The Pre-Nup Read Online Free PDF Page A

even register. “I can read it for myself in black and white. Jesus. Josh, this is really what you think of me?”
    “Wait, you’re missing the point here.” He reached out for her hands, but she balled her fingers into fists.
    “No, I get the point. Right through the heart. I—” She swiped at her eyes, horrified to realize that she was about to tear up. She hadn’t cried in years, hadn’t even come close since her first semester of law school, when her voice had cracked at the end of a blistering Socratic cross-examination during Civil Procedure. “Why did you even propose to me? Honestly?”
    “Mara, come on…”
    She pivoted, stalked past the trays of glittering jewels, shoved her way out through the glass doors, and whipped out her cell phone as she hit the sidewalk.
    “Hey,” she said when Jen answered. “Remember how I said I was booked solid this afternoon? Change of plans. I’m coming over right now, and I’m going to need about three bottles of wine when I get there. Brace yourself. You are not going to
believe
what just happened.”

    Ellie Chapter
4
     
    W here’s Daddy? I want Daddy,” Hannah whined from the backseat of Ellie’s BMW.
    Ellie exhaled slowly and white-knuckled the SUV’s steering wheel. “Daddy’s working, baby. You know that. He’ll be home for dinner.”
    At least, she hoped he would. “I’m playing nine holes with the guys from the Oro Vista Center deal,” he’d announced in the kitchen that morning after she returned from her walk with Mara and Jen. “Maybe eighteen if we have time. See you around six-thirty?”
    And then he’d poured some of her freshly brewed coffee into an insulated travel mug and breezed out the door. She’d stared after him, contemplating Mara’s advice about tax returns and keystroke loggers, until Hannah tugged on her hand and demanded waffles for breakfast. Then she’d gotten them both dressed and plodded with her daughter through the Saturday crowds at the grocery store and the post office. She had one last stop to make on today’s suburbanista tour of duty: the bank. There was certainly no harm in making a list of the contents of all the accounts and the safety deposit box before…well, before things got even more out of hand.
    It’s just a little preemptive photocopying,
she told herself.
And they’re my accounts, too. He’s the one who should feel guilty, not me.
    For once, she was going to let her head overrule her heart. Then tonight, after she’d tucked Hannah into bed, she’d confront Michael and they could discuss this like rational adults. Well, “rational adults” might be a bit overambitious. Even
semi
rational was a stretch. She’d try her best to refrain from strangling him to death with a lacy red thong. And ramming his beloved little PDA right up his—
    One thing at a time. Breathe in. Breathe out. She braked for a red light and forced her body to relax, starting with her shoulder muscles and working her way down to her toes.
    “Mommy, I’m hungry.” Hannah kicked at the back of the driver’s seat. “I want juice. And a cookie.”
    “I just gave you a snack, honey.”
    “Don’t like carrot sticks,” Hannah whined. “I’m still hungry.” She pronounced this word with plaintive desperation:
hon-gry.
    “Hang on, we’re almost home. I bought some grapes at the store and we can—”
    She broke off in mid-sentence as she noticed a familiar silver Mercedes parked in front of the cozy little bistro across the street.
    And there, right next to Michael’s car, was a sleek red convertible with a vanity license plate: VIX MD.

    “It’s your lucky day, little girl,” Ellie announced as she executed an illegal U-turn directly over the road’s landscaped median. “Mommy’s going to give you a snack right now!”
    “Not carrots?” Hannah asked suspiciously.
    Ellie kept her gaze trained on the restaurant’s front door while she waited for a hulking white Cadillac to inch out of the parking lot’s only