Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 163802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 655(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 655(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
“Of course. Large cash withdrawals, secret Cayman bank accounts, opening trusts in your cousin’s name, undervaluing assets, overvaluing debts, stashing money in the corporate accounts, and suddenly catching the urge to invest in gold and safe-deposit boxes,” I rattled off easily. “All from the Rich Douchebag’s Guide to Cheating Your Spouse Out of Their Earned Divorce Settlement.”
“Precisely.”
Hey, I grew up in the land of the rich with the rest of the Lantanans. I learned how to cheat taxes and hide assets before I learned fractions.
“You’ve devoted years of your life to not one, but three men. You have a child with them,” she cried. “Your mother wasn’t going to see you cheated out of a single cent that you deserve, so at the first sign, she asked me to put her in touch with a private investigator and forensic accountant.
“I’m entrusted with millions and millions of dollars meant for poor and needy people. Ha-eun knew I was fanatical about every dollar being accounted for,” she said. “I gave her what she asked, but I made her promise that if they found something, she’d take it to you first. Let you take it to your attorney, so they’d be prepared to spring it on your husbands the minute they walked into the mediation room. If she tipped your hand to them, they’d be forearmed and ready, and it’d just drag out the fight that much longer.”
I almost laughed. Of course, Mrs. Choi’s only concern was to see Sue with all the weapons she needed to drain her rich husbands dry. She wasn’t at all concerned about her and my mother poking their noses into someone else’s marriages.
“And did the investigators find something?” I asked, and even as the question came out of my mouth, I hoped the answer wouldn’t be—
“Yes,” she stated. “Almost a month later, I was driving your mother to chemo when she just came right out with it. She told me they found out something about one of your husbands—something big. So big that it wouldn’t just get you half, it’d get you everything and more. The money, the assets, the house, the cars, and Nari. You would even own his freedom.”
My brows crumpled. “His freedom? That’s what she said? That I’d own his freedom.”
“That’s correct.”
“What does that mean? Like— Like— Like jail?” I screeched. “Was she saying she found something that would put one of my husbands in jail?”
“That was my assumption, yes.”
I goggled at her. “What was it? What did they find?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
I was out of my seat and almost in hers, leaning over the flower centerpiece. “Did she at least tell you who it was?”
“She didn’t name him, but”—discomfort crawled over her face—“she did tell me, rather inappropriately even I must say, that it was the one you’d expect.” She gave me another meaningful look. “If you take my meaning.”
“I do,” I croaked, feeling that pit grow until it stole all the air from me. “Unfortunately, I do.”
Chapter Sixteen
That night, I stood just outside the kitchen—watching Lily and Rhodes from the shadows.
“Do you think Mommy will like these?” Lily stood on the stepstool, frosting her batch of the cookies and her corner of the countertop to go with it.
“Course, she will,” he exclaimed, swiping frosting on her nose. “Mommy loves ginger, cinnamon, and chocolate, so ginger cinnamon cookies with chocolate frosting will be like Christmas come early.”
“Hmm, maybe. I don’t know.” She was so adorable with her chocolate nose all scrunched up in thought. “Mommy likes new stuff now, maybe she won’t.”
“Likes new stuff?” Rhodes said over my stiffening shoulders. “What do you mean?”
“New stuff,” she repeated like it was obvious. “Like now she likes playing with me, and reading me stories, and dancing with me—even though she’s really, really bad.”
It’ll always be your own kin that cuts you the deepest.
“She didn’t like that stuff before,” Lily said so matter-of-factly, it broke my heart. “So what if she doesn’t like cinnamon and ginger anymore either?”
In fact, I hated cinnamon and ginger. Having both together would be like having a spice shop throw up in my mouth, but damned if I wouldn’t scarf down every single one of those cookies like they were magic stay-young-and-beautiful-forever pills.
“She... uh... Mommy...” Even then, my stomach did a little flip at Rhodes’s cute panicked expression. “Mommy is... different now,” he confessed. “But it wasn’t that she didn’t like doing those things with you, baby girl, she just didn’t know how to be silly and relaxed and have fun.” Rhodes stopped icing and took her hand. “See, Lily, some parents don’t let their kids be kids. They don’t let them play, read fairy tales, or dance badly, so when they get older, they don’t know how to do that stuff with their kids because they’ve never done it before.”
“Is that what happened to Mommy?”