Page 19 of Resolving Rumors

“Again, I am your wife and you don’t have to stand for it, but this house will be mine in the divorce.”

I laughed at Justice and the notion that I might owe her a damn thing. “You forgot that we signed a prenup.”

The evil grin on her face should have been warning enough, but it didn’t fully prepare me for what was coming.

“Oh? You mean the prenup that you never bothered to take to the clerk of court’s office to file away for safe keeping?”

I glanced toward my bedroom where I kept all my important papers in a safe. There was no way she could get into that. Her smirk grew into a full-blown evil grin as if she could read my mind and was about to disabuse me of the notion that I had one up on her.

“You are more predictable than a watch, asshole. Your safe code was Victoria’s birthday. My present for knowing that was to find the prenup and toss it in the fire.” I glanced to the living room, where there was indeed a fire that seemed to be dying out. “Since you didn’t think to make copies or file it with the court, you can’t prove there was ever a prenup. Now, I’m going to ask you again where the hell you have been. You didn’t come home at all last night and my parents stopped by to invite us out to dinner.”

“That sounds like a personal problem.” I threw the words at her along with my sneer as I made my way back to the bedroom to find she had left the safe wide open. The little bit of emergency money I normally kept in there, about $5,000, was notably missing.

“You can’t just disappear to be with your ex-girlfriend. We are married and I am pregnant. What if something happened to the baby and I had an emergency.”

“Seeing as to how you’re standing here harassing me, that wish wasn’t granted.” It was a cold thing to say, but Justice plucked my last fucking nerve with her bullshit. I sifted through all my important papers. Nothing else was missing, but that didn’t mean much. One thing that did catch my eye was our marriage certificate. Something itched at the back of my mindabout it in conjunction with the prenup, but before the thought could fully form, I was hit with a fucking shoe.

I turned a hate-filled glare on Justice as she wound her arm back, ready to lob another high heel at my back. “Put it down or I will have you arrested for domestic abuse.”

“Who would believe you?” She shouted the question at me as she patted her belly, as if that made her seem innocent.

I pointed to the corner of my room. “The video footage speaks for itself. Just like it will when I explain how you broke into my personal safe, stole important legal documents out, destroyed them, and helped yourself to my emergency stash of $20,000.”

“There was only $5,000 in that safe!” She didn’t think before the correction slipped from her mouth.

“So you acknowledge that the amount you stole from me is constituted as a felony theft in Virginia?” I questioned. It was my turn to smirk at her.

She laughed, but I didn’t miss the panic beneath the sound. “We’re married. What’s yours is mine.”

“We had a prenup that stated otherwise,” I assured her.

“Prove it.”

“No need. That camera isn’t the only one in this house. You readily admitted to burning the prenup. The cameras caught you stealing it from my safe, throwing it into the fire, and gloating to me about how you did it. You admitted on camera that we had a prenup. I don’t need more proof than that.

She screamed out her frustration at me. “You will take me to dinner tomorrow night, in public. You will pretend to be happy with me at first, where my parents can see us. Then, we’ll fake a massive fight, so they won’t be blindsided when I have to move back in with them until I convince Brody to get me my own place. If you do that, and play along for another month or so, I will give you the annulment you want.”

Something like pure evil shined in Justice’s eyes and I didn’t trust her for one fucking second. “Fine,” I agreed. It would make things easier on me.

“In return, you will give me those tapes.”

It was my turn to laugh. “No, I don’t think I will. We’ll call those tapes my collateral. And before you get any ideas, they download to a protected server that is not in this house. They also download to cloud storage, so even if you knew where the server was, you would never get your hands on every copy.”

“You will be on your best behavior tomorrow night!” She shouted as she stomped off to her own bedroom.

I closed my door and locked it, worried that the bitch would try to kill me in my sleep if I gave her the opportunity. I pulled my cell out and tried to call Victoria again. She needed to know about the date I had coming up with Justice. One again, she didn’t answer her phone, so I sent a quick text.

Devin: Something happened. I wanted to explain, but keep getting sent to voicemail. I have to go out on a date with Justice tomorrow, in public. I am going to cause a scene with her, so everyone - who isn’t our family - will know we are headed for Splitsville. I want us to tell our families everything. I love you. Don’t forget that.

I didn’t bother to wait for a response. I needed food, a shower, and a good night’s sleep to help me deal with the crazy bitch who lived in my house.

Chapter

Thirteen

VICTORIA

After a hard night of sleep,I finally picked up my phone and took a look at it. I don’t know why I thought Devin didn’t care. The phone message he left mentioned my brother taking them on the scenic route back and that his phone died with no charger in the car. I turned to stare guiltily at my purse, where I’d accidentally stuffed his charger cord because it was still attached to my phone when we got out of the car.

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