Lexi knew that if she got the answer to that question, she would finally be able to figure out Bekah. Until she knew, she would treat Bekah like an active volcano waiting to erupt.
“Coercion,” Lexi reminded him. “Did you feel an obligation to sign? Was there ever any talk of the fact that you had to sign? Anything like that at all that you remember?”
“No, uh…I don’t think so. It was a long time ago.”
“Three years is not that long to remember if someone forced you to sign away your livelihood if you cheat on her,” she quipped.
“I didn’t cheat on her.”
“Yeah,” Lexi said.
She had never considered Jack a liar. He had always sworn that he would tell her the truth in everything, but with their history, it did make it difficult to take this seriously, especially with Bekah claiming she had hard evidence against him.
“So, what should I do? I can’t use the same lawyer as last time. He works for Bridges now.”
Lexi narrowed her eyes. “Did he work for Bridges at the time?”
“No, he got hired about a year ago.”
Lexi cursed under her breath. A million-and-a-half scenarios ran through her head all at once. She was just going off of the information she had learned from the family law classes she had taken in law school, but those were two or three years ago at this point. He would need someone else—but who? She racked her brain to think of someone who would be good enough. She would have to ask around at work tomorrow.
“I’ll see if I can find someone, and then you probably need to make a pretty convincing case against her, Jack. I’d tell you to settle this in mediation and just get it over with, but I have a feeling that Bekah will take this to court,” Lexi told him.
“Okay,” he said with a heavy sigh. “This is so f**king frustrating, Lex.”
“I know,” she whispered.
She knew how he felt about divorces, especially after his parents’ rough break while he had been in high school. A part of her felt bad for him for having to go through this, and then the other half wondered, as she always did, why he had gotten married in the first place.
“I did everything right once we got married. I so desperately didn’t want to be my parents, and I still can’t seem to get it straight. She’s still divorcing me, tearing us apart for no reason—a fake reason,” he said.
She could hear the anger and desperation in his voice, and it made her want to go over there and hug him even if he was talking about Bekah.
Lexi steeled herself for what she was about to do. “Have you tried…talking to her about it?” She wanted to gag at the thought of urging him to talk to Bekah about it…to even hint at encouraging him to convince her not to go through with it, but she needed to be a friend right now.
“Of course I’ve tried to talk to her. She won’t see me. I had to move out. I’m staying with Seth and feel so…so…I don’t even know.”
She could almost see him in that moment—his eyes closed, his hands fisted into his dark brown hair, the look of pain on his face. It made her want to do something, anything to take it away. Despite everything they had gone through, she could never make herself stop caring. It was Jack.
“What did she say when she gave you the papers?”
He gave a stilted laugh. “I want a divorce. Then, she handed me the papers and told me to get out.”
“Just like that?” Lexi asked. Bekah was the devil.
“Just like that.”
“Was there any forewarning that this might happen?”
“No.”
“She wasn’t acting strange…erm, stranger?” Lexi asked.
“What do you want me to say? That I knew my wife was going to divorce me? That I should have seen the signs? That I should have known better? Well, I didn’t,” he growled. “I didn’t see any of it, and yeah, that probably makes me even more of a f**king idiot. But I tried every day for the past two years with Bekah, and I was still trying up until that day she handed me the papers. Marriage isn’t easy, but I wanted my marriage to work, so I put in the effort.”
“I’m sorry, Jack,” she whispered. She didn’t know what else to say to that. She wasn’t sorry about Bekah, but she was sorry for Jack.
“Please don’t pity me, Lex,” he said so softly she almost didn’t hear him. “Don’t remind me that I gave you up for this.”
Her heart seemed to hammer in her chest, and she pinched the bridge of her nose. Her throat felt swollen just for a minute as she fought back the tears threatening to spill out. Why now? Why did he have to realize this now? Too little, too late. She loved Ramsey. She was marrying Ramsey. End of the line.
When she felt like she could speak again without her throat closing up, she said, “I’ll find you a lawyer tomorrow, okay? I should probably go.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Hopefully, this will all be as painless as possible,” she encouraged, assuming Bekah would do her worst because she always did.
“For who? Certainly not me…”
She hated agreeing. He had dug the hole himself, and now, he had to sit in it, six feet under—right where Bekah wanted him.
Lexi hung up the phone and rested her head back on the couch. She sniffled and hugged her legs tight to her chest. She needed to stop this feeling.
But she couldn’t help it.
She felt really, really bad for Jack. It was an emotion she was so not used to. Normally, the things she felt for Jack were, ahem…a little lower on her body. When had this happened? All she felt in this moment was sympathy. She did pity him—even if he had told her not to. The thought of Jack being married to Bekah had always made her sick, but the thought of him actually hurting from the divorce…well, that was a different feeling entirely. It was like so much of her wanted him divorced…wanted him rid of Bekah finally. But at what cost?
It was so messy.
She sniffled again and tried to think of something else—like her engagement. She needed to tell Chyna. That was all she had left—well, Chyna and Jack, but Chyna needed to know before Jack did. That was for sure!
Lexi sat back up and reached for her phone just as the door to the office slowly pried open.
“Lexi?” Ramsey asked, peeking his head around the corner.
God, she hoped she didn’t look like she had been crying.