“Oh my God,” I breathe.
His eyes meet mine, the hunger in them nearly making me forget the reality that just punched me in the face. “What’s wrong?” he asks, his voice husky, sending its usual shiver up my back.
“I’m…. We can’t do this!” I squeak out, my throat tight. “You’re my boss, Win. And… and I’m still married.”
“You’re separated, and what does it matter that I’m your boss? What I feel for you is real, no matter how we met,” he tells me, his hand loosening its grip in my hair when he sees the emotion in my eyes.
“I may be separated, but no divorce papers have been filed. And I don’t even know when that will happen, since it’s up to me to somehow come up with the money to do it. And if what everyone says is true, that shit is not cheap, especially when there are children and ten years of assets involved.”
“Then let me pay. Let me help you—”
I’m shaking my head before he’s even finished speaking. “No way. There is no way I’m letting you pay for my divorce. That is just…. It feels wrong.”
“What’s so wrong about it, Cece? You want out of this marriage, and he’s given you this… demand that he knows you’re financially unable to fulfill. Now, we don’t know the reason he has for making it up to you to pay for it when he’s the one who cheated, but I have a sneaking suspicion it has something to do with maybe an agreement y’all had when you got married. Did you happen to have a prenup?”
I shake my head again. “No, nothing like that. I feel like… maybe he’s taking advantage of the fact that, in the beginning, when we first separated, I stupidly told him I didn’t need him and didn’t want anything from him. I let my bruised ego, my idiotic pride, get in the way of my logical sense and have been struggling like hell to make ends meet. And now he’s gotten used to not having to take care of me. He still pays child support, but even that, I low-balled him, because I was all ‘girl power’ and ‘I don’t need a man!’ I’ve never even spoken to a lawyer, because I… because I thought this was… Ugh! I don’t know what I thought. It never even crossed my mind that I’d one day be separated and getting divorced, so I never had a backup plan in place. I never even let my mind wander about ‘What would I do if someday this wasn’t my life.’ And I have not done a good job of winging it.”
“Then let me help you. Naekkeo, I can literally walk… twenty feet away”—he holds his arm out, hand up, gesturing toward the door behind the bar—“open up a safe, and hand you the money that would otherwise just be sitting there for a rainy day. When it would take you God only knows how long to save it up yourself. Fuck, I’ll loan it to you, if that makes you feel better. You can just borrow it for now, and then pay me back little by little. And in the meantime, you’ll be free of him. You won’t have this hanging over your head. It’ll just be done, and you can finally get on with your life.”
I bite my lip. God, it’s so tempting. But at the same time, it makes me feel so awkward having the man I was just making out with offer to pay for my divorce from my husband. Isn’t there a saying about counting your chickens before they hatch? Or would it be having my cake and eating it too? One of those damn metaphors has gotta fit, where I shouldn’t be having feelings for anyone before I’m even legally single.
But Winston is right. It could take years for me to be able to save up to file for divorce. And if I were to take out a loan to do it, there would be interest on top of that. If I take Winston’s offer, at least I’m borrowing it from someone I trust and who will understand what I’m going through.
And just the thought of being able to go ahead and file as soon as possible instead of having to wait makes this huge weight lift off my shoulders, weight I didn’t even realize I was carrying around until now.
Finally, I nod, looking up at him hesitantly. “A loan. And… I want you to go ahead and take payments out of my paycheck, so I won’t even have to worry about it,” I tell him, and he brushes that off.
“We can figure all that out later. First and foremost, you need to find a lawyer, one who has experience with women like you, who have been stay at home moms for most if not all of their marriage,” he tells me, and I agree.