Vegas Baby

“We do,” he said, sharing my laugh. Despite how tense our morning had started, it was much better now that both of our secrets were out. “You certainly had a rollercoaster of a few months.”

“I really did,” I said, sighing. Now that I had just spelled out one of the worst experiences of my life, I was feeling a little emotionally empty. “I’m sure you get now why I have such troubles trusting people. Everyone I’ve ever let in has always hurt me for their own self-interest. So, when I thought I could be pregnant, I knew I had to run. I couldn’t risk that you were just like everything else.”

He reached forward, his large hand covering my own. “I can’t blame you for what you did. As much as I wish we could have worked through this together from the start, I understand exactly why you did what you did. To be honest, if I was in your shoes I probably would have done the same thing.

“You are an incredibly strong woman, Nicole. And I’m sure you know a part of that, but I don’t think you get just quite how incredible you are.”

I blushed. How did this stern, intimidating billionaire always know what to say to turn the situation on its head? It was uncanny -not that I was complaining.

“Well, I don’t know about that…”

“I do,” he let go of my hand and sat back, pulling out his cellphone. “So, how about we see what’s available for delivery this early?”

I nodded, more than eager to put everything behind us and never think of bankruptcy or Jason or terrible exes. “That sounds great. After that, we can call the lawyer and actually do something productive.”

“Perfect. So, are you feeling traditional, or do you want to shake it up a little?”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

~James~

I drove along, Nicole be bopping to some sort of pop song in another language. I had given her the aux cord and now I was regretting it slightly.

But considering how terribly our morning had started, I was pretty happy with how the mood had changed.

I still couldn’t believe what Nicole had told me. All it had taken was one jealous woman to completely ruin her experience in her home town. Just that fact that there was someone so vindictive and vile got me pretty angry, but then when I heard how Jason had completely left Nicole to the sharks, and then her mother too, I was livid.

From what I could tell, Nicole was a hardworking, funny woman who didn’t ask for anything from anyone. And the moment that she finally did need help, no one had been there for her.

Maybe it was because she was so different from everyone else. I’d met a whole lot of people in my life, but none of them were quite like her. She was a complicated mix of sarcastic and open, loving and guarded. She was beautiful and funny and most importantly, kind. Of course, she was far from perfect, but who wasn’t? She was a far better person than I could ever be, and I knew that she was going to be a great mother to our being.

But all of that also made me feel that much more protective of her. For being my future ex-wife, I was certainly invested in her future. I had a feeling we were going about this entirely the wrong way, and that we definitely needed to stop sleeping together and getting to know each other, but life seemed very determined to keep pushing us further and further into each other’s business.

Getting things dealt with on Trevor’s end would no doubt help as well. We were lucky that he was willing to meet with us on a Sunday again. I was paying out of the wazoo for the impromptu weekend hours, but I was sure the fat paychecks was one of the reasons Trevor was so willing to meet with us.

We arrived before him again, but the receptionists lead us right to the same room as before and got us a set of drinks.

“This guy’s not very punctual, is she?” Nicole asked, looking to me with a bit of a bored expression. If I had to guess, working her boring nine-to-five job was probably less than fun for her, so she looked to the weekends for fun. I imagine fighting with a man she’d gone to one date with and then talking with a divorce lawyer was less than an ideal break for her.

Hopefully, we would be able to get this over with and get onto something she would actually enjoy.

“Hello there, sorry for making you wait again,” Trevor said, speed walking in with his briefcase just as before. “You think, after ten years of living here, I’d know to calculate for after-church traffic, yet here I am.”