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Her eyes widened. “Brendan. As in Brendan Ward, Brendan? Your ex-husband, Brendan? The love of your life, Brendan?”
I cringed. “Yes to the first, but no to the other two.” He had been the love of my life, but he wasn’t my love anymore.
“Right. You know you…” She trailed off and narrowed her eyes. “Wait. You said ‘no to the other two?’”
I nodded, taking a generous bite of the pizza. “Yep.”
“Since I know you’re lying about him not being the love of your life, I’ll have to assume this is about the ex-husband part?”
I didn’t even try to argue with her. “Correct.”
“Are you telling me that he’s also not your ex-husband? So either you two didn’t actually get married, which I gather you would be overjoyed to share. Or you two didn’t actually get divorced, which would explain why you’ve been hiding for two days.”
I grunted, taking another bite of pizza.
Her hands flew to her face, palms pressing against her cheeks. “Oh my god, you’re still married to Brendan!”
Having lost my appetite, I tossed the pizza on the counter and stumbled over to the kitchen table. Sinking into one of the chairs, I propped my chin in my hands. “Long story short, we were young and dumb and hired a scam artist instead of a real lawyer. I thought I’d put this all behind me, Danielle. I just can’t revisit it.”
“So, what’s the problem? Hire a divorce attorney now.” She waved her hand in the air like she was waving a magic wand. “Presto-chango. Your divorce will be final.”
I looked at her, pure misery pouring out of my every cell. “It isn’t quite so simple.”
“Why not? If he does anything to stop it, I’ll kill him. Slowly,” she hissed.
“You’re bloodthirsty today,” I muttered. “I’m kind of digging it. But, no. He’s offered me a divorce. And I get to choose which kind I want.”
Danielle shook her head. “A choice?”
“Yep. Option A is to get a loud and very public and messy divorce right now. Or, option B is a nice and quiet one in a few months… if I do him a favor.”
She rubbed at her eyes. “A favor? What kind of favor?”
“He needs a wife, and conveniently, he has one. He wants me to live with him for a few months and pretend that we’re working on our marriage so he can impress some landowner into selling his land to him. The whole thing is ridiculous, and I wouldn’t even begin to go along with it except…” I rolled my head on my shoulders, trying to release some of the knots in the muscles.
“Except what?”
“Except that a loud and messy divorce might sidetrack my career before it even gets started.” As pain washed over me, I pressed a hand to my stomach.
Danielle narrowed her eyes. “How many times have I told you how stupid that is?”
I wrinkled my nose at her. “I’m not sure I can count that high.”
“Exactly. So, what else is bothering you?”
I threw up my hands. “I just don’t want anyone to know, okay? I was young and embarrassingly stupid, and I don’t want to be judged based on my past.”
“And what else? There’s something else, isn’t there?”
She knew me so well. “Yes. He said that if I’d go along with this crazy scheme that he’d pay off my student loans and help me set up my own practice.”
Danielle’s jaw sagged open, and she lowered her hands to the table. After a good solid minute of drumming her fingers on the wood, she said, “Actually, this whole idea isn’t so bad.”
I stared at her, wondering if my best friend had officially lost her mind. “How?”
She chewed her bottom lip. “Live with your sexy not-so-ex-husband for a few months? I say go for it. The semester is almost over, and you have the whole summer off anyway. You can live off his dime while working on your dissertation.”
I frowned. “I don’t want to live off his dime.”
She lifted her hands. “Why not? Since the ranch is, what, over four hours away, you won’t be able to work here, meaning you can quit working for that asshole at the clinic and spend all your time on your research.”
Danielle had a point.
It would be wonderful to focus all my attention on my dissertation, so I could begin the fall semester with most of it behind me, allowing me to enter the final year of my M.S./Psy.D program a little ahead of schedule. And with Brendan’s newfound wealth, he might be able to make the records of our marriage and divorce disappear. Which would take so much pressure off my back.
“Besides…” she went on, “you have to start the full-time doctoral internship in the fall, right?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
She smiled. “See? It’s actually perfect. He benefits, and you benefit. The timing couldn’t be more perfect since finals are next week.”
