit being an assistant a long time ago—he is Coco.

As for me?

I’ve got a flight from SFO back to JFK later in the week.

Toward what?

No.

Idea.

Yep. You’re reading that right. I don’t know what’s next. I no longer have a job. Or a home. In a few days, I’ll no longer have a husband.

Oh, yeah, and I’m a lot poorer than I was a week ago.

Why?

Because that’s what happens when you file for divorce before the conditions of your prenup are met—everything I earned in the duration of our marriage is now half Colin’s.

Oddly, the strangest part about all of this isn’t that I walked away from a rather large sum of money in order to break my prenup early. It’s that neither Colin nor I seemed to consider that possibility in the first place. We’d been so hung up on the single paragraph indicating that we must live under the same roof for three months in order to get divorced, we hadn’t bothered to explore the consequences if we filed divorce papers before that. Or at least I hadn’t. Not until last week.

That’s what I called my brother about. And when Justin called me back—quicker this time, thank God—I’d learned that it wasn’t that one of us couldn’t file for divorce before living together for three months. It was just a really irresponsible financial decision, assuming either of us had amassed any amount of assets, which, we both had.

And honestly, even if I had known about the sort-of-loophole, I think I’d still have moved to New York. At the start of all this, the prospect of giving what was essentially a complete stranger half of everything I worked so hard to earn would have been unthinkable. Three months of living in New York City would seem a small price to pay for keeping what is mine.

Now though … well, as you know, everything has changed.

I truly don’t feel I could have survived another day, much less weeks, of living side by side with Colin, knowing he was counting down the days until he could be with Rebecca. And more pressing than that, I’d realized how brutal it must have been to live with one woman while loving another.

It came down to this: I don’t need that money.

I do, however, need Colin to be happy. I need it from the very center of my heart.

And he’s not going to get there