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My shoulders sagged. “I shouldn’t feel so duped. But…I do.”
Axel set the folder down, scooping my hands into his. He pressed small kisses to my knuckles. “Babe, you have every right to feel duped. He duped you bad. That shit sucks.”
I swallowed hard. “What else is there?”
“Are you sure you want me to go on?”
“Please. I want to hear it all.”
Axel opened the folder again, keeping the contents hidden from me. He cleared his throat. “He’s also seen prostitutes regularly. There’s a lot of mentions of payments here. He’s paid off someone before…” Axel trailed off, his brows drawing together. “I’m not sure what for, though. That might be something we can circle back to. And then it looks like…” He flipped a page, letting out a low hum. “His pornography preference is primarily one in which women rub up against latex balloons.”
I blinked. “Really?”
“Really. And apparently, the correct term is a looner.” He checked something on a different page, and then nodded. “Yeah. He’s particularly opposed to the popping of the balloons, which makes him a non-popper.”
I expelled a breath of air. “This is news to me.”
“He’s been to a balloon fetish convention,” Axel added.
“Great. I’ll be sure to ask him how it was.”
Axel laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. “At least it’s a more innocuous kink. Something I would rather not know about him, honestly. Can I please give him shit about this if we’re ever in the same room again?”
“Oh, absolutely.”
“I might have a little nameplate engraved for him,” Axel said. “It’ll say ‘Non-Popper Rossberg.’”
A laugh escaped me, even though my head was spinning. “It somehow works.”
Axel squeezed the top of my thigh, searching out my gaze. “Are you okay?”
I nodded, drawing a fortifying breath. The truth was, I had a lot of conflicting emotions. I’d need to process the unexpected hurt of these revelations, even though I’d entered the marriage in love with someone else. Neither Eli nor I ever had any illusions about being madly in love. It had been a business partnership, bolstered by the fact that he was highly attracted to me, and I merely found him cute. I’d hoped that it might grow into love, but it had only veered in the opposite direction. He acted like I was the love of his life to certain people, but behind closed doors, we all knew the story was vastly different.
And this just proved how different the truth really was.
“There’s more in here. But I’ll let you look at it on your own. You got the worst of it. The rest will just be peanuts.”
“Thank you.” I surged forward, wrapping him in a hug. And though emotion pulsed through me, there were no more tears waiting in the wings.
I felt fully cried out. It was a blessed relief.
The time had come to mount my offensive. I didn’t fucking care what Eli had planned anymore. I didn’t care what my father thought.
This evidence marked the end of the Margulis-Rossberg chapter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
AXEL
The divorce papers were served to Eli within a week. Every moment after that felt tense as we waited for the blowback.
But none came. I was buying up more Margulis stock and ready to breathe easy, but Cora couldn’t relax. She was worried Eli might be cooking something up that would demolish the protections their prenup had put in place.
By week two post–divorce papers, she still hadn’t heard from him. Her own father had stonewalled her, which made me think the Margulis camp was unnerved. By week three post–divorce papers, the other side remained unnervingly silent. If anything was coming, it was a contentious divorce. And I’d be at her side every step of the way.
I dressed for the office bright and early, feeling pretty fucking good about everything. Now that Cora was back in my heart and in my life, everything felt wonderful. Next level. Top notch fan-fucking-tastic. Even amid the business setback of losing the Goodwyn account, a deeper truth prevailed.
Nothing could stop us now.
