Page 35 of Billionaire Hunt

He looked pained. “Yeah, I was an ass. I did that on purpose to hurt you. I was just angry because I thought the judge was going to award you the house.”

“You’re a real winner,” I said, thinking of Erik’s assessment of Wyatt. He was so right. “You would have thought that after 8 years of marriage I would have known how ugly a person you are.”

He looked ashamed again and said, almost pleadingly, “If I could rewind time, I would. I wouldn’t have taken away your granny’s home.”

“It’s fine. We don’t want your charity nor do we need it.” Thanks to the job I took with Erik I had been able to get my grandma another place to stay. She had actually preferred to stay at the home with her friend, so even though there was a long waiting list, I was able to jump on the first opening there. It was a small studio apartment, not much bigger than a hotel room, but it was in the heart of the city and Grandma thought it was perfect. She was surrounded by seniors and more active than she had been in years. Not to mention, she still insisted on working. She told me it was like getting paid to chitchat except that a lot of people hung up on you or yelled. I loved my granny.

“I know---I wasn’t offering charity---I mean I should---God, I’m messing this all up,” he shook his head and said, “I’m just sorry. For everything.”

I had dreamt of this day when Wyatt came back to me apologizing for his foolish ways. Strangely enough, in my dream I was always on Mt. Olympus dressed like Athena, while Wyatt groveled in front of me, pleading with me to not turn him into a jackass.

In my dream I always laughed wickedly, pointed a staff at him and turned him into a buck-tooth donkey. Reality wasn’t nearly as much fun or impressive as my dreams. We were in Walgreens for god’s sake, in line with a bunch of strangers while I stood around not in a goddess-like gown but in a pair of shorts and a sports bra with a busted-up knee.

Speaking of which, my knee was starting to burn. I was next in line and turned to Wyatt and said, “This has been fun. Let’s not do this ever again. Good luck with life. Buh-bye.”

He looked like he wanted to say more, but he was smart and didn’t. He turned away from me without another word and made his way out of the door. Immediately the alarm sounded and he rushed back in, eyes wide.

“I forgot this was in my hand. I’m so sorry,” he said, passing a bottle of painkillers to the cashier who looked bored and not the least worried that a customer had technically stolen something.

“You should have him arrested,” I said to the cashier who just shrugged her shoulders.

“Whatever. That would be way too much work. That’ll be 8 dollars,” she said as she tossed Wyatt’s pills behind her without even looking and finished ringing me up.

I looked at her, looked at the little box of pills and said, “Seriously? Almost ten dollars for this little bottle of pills?”

“I don’t make the rules, I just sell the drugs,” she said with a little laugh. Apparently, she was attempting to be witty and clever. If she hadn’t been so useless earlier, I probably would have been more inclined to laugh at her little joke.

I paid the eight dollars, albeit bitterly, and limped with my pills back to my car, the whole time cursing the pharmaceutical industry for the price of pills.

As I lowered myself gently into the driver’s seat, I thought about the day I’d had. And at the end of the day, it wasn’t my ex I was thinking of, it was Erik. Wyatt had barely been a blip on my radar.

I was surprised. Eight years of marriage and I felt nothing for him.

I picked up the phone and dialed Emmaline and Lacey. They both picked up and I told them all that happened. I ended by saying how I was indifferent to Wyatt.

“I can’t say that I’m surprised,” said Lacey first.

“Me neither,” Emmaline chimed in.

“You guys just seemed to be going through the motions for years. I’m kind of surprised you weren’t divorced sooner,” Lacey said.

“What?!” This was news to me. I had no idea my friends felt that way.

“Come on now, Misha. You must have known Wyatt wasn’t the right guy for you.”

“No,” I said softly, “I didn’t know that. Why didn’t you guys tell me?” My voice broke and I instantly pulled the car over, not wanting to cry while on the road.

I was able to hold back the tears, but my sadness was quickly replaced with anger.

“Why didn’t either of you say anything?”

“It really wasn’t our place to say anything,” said Emmaline. “I mean, Wyatt wasn’t a bad guy and he treated you great---”

“Aside from the cheating--” Lacey cut in.

“Yeah, aside from that,” Emmaline added.

A terrible thought occurred to me and I just had to ask. “Wait. Did you guys know he was cheating?”