Chapter 12—Simon #3
Tate keeps going. “My parents know. The family knows. The trust was written for this exact situation. You’re leaving anyway, so none of this affects you once the divorce is final.”
She drops the folded cloth onto the table. “It affects me when Charla has to pretend to be me.”
He sounds dismissive again. “That was temporary.”
“Identity fraud usually sounds better when you call it temporary.”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
I push away from the table, but Christa catches two of my fingers before I can get more than a step. She doesn’t look at me. The contact is enough to tell me she knows exactly how angry I am and wants me beside her rather than in the conversation.
“The challenge stays,” she says.
Tate releases a long, frustrated breath. “Christa, for God’s sake. Do you understand what happens if the trustees don’t certify this? Dad keeps control. Everything he’s spent years arranging gets delayed because you’re angry about a marriage you don’t even want.”
“Celeste wants the challenge too.”
“Celeste is pissed off about her daughters.” He sounds totally unconcerned about his nieces.
She keeps her fingers linked through mine. “She has four good reasons.”
“She has four daughters who aren’t affected by this.”
She grips harder.
I turn my hand and lace our fingers properly. Christa looks at me for one second, and the anger in her eyes tells me Tate has done more damage to himself with that sentence than either lawyer could have managed.
“You should tell her that,” Christa says.
“What?”
“Call Celeste and explain why her daughters don’t matter.”
He sounds defensive. “That’s not what I said.”
“It was remarkably close.”
Tate swears. A drawer or cabinet opens and slams on his end before he returns to the point he apparently believes money can solve. “Withdraw the challenge. I’ll give you whatever you want in the divorce.”
Christa eases her hand from mine and leans against the edge of the table. “I already told you what I want.”
“Then name something else.”
“I don’t want anything else.”
He’s almost shouting now. “You expect me to believe you’re doing all this for principle?”
She rubs a spot on the tabletop with the folded cloth, although there’s nothing there. “I’m doing it because you don’t get to use me after I’m gone.”
“You aren’t gone yet.”
“I filed.”
“You’re still my wife.”
The claim comes out harder than the rest, full of an ownership he apparently remembers only when it benefits him. My shoulders tense before I can stop them.
Christa straightens. “Only on paper.”
Tate pauses. “Does Nichols know that?”
Her eyes meet mine.
“Tate.”
“Is he still there?”
“Yes.”
A humorless laugh comes through the phone. “Of course he is. He’s been waiting for this since the first time he got you into that house.”
Christa’s expression closes. “Don’t start.”
“You think I don’t know what men like him do? He sees somebody else’s wife having problems and suddenly he has furniture emergencies.”
I hate the man, but the furniture accusation is close enough to the truth that I glance toward the escritoire.
Christa catches me doing it. For one dangerous second, laughter threatens again.
Tate interprets our silence in the worst possible way. “He was waiting for you.”
Christa’s attention returns to the phone. “No. I was.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I hired Jai before Simon and I had our first real conversation.” She walks around the table and stops beside me. “I filed before I knew about you and Charla. Simon didn’t end our marriage. You and I managed that ourselves.”
“What does that mean, you and Simon?”
Christa could leave him wondering. Instead, she reaches for my hand again.
“We’re together.”
Nothing comes through the phone.
The silence stretches long enough that Christa glances at the screen to make sure the call hasn’t dropped.
Then Tate says, very quietly, “You’re sleeping with him.”
“Yes.”
A crash explodes through the speaker.
Christa jerks the phone away from the table, and I step in front of her before remembering Tate is miles away and can’t do anything from there.
“What was that?” I ask.
Tate ignores me. His breathing is harsh when he says, “You filed a week ago.”
Christa sets the phone down again, farther from the edge this time. “Yes.”
“We’re still married.”
“You have a pregnant mistress.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
Christa stares at the screen. “I’d love to hear the rationale for that.”
“Charla is carrying my child.”
“So adultery is acceptable if conception occurs?”
“Don’t twist my words.”
“I’m trying to locate the rule.”
The next silence lasts only a second before Tate explodes. “You’ve been fucking him while you’re still my wife, and you’re sitting there judging me?”
I take one step toward the phone.
Christa catches my wrist before I reach it.
Her fingers are cold now.
“I filed before Simon touched me,” she says, keeping her voice level. “You started sleeping with Charla while you were still blaming me for our marriage.”
“I didn’t ask for a lecture.”
“Then stop calling.”
“You couldn’t wait one week?” Tate sounds outraged, as though the timing is the betrayal he can’t forgive.
Christa’s eyebrows rise. “You couldn’t wait until the divorce.”
“We didn’t know you were divorcing me.”
“I wasn’t divorcing you when you started.”
Tate has no answer.
Christa is still holding my wrist. I don’t think she realizes it until I turn my arm and take her hand instead. She looks at our joined hands, then leaves hers in mine.
When Tate finally speaks, his anger has found a new target. “This is him. You don’t act like this.”
Christa’s face cools. “Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t. You don’t blow up families. You don’t drag lawyers into private business. You don’t run straight into another man’s bed.”
She steps closer to me, shoulder touching my arm now. “Apparently, you haven’t been paying much attention to me.”
“I know you better than he does.”
Christa studies the phone for a moment. When she answers, the anger is gone from her voice, and that worries me more.
“You didn’t know I’d moved half my sentimental belongings out of the house before I filed.
You didn’t know I’d hired an attorney. You didn’t know I’d stopped trying to save us.
You didn’t know I was leaving until a process server handed you the petition. ”
“Because you hid it.”
“Yes.”
“That’s not something to be proud of.”
She rubs her thumb once along the side of my hand. “I was afraid you’d make leaving harder if you knew.”
“I would have.” The answer is immediate.
Christa stops moving.
Even Tate appears to hear what he said, because he rushes to cover it. “I mean, I would have wanted to talk about it.”
Her fingers loosen from mine. “You had three years to talk to me.”
“About what?” His contempt returns quickly. “You being unhappy because we weren’t having a baby?”