Page 40 of Heartbroken Husband
“Are you asking me or telling me?” I reached for the bottle and nudged it a little closer. “Take them, and while you’re at it, you need to get rid of the jacket and tie.”
His dark blond eyebrows hiked up. “Now? The girls are right over there.”
He tilted his chin toward the living room and I sighed, but my heart skipped a beat that might not have only been due to the fact that my body was currently fighting the plague. “You’re not as charming as you think. Now, take it off and swallow the tablets. Down the hatch, Zach.”
I filled up a glass of water and pointedly set it down on the counter next to the pills. He stared at me for another full minute before he shrugged out of the jacket, physically flinching when a shudder passed through him. He loosened his tie and took the medicine.
“Thank you,” I said sweetly, leaving the water in front of him but returning the tablets to the shelf. “Drink the rest of it too.”
“I resent this.”
“I’m sure you do, but it’ll help. I promise.”
Begrudgingly nodding, he took another sip of the water and shivered as he set it back down. “Why is everything so cold?”
“The fever,” I said slowly. “Jeez. You’re really not used to this, are you?”
He shook his head, finally leaning back a little on the stool and giving up on reviewing the divorce papers. The soundtrack currently blasting from the living room seemed to catch his attention and he turned toward the girls, who were dancing energetically toTakedownfrom theK-Pop Demon Huntersmovie.
They’d watched it approximately six times in the last twenty-four hours. I’d learned to tune it out, but Zach winced when Jennifer shrieked a line of the song.
“Have they been like this all day?” he asked incredulously. “Where are they getting all that energy? They must be feeling awful.”
“They’re always like this,” I said, smiling as I watched them dance with zero coordination but apparently having the time of their lives. “Kids are just magic like that. You wouldn’t know Lu is running a fever of a hundred and two.”
He turned back to look at me sharply. “She’swhat? Should we take her to the emergency room? That seems high.”
“She’s fine,” I reassured him quickly. “I promise. Look at her. It’s when they start getting lethargic that you need to worry.”
After blinking a few times rapidly, he nodded and glanced back down at the papers. “Can we discuss these while they’re right there?”
“Trust me, they’re not listening, so discuss away.” I pulled up a stool of my own and sat down. “Besides, if you want to talk about it today at all, it’s going to have to be ninja style while they’re with us. We’ll just keep an eye out to make sure they stay entertained so they’re not eavesdropping.”
“Where’s your nanny? Amber, right? I don’t mind waiting if you want to ask her to take them somewhere.”
“Amber, yes, but I sent her away to stay healthy. The timing actually worked out really well. She was already planning a long weekend to visit friends upstate, so I told her to go early. There’s no point in all of us being miserable.”
“So you’re just handling this alone, while you’re also sick yourself?”
I shrugged. “I’ve been handling things alone for a while now. What else am I going to do?”
“Right,” he said quietly. “Sorry. That was a stupid question. I’m still, uh, trying to get my head wrapped around it all, I guess.”
The girls screamed again when Rumi did whatever awesome thing Rumi had done, but Zach didn’t flinch this time and I smiled. “See, you get used to it.”
He widened his eyes. “Yeah, I’m not sure that’s what I would call it. Maybe it’s just an insensitivity to loud noises due to severe overstimulation.”
“Potato, potahto.”
He looked back down at the papers and visibly rallied, like he was trying to force himself back into work mode. “According to this, you get full custody of the girls, but nothing else.”
I nodded. “That’s what we agreed to in the settlement.”
Zach swiped his tongue across his lips and inhaled deeply before glancing back up at me. “He might’ve made some terrible decisions, but Louis is still a wealthy man, Adeline. He’s got a huge real estate and investment portfolioandhe drained your trust fund on top of all that.”
“I know, but I didn’t want any of it. Not the house in the Hamptons. Nothing.” I held his gaze, needing him to see how sure I was about this. “I wanted the girls. That was the only thingthat mattered to me, and like you said, I get full custody. That’s a win in my book.”
Something unreadable flickered across his expression. “Are you sure? It doesn’t seem fair that he’s keeping everything, including the money he took from you, and expecting you to sign when this contract leaves you with nothing.”
