The Sweetest Revenge Read Online Free PDF Page B

back and put a clip in it.
    “ You look different,” Carly
said when I walked by her desk toward my office.
    “ I do?” I asked.
    “ Yes. You look. . . .” She
groped for the right word. “You look confident,” she finally
said.
    I’d take it.
    I expected to hear from Jim as
soon as spring break was over, but he didn’t contact me that
Monday. Or the next day or the day after that. By the end of the
week, I realized I’d been expecting to hear from him. Expecting him
to beg me to take him back. That had empowered me in a way I had not
realized until he didn’t call me.
    I felt deflated. I had been
counting on his protestations of love. His apologies. And now I
wasn’t getting it. It dawned on me that he was still with Kimberly.
I had refused him, and he was staying with Kimberly.
    Then I remembered that I told Jim
I’d call him, or my lawyer would. But I couldn’t do that. He knew
how to call me! If he wanted me back so bad, he should have called
me. But he clearly didn’t even want to.
    By the second week back at work,
I knew I had to get a lawyer. I called the only one I knew to call.
Wesley McKinley, Jim’s archenemy. Wesley was a barracuda divorce
lawyer and I knew he’d be happy to go up against Jim.
    I met with Wesley on Tuesday
afternoon in his downtown office on the seventh floor of the bank
building.
    “ Let me tell you what I want,
Wesley,” I said sitting in a chair in front of his desk. “I want
the house, I want Jim to be responsible for all debts, and I want a
thousand dollars a month in alimony.”
    “ Let me tell you what I’m
gonna get you,” Wesley said in response. “I’m going to get you
the house and make Jim responsible for the debts. But I’m gonna get
you four thousand a month in alimony, plus one half of all financial
assets.”
    “ Are you kidding?” I asked,
incredulous. “That’ll break him.”
    “ And that’s the point,”
Wesley said with a smirk on his face. “He did you wrong and now
he’s gonna pay. That’s how it works in this business.”
    “ But I do have a job myself,”
I protested. “I don’t really need that much in alimony.”
    “ Amy, you’re your own worst
enemy,” Wesley said. “Do you have any idea how much money Jim is
making? Believe me, we’re gonna find out, but it’s a lot more
than you think it is, I assure you.”
    I stared at Wesley. This was
getting ugly. But why shouldn’t it get ugly? Jim had been having an
affair. He had brought her to our house, the home we had created
together. Why shouldn’t he pay the price?
    “ Okay, Wesley,” I said. “You
do what you think needs to be done.”
    “ First of all,” Wesley said.
“We’re going to serve Jim with divorce papers. Where did you say
he’s living?”
    I realized I had no idea where
Jim was. “I don’t know,” I said.
    “ Then we’ll serve him at his
office,” Wesley said gleefully.
    I felt stunned by everything. I
really had expected Jim to contact me. I guess I thought we’d work
out some kind of agreement. Or Jim would beg me back and I’d
consider it. I wasn’t expecting that I’d serve him with papers at
his office. But what else could I do?
    “ Okay,” I said standing up.
“Let me know how that goes.”
    I stumbled out of the bank
building and drove back to the university. Things were starting to
feel very real. I was divorcing my husband of fifteen years. I was
really going to do it.

Chapter
Seven

    I didn’t hear from Wesley until
Friday.
    “ We served him,” he said
triumphantly. Wesley was ready for the fight. I’m not sure I was
ready for it.
    “ What do we do next?” I
asked.
    “ Let’s see how he responds
and we’ll go from there,” Wesley said. “He may ask for
mediation or he may wait for us to make our demands.”
    When I got back home at the end
of the day, I fell onto the couch in the den and cried. I couldn’t
believe that Jim hadn’t called me, especially after being served
with the divorce papers. Did he think he was going