Chapter 12 Lottie #2
But things have changed since then. Sure, I still have a plan to rebuild myself, to go back to having that life—at least the professional one. But even I can admit to myself that I had started to slow down before inheriting the store, almost giving up hope on ever getting back on track.
Just then, a chilling thought pops into my head: if Walter hadn’t left me part of the store, given me new purpose and financial gain to get back to my old life, would I ever have found the opportunity to leave Ceres Cove?
I suppress a shiver.
“Well,” I continue, pushing past his compliment and other intrusive thoughts.
“The brand put me in charge of every single one of our retail stores in the US and abroad. Everything from how the stores were set-up, our merchandise, the way operations were run, sales… all of it, was run by me. And I was good at it. But more importantly, I loved it,” I say proudly, devastated at having lost it all—willingly.
“What happened, then? Why aren’t you doing that anymore? And what does it have to do with your divorce?”
“I’m getting to that.” This is the hard part. This is where it gets real, and the nausea and shame start to creep in at the colossal mistake I made. If not the worst, then certainly one of the biggest. “I, uh, quit my job.”
“Why? Did you decide to start your own thing or something?”
I squeeze my eyes shut and press my lips together, not wanting to get too explicit with the details. Because, yes, at the time, I did want to start my own thing: my own family. “I, ah… Yeah, sort of.”
But I don’t elaborate. I’m not about to embarrass myself and tell him how my manipulative husband begged me to quit my job when it seemed to be interfering with my IVF treatments.
Turns out, hormone injections and my endometriosis and PCOS didn’t mix well.
Forget about the regular side effects of IVF—add to that an increase in already debilitating pain, nausea, and so many other fun ones that made existing downright impossible.
To say the whole thing was a nightmare is an understatement.
So, Finn convinced me to leave everything I’d worked for behind, despite the fact that I was clearly not doing well, that my health had deteriorated to an unmanageable level. He wanted me to prioritize having a kid over my health and my career.
“Who cares whether you still have a career to come back to? You know I’m going to take care of you—of us,” he’d promised. “Of course I’ll support you financially. The stress from work is why you’re not getting pregnant. Just quit your job, focus all your energy on this. We’re going to be a family.”
And with those final six words he’d seduced me into prioritizing his wants over my need to be healthy.
We’re going to be a family.
It’s what I repeated to myself over and over again whenever I felt close to breaking.
It was my North Star. My motivation. The ultimate goal, even though it had never been something I wanted until he told me I did.
So I gave up my career, put myself through endless treatments and diets and tried absolutely everything to get pregnant—even though our doctors told us it would be close to impossible given my medical history.
I was in constant pain, sick, run down… But it was all for the baby, so who cared, right? It would be worth it.
I knew motherhood was about sacrifices, and this would just be my first one.
Finn wanted me as his baby maker to continue his family line—something I didn’t even see until divorce proceedings, when certain messed up clauses came up from our prenup—and I had failed.
After two years, I barely recognized myself.
I told him I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t put my body and mind and heart through it all, only to be crushed with disappointment every time I got my period.
How the combined IVF treatments and my worsening endometriosis were killing me.
How I wanted a hysterectomy and he pretended to be supportive about it.
And then…
Upon seeing my discomfort, Knox’s eyes flash to mine. “Hey. Are you okay? Did he hurt you or something?” There’s a menacing tone in his voice, a protective one that makes me feel some kind of way.
“No, he didn’t hurt me,” I say softly, a small smile on my lips, because god, Knox is so sweet. “Not in the way you mean.”
“Good,” he almost growls.
“We were… having issues. I was going through some… Stuff. And… It’s a long story, but I quit my job for him.
Left everything I’d built for him. I… pretty much did everything he wanted me to.
In the end, though, we became two pieces of a puzzle that didn’t fit.
” I make a disgusted noise, squeezing my eyes shut.
Truly, in all of this, I am my biggest disappointment.
Sure, I wanted kids. But never at the expense of myself—and that’s how it all ended.
“Even so, he blindsided me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that one day, everything was fine, kind of,”—or as best as it could be when your marriage’s sole focus had become procreation—“and then I was randomly served with divorce papers by his attorney while I was at home alone. I mean that I suddenly had forty-eight hours to move out because the apartment was under his name. That I was broke because he’d frozen our joint accounts and I had nowhere to go.
” I shrug nonchalantly, the apathy in my eyes a stark contrast to the actual agony I feel just at the memory alone.
“Whoa. Just like that? No warning?” I nod and he scoffs. “What a dick.”
“Yup.”
“Well, at least you didn’t have kids, right? Makes divorce easier.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at his statement, so I look away.
Thankfully, Knox doesn’t push for more. I’m sure he knows there’s more to the story, but he offers me the same courtesy I offered him.
There’s so much I’m ashamed of, so much I’m embarrassed by.
So much that broke me and made it so that I had to come back to the one place I fought to stay away from, with my tail between my legs, feeling like I failed.
I failed at being a woman, a wife, a professional, and had no idea how to move forward.
And even though Knox and I aren’t anything to each other right now except for business partners—maybe friends—I still don’t want him to know about all of it.
It’s too much. I’m too much.
“Yeah. Easier.”
I cringe, wracking my brain for a way to get us to talk about something else—taxes, the current state of the economy, the latest feud between the Kardashian sisters, literally anything other than my divorce—but there’s no need:
“We’re almost there.” He points in the direction of a massive sign by the highway announcing the convention.
I exhale deeply, hoping that the topic will be forgotten, but knowing all too well he won’t be able to let it go forever.