Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 88115 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88115 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
She shook her head, looking down as her cheeks flushed red. “No. I’m uh, a little behind on my prenatal visits. Setting up a primary care physician that takes my insurance has been hard, so I’ve been going to a free clinic.”
“Well that won’t do.” I shook my head, trying to put everything in perspective. I felt like I had just been handed an obscenely long to-do list and I was still struggling to get to know the language to understand it. “Look, I’ll be honest and say I don’t know if I’m ready for something like this in my life, by I do know that if you’ve made the decision to keep it, we need to make sure that we take care of it.
“Just because I want a divorce, doesn’t mean we can’t get to know each other and figure this out. I mean, we got along plenty well enough in Vegas. There’s no reason we can’t interact more and get a feel for if we want each other in our lives.”
Some of her shocked look faded, but mostly she just seemed confused. “You’d really be up for that?”
“Why not? According to everything I’ve learned from this lawyer, none of the process is very fast. And considering that I’ve only had two hours to digest the idea that there might be a mini-me coming in six months, I need some more time to think.”
I felt like if this was any other woman, she would have started crying, or accusing me of being heartless, or cold. But Nicole just sighed in relief and practically collapsed her top half onto the table.
“Honestly, that sounds amazing. I’ll admit, I’m scared. And keeping you from the baby seemed wrong, but I had no way to get in touch with you. I tried the internet a couple of times, but do you know how many successful business men there are named James?”
I actually chuckled at that, the first bit of humor that I had felt since I had first opened my email. The sound seemed to put Nicole even more at ease, and she looked to me gratefully. It reminded me so much of her expression back in Vegas that I had to fight for my body not to start responding.
“You know, I haven’t been able to go out like this in ages.”
That gave me pause. I had glanced at the menu and everything was under fifty dollars. In fact, the cannelloni that she had ordered was only fourteen. Was… was this what it was like for those who weren’t as economically blessed as me? While I knew that being poor was certainly hard and uncomfortable, I guess that I had never really thought about it in every day terms. But the thought of not being able to afford a meal that was less than twenty dollars was flabbergasting to me.
“I’m glad I could oblige,” I answered, feeling the mood relax between us.
Somehow, with the important, stressful matters now out of the way, we were able to loosen up and talk again. Surprisingly, she asked about my business and if any important updates had happened since Vegas, and I found out about her childhood.
Well, not much about her childhood. She was open about some things, like silly stories and embarrassing growth spurts, but when it came to her parents, or her school, or even childhood friends, she was unusually tight lipped. It piqued my curiosity, but my mind was so full of everything else that had happened that I tucked it into the back of my mind to worry about later.
And she was right, the food was absolutely delicious. We both ate our fill and when it came time for dessert, we shared a decadent piece of triple chocolate cake.
“Is this our celebratory divorce cake?” She asked, giggling slightly. The sound was nice coming out of her mouth and I remembered how much she had made me smile in Vegas.
“Well let’s not celebrate yet. I’ll call my lawyer and see if he can refer me to someone who can help us down here.”
“Do lawyers do that? Hand off their business to people willy nilly?”
“My lawyer is on retainer and will get paid no matter what. Plus, Lawyers trade favors all the time. Helps them with their connections and all that other stuff they like to do.”
“Oh,” she nodded, giving me a strange look. “You know a lot about them. Are you some sort of lawyer?”
“We’ve been talking about my business for almost half an hour, how is it you don’t know what I do?”
“Really we only talked about your successes and your team. For all I know, you’re astronauts selling real estate for a Mars colony.”
“Not quite,” I said with a laugh. “Consider us sort of business brokers, or sellers of a headhunting service. It’s a bit of a mixed bag.”