Даниэла Стил - All That Glitters

“I can’t believe this,” Coco said to him, but she did believe it. She had been afraid of exactly this happening again. “I came home to tell you that I’m pregnant, you son of a bitch,” she said, picked up a book and threw it at his head, and narrowly missed him.

“Coco, please!” he said with a tortured look.

“Not this time,” she said in an icy tone. “You can both get the fuck out of my house. Now!” The girl scurried off to the bathroom with her clothes in her arms, and Nigel stood staring at her.

“Are you really pregnant?” He looked shell-shocked. Again.

“It doesn’t matter now. Just go. Both of you. I’ll come back with the police if you don’t.” And he knew she would. Then she turned around and ran down the stairs. She went back to the office and didn’t say anything to Leslie, she was too upset. And when she went home at six o’clock, he was gone. He had taken his computer, and some clothes. He knew she meant business. She didn’t cry this time. It was over. She was dead inside, except for a baby she didn’t want now. And she didn’t want him either. He had killed everything she had ever felt for him, and he had made a fool of her again for loving and trusting him.

She lay awake that night, and called the lawyer in the morning, to file the papers. She didn’t know what she was going to do about the baby, but she could figure that out in a few days.

—

Two days after Nigel left, she was sitting, staring out the window at first light, when she heard a text come in. She thought it might be from Nigel, but it wasn’t. She hadn’t heard from him this time. He didn’t know what to say, and was smart enough not to try, and make things worse for himself. The text was from Sam.

“I just got engaged” was all it said, and she was almost as sad for him as she was for herself. It was a dark day for both of them. Her mistake had just ended. And his had just begun. She didn’t have the heart to answer and congratulate him. She was always honest with him. She finally texted a single phrase. “Mazel tov.” His parents had won. He was throwing his life away with a girl they both knew he didn’t love.

The man she had loved and done too much for had thrown her away for another blonde.

Chapter 11

Coco had called her attorney before she did anything else the morning after she found Nigel cheating on her. It had been four months since she had spoken to him and she apologized for the time lapse and not following through before.

“We were trying to work things out again. It’s not possible. He cheated on me again. I want to file for divorce.”

“Remind me how long you’ve been married. It wasn’t long, as I recall.”

“It will be a year next week.”

“That’s excellent, and works well for us. You have to be married a year to file for divorce, as I told you before. So we’ll file next week. All the papers are still in order. I’m glad you’ve moved on this quickly. Even a year is considered a short-term marriage, and won’t impress any judge if your ex-husband makes unreasonable financial demands. And no children.” She didn’t tell him she was pregnant, in case she decided not to keep it. She hadn’t made up her mind yet. “Is there anything else that I should know, that you didn’t mention before?” He was matter-of-fact and methodical, which she liked. And she tried to be as well. She had already given him a copy of their marriage contract, and Ed’s office number in New York for any financial information he needed.

“I’ve caught him having sex with other women, twice. Both times in our home,” she said tersely. There was a brief silence as he considered that, and wrote it down. “I didn’t tell you about the second time before. It happened yesterday.”

“We’ll file on grounds of adultery then. Do you know the women’s names?”

“Only one of them,” the girl from Time magazine.

“And you’re sure you want to file for divorce this time?” he asked her.

“A hundred percent. I gave him another chance. He did it again. I’m not waiting for the third time.”

“That sounds like a wise decision,” he said dryly. “I doubt that he’ll be eligible for spousal support if he asks for it, after less than a year. He’s employed?”

“Not at the moment. He lost his job in June.”

“There seems to be nothing new to add, except that one detail, since we last spoke. I can get the papers over to you today for you to read and verify. The faster you sign them, the faster I can submit them to the court, which seems like it might be a good thing to do in this case.”

“That one detail” was the blonde he’d been having sex with yesterday, she thought as she hung up.

She left the house with a heavy heart, wondering if she should sell it. Even with one baby it would be too big for her, and the house felt cursed. She had never wanted it, and had only bought it to make him happy, which was no longer of interest to her. And there was the house in Sussex. The house in the city had some real value, and had been expensive, but the one in Sussex had been a bargain. She had paid less for it than two weeks on the yacht with ten of his friends. Everything he had done during the year of their marriage had cost her money in large amounts, and allowed him to show off to the people he wanted to impress.

The texts from Nigel started coming once she got to the office. Frantically at first, apologizing and swearing it would never happen again. And with no response from her, they slowed down quickly. Her only text to him stated the name of her lawyer, and to expect to hear from him shortly, and asking for the name of his. She had no other comment on the scene she had walked in on the day before. It hurt less this time. It had been only slightly less dramatic, except for the fact that she was pregnant, and had hoped that he’d be overjoyed, and it might save their marriage. There was nothing left to save now, if there ever had been. She didn’t know anymore. Maybe it had only been about money for him, and had been a setup from the first. He was well versed about what she had from her parents, which he knew from their prenup and had probably culled from the press and gotten off the Internet. Fortunately, their numbers weren’t accurate, but they were bad enough, and a lure to bad guys like him. It was the flash of men like him that always got to her. The dazzle. Of Ed, and now Nigel. Even her own trustee, appointed by her father, had taken advantage of her. In Ed’s case, he had stolen her trust and innocence, Nigel had done the same and upped the stakes by getting her to spend millions for his benefit. At least she had something solid to show for it, and could sell both houses as soon as possible. She didn’t want to live in either of them.

The forms for her to check and sign arrived from her lawyer shortly before noon, and she told Leslie what had happened.

“I’m filing for divorce,” she said matter-of-factly, as Leslie nodded, shocked and sorry for Coco, but no longer surprised.

“I’ve known him since we were kids. I didn’t think he was capable of something like this.” It was highway robbery and manipulation on a grand scale. Coco was young, but she was nobody’s fool. She was onto him now. And Nigel knew it too.

He managed to surprise her again a week later, with an email where he mentioned the name of a lawyer he had hired to represent him. He wasn’t begging to come back this time. He knew she’d never let him, and was turning his attention to more practical aspects now. She read his most astonishing paragraph twice to make sure she had understood it fully.

“If you really are pregnant, as you said, and didn’t just invent that out of whole cloth to hurt me and make the situation worse, bringing up a child is a collaborative venture, and I cannot imagine our being able to cooperate with each other now, given your attitude toward me. I doubt that you would continue with the pregnancy, in these circumstances, but if you do, I would relinquish all parental claim to the result of the pregnancy in exchange for full ownership of our London home. This would be in addition to any financial arrangements and consideration the courts would give me, and not in lieu of.” She assumed that his lawyer had helped him with the language. The idea behind it was pure Nigel, and showed her a total lack of caring and morality. He didn’t even have the decency to refer to it as a baby. Just reading it disgusted her, and she had no intention of giving him anything, let alone an extremely valuable piece of London real estate that she should be able to sell easily. The house apparently meant more to him than his own child.