Page 16 of Bonds of Shame, Bonds of Lust

"Lacey." Her voice had changed. "What has he actually said to you?"

I hadn't wanted to get to this part. She waited me out, as she does.

"He called last week. After the mediation fell apart." I looked at the steam. "He said I'd never once made him feel like a man. He said the money was the least I owed him for fifteen years of— He used the word tolerating. Fifteen years of tolerating me." My thumb kept moving on the handle of the mug. "He said no one was ever going to want what's left, and that I should take the deal while a man was still willing to be in a room with me."

The café went on around us, the hiss of the espresso machine, someone laughing too loud near the door.

Janice's hand had closed around her glass hard enough that her knuckles had gone pale.

"I want you to listen to me," she said. "That man cleaned you out while you were at work saving children, and he is now shaking you down for the privilege of leaving, and he is telling you nobody will want you, because a man who has taken everything still needs to take the last thing." She leaned in. "It's a con, Lacey. Start to finish. He's not confused. He's not unwell. He's not going through something. He picked your pocket and he's holding the door hostage and he is telling you it's your fault so you'll pay to make it stop."

"I know."

"Do you?" She let it sit. "Because you keep saying his position and my lawyer says. You're charting him."

I didn't have an answer.

"He shook my hand," I said. "At the last mediation. When we broke for lunch. He shook my hand like we'd concluded a piece of business." I looked up at her. "And I sat there afterward with a folder in my lap thinking I don't think I'll ever be free of him at this rate, and I know that's the point. It's just strange."

Janice reached across and ran her thumb slowly along the inside of my wrist before settling her hand over mine.

"You don't have to do anything until you're ready," she said. "But six months is a long time to be alone."

"I know." The server refilled my coffee and I stared at the steam. "I keep thinking about what you said that day. Before everything. About exploring, having fun, living differently." I shook my head. "I told you I wanted that. And now the thought just sits there and I can't make myself pick it up."

Janice leaned forward, elbows on the table. I knew the posture. Done being gentle.

"It has been six months, Lacey, of being a good ex-wife. The good doctor. The good girl who holds it together and doesn't make waves and goes home to an empty house every night and calls it healing." She leveled her gaze at me. "You don't have to look for love. You don't have to look for anything serious. Look for Mr. Right Now. Look for fun. For once in all your thirty-five years of being responsible and careful and good, let yourself have a good time." She sat back. "You're gorgeous, you're successful, you're free. That is not nothing, Lacey. That is everything."

The words landed one at a time. "I'm not free. He won't let me be free. And I'm not successful, I'm in debt." I turned the mug slowly in my hands. "Most days I'm not sure I'm still in here. Like whoever I used to be packed up and left when Brad did, and I'm walking around in her coat."

"You're not gone," Janice said, her voice dropping, her eyes steady. "You're standing in the dark. That's different. The dark isn't permanent."

A man passed the table on his way to the bar, broad-shouldered, dark jacket, nothing remarkable about him.

I reached for my coffee.

Janice's eyes followed mine to the bar and back, and the slow delighted smile appeared.

"Lacey Anne Bonds," she said. "Did you just check out that man's ass?"

"I was looking at the bar."

"You were looking at what was walking to the bar."

"I was." I stopped. There was no version of this I was winning. "My hormones are apparently no longer accepting my terms and conditions."

Janice pressed both hands flat on the table. "Six months of celibacy, and a terrible marriage before that." She shook her head slowly, with the gravity of a doctor delivering a diagnosis. "Honey, your hormones aren't out of control. They staged a coup. There's a difference." She picked up her latte. "Also, he had a great ass. I'm just saying."

I laughed despite myself. "Can we please talk about something else?"

"Absolutely not," she said pleasantly.

I laughed again, shorter, and then it faded.

Janice watched me, and I watched her watch me, and after a moment she set her latte down and the teasing went out of her eyes.

"Talk to me," she said.