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“I had cancer, Scott. It’s not my fault I lost my uterus.”
Tears were running down my face, my anger replaced with misery. He was expecting me to be okay with being the wife but not the mother of his children? To give him a free pass at sleeping with other women?
Fuck that.
“I want a divorce.”
“Come on,” he said, leaning forward. “You don’t want to end us, everyone will laugh at you. Your family love me, Matts, they won’t understand.”
“I don’t care. I’m not going to be your doormat. I am Matilda fucking Penn and I will take you for every dollar you are worth, you scumbag.”
“Not without proof of infidelity, Matts, and believe me, I’ve been careful.”
He got up from the chair he’d been on and looked over at me, annoyed.
“If you want to leave, you can, but you’re not staying in my apartment if you want to leave me.”
He walked away, taking the last piece of dignity with him as I fell to my knees crying. Sobs wracking my chest, making it hard to breathe, as I tried to fathom a life without him.
Without the man I thought I would spend the rest of my life with.
CHAPTER1
GEN
“Mara,”I double kissed my old friend on the cheeks before I sat down at the table. “It’s been too long since the last conference, you really do need to do them more often.”
She chuckled, her cheeks pink with the heat from outside. “If only I could, love. It’s hard enough doing them every two years.”
“So, what else is new?” I asked her, as the waiter came over to me and poured a glass of sparkling water for me.
“Nothing new, my love, marriage has completely torn my social life in half.”
“Well I’ll never marry then,” I told her with a giggle. I may have said it jokingly but I meant it. I was done with men. It had been my own fault, straight out of school I had gone for unattainable and married men because I wanted to find myself a man who would take care of me, financially and sexually, but seeing the outcome of what breaking a marriage up could do, I’d sworn I would never do that again. I swore off married men after I had seen what had become of Scott’s wife. Three years and countless therapy sessions later, I still saw the look in her eyes when she saw me leave her apartment that day. If only that had been the last time I saw her, I probably could have gotten past it but it wasn’t. I had seen what had become of her six months later when she’d signed up at my gym, a good three stone heavier and looking like she’d just walked in off the streets. I’d almost not recognised her.
“Are you set for the Boss Babe conference?” Mara asked me.
“Sure am, I’m actually looking forward to a lot of the guest speakers you have.”
“Great, it’s always hard to figure out what the people want. I also included a lot of exercises and networking engagements over the course of the conference so I can’t wait to see what happens there.”
“I love it already,” I told her. The waiter came over and took my order as Mara nibbled at the breadsticks. Once he was gone, I sat back in my chair. “Something’s different about you.”
“I was hoping you could guess,” she said with a smile. “I’m pregnant.”
I sat forward, surprised. “No. You guys did it, I knew you could.”
“Thanks,” she said, smiling broadly. “The IVF really has been a killer but it was all confirmed earlier this month that the baby is healthy and I’m out of the danger zone.”
“Oh Mars, I’m so happy for you.”
“Really?” she replied. “You’re happy I’m having a baby? You hate babies.”
“I don’t hate them,” I corrected her. “I just don’t want one of my own. I’m happy for you. I know this is what you’ve wanted for a long time.”
Mara nodded. “It is. But now I want to hear all about the men you’ve been seeing. I’m sure there’s a couple in there I won’t know what to say to.”
“Honestly, I’ve only been on a handful of dates earlier in the year but now I’m focusing on work.”
