Riggs (Arizona Vengeance 11)

Clarke is making me go figure out my shit, so to speak.

Sighing, I scribble notes on the pad before me. I do this several times a week, searching for clarity. I’m currently sitting in Clarke’s office while she teaches Janelle how to work the cash register. It’s almost closing time, so she’s giving her a general overview, and tomorrow she’ll handle actual customers—with me by her side, of course.

Looking up, I glance through the open door at Clarke. Her head is tipped in close to Janelle’s, listening to a question from the girl and pointing something out in response on the register keypad.

I smile. This is the end of only Janelle’s third day here, and she’s been an absolute joy to have around. Today she seemed vibrantly happy, and no matter what we threw at her, she took it and completed tasks with pride and efficiency. She even lamented that when school started back, she’d only be able to work a few hours a day.

She further lamented, which cracked me up, that the shop was going to be closed tomorrow for Christmas Eve and then for Christmas Day. Clarke assured her we’d be back up and running on the twenty-sixth, and she’d be glad to put her to work all day if that’s what she wanted.

Janelle responded, “Awesome.”

I glance back down at my pad. Across the top I’ve written “Short-Term Goals.” Halfway down the page, I’ve written “Long-Term Goals.”

I have nothing listed under the short term, but number one on long-term’s list is the same as it ever was.

Become financially independent.

That might sound funny given that I got a five-million-dollar payoff when the divorce was finalized. I also receive fifty thousand a month in alimony from my ex-husband, along with my penthouse condo here in downtown Phoenix, a vacation home in Telluride, and another one in Tampa. I also get a brand-new car every three years, make and model of my choice and without issue to cost. All this keeps coming to me until I remarry. If I choose not to get remarried, it’s mine until I die.

Some might say, “Wow, what a generous and loving husband you had to give you that. He must have still cared greatly for you when you divorced.”

To which I’d say, “He was an asshole. He made my life a living hell and attempted to control, intimidate, and threaten me at every turn of our divorce, trying to get me to stay with him.”

Luckily, I had a great prenup. It wasn’t something I’d intentionally aimed at having but rather the Livingston lawyers knew my settlement was a mere pittance compared to the family’s billions. It was easier to give me loads of money that would do nothing to diminish their fortune, pat me on my head, and send me on my way where I’d keep quiet and never bother them again.

If I had my choice, I’d have rather rewound time and forgot I ever met Jace Livingston than have all this wealth I didn’t earn.

I don’t want his money, which is why it’s number one on my list to become financially independent of my divorce settlement. At first, I took everything that came to me because it gave me security until I could get settled on my own. I’d been married since I was twenty—having dropped out of college to wed Jace—and I’d never had to work after joining the Livingston family. Luxury shopping, charity work, international travel, and hosting dinner parties was all I knew.

So I took the money, not because I thought I deserved it, but because I was shell-shocked over the trauma of the last year of our marriage and the turbulent divorce, and I didn’t know how to support myself.

When someone sees me, they make assumptions. Yes, I dress nicely in high-end, expensive fashion, but I accumulated these clothes during my marriage. It’s there and I use it. But I haven’t used the vacation homes once, the car barely moves except to drive it to and from work at Clarke’s store, and after paying for basics like utilities and groceries, the rest of the money sits untouched, outside of multiple charitable donations I make each year.

Six hundred thousand dollars a year is so much, I don’t even know how to spend it, so I’m banking it and hoping while I finish my degree in business, I’ll figure out something worthwhile to do with the growing wealth.

I try to come up with another long-term goal but struggle as always. I don’t have the goal of remarrying, or having kids, because I’d want to be married to have kids, and I don’t want to marry again, so that’s out.

I scribble the word dog.

I suppose that’s a worthy goal, but immediately cross it out. If I want a dog, I’ll go adopt one tomorrow. It’s not something I should strive for in the long run.