And with that, he slammed his door and shut her out.
SIX
Tessa cupped her hand over the mouthpiece of her phone, hoping no one in the office would hear her conversation. “Doug, I better have read this email wrong.”
Her ex-husband made a dismissive grunt. “Having trouble reading now? Maybe I should’ve used smaller words.”
Fucking bastard. Tessa gripped her phone, trying to keep her seething response from slipping out. Last thing she needed was for her current boss to send a complaint to the temp agency for an unhinged receptionist yelling at her ex-husband in front of the whole office. “Look, I get that we hate each other. Whatever. But are you really so heartless that you’ll let innocent kids suffer just to get back at me?”
He sniffed. “Always so dramatic. This is merely a business decision and nothing else. That charity was your pet project, not mine, and it’s a cash sieve.”
“It’s called nonprofit for a reason, Doug.” Jackass.
“If it’s such a worthy cause, you should be able to find other donors. I’m done keeping it afloat with my church’s money. I told the congregation to pick a new charity to focus on this year.”
“Doug, please, don’t do this.” She hated the plea in her voice, but all she could think about were the kids at Bluebonnet Place who would lose services and the employees who’d lose their jobs. She’d started the project five years ago when Doug had told her she should get more involved in his church’s outreach activities to look good to the congregation. She’d had no desire to put on more of a show at church than she already did, so she’d asked for seed money to start a charity instead. Looking back over her years with Doug, it was the one thing she could be proud of. Even though it was her ex’s money that had funded it, she’d poured her guts into the project, determined to help foster kids who were aging out of the system. She was all too familiar with how it felt to be staring down eighteen with no family behind you, few job skills, and limited funds to better your education.
But now the whole thing was going to be drained dry and abandoned if the cash wasn’t there to support it. After the divorce, she’d given the lion’s share of her divorce settlement money to Bluebonnet. God knows she’d had no desire to live off Doug’s handouts for another second and wanted to put them to good use. But even with that donation, she knew the charity only had enough cash to make it to the end of the year.
“Tessa, if you had thought this through better, you wouldn’t have left me in the first place and wouldn’t have to worry about this, so don’t try to lay some guilt trip on me. This is your doing. Your decision.”
She ran a hand through her hair, gripping a few strands tight against her scalp, trying to keep her composure while her mind was screaming, You self-centered piece of shit. You cheated! You! I didn’t do this.
“Doug, you know I’m not going to be able to get this much money in time to keep it going. Can’t you wait to pull funding in six months? We can make a big to-do of how you’re contributing despite our differences and give you all the credit. The press will love it.” She loathed her supplicating tone but knew that’s what got him off—beating her down and winning.
He snorted. “The press? You mean the same press you spilled lies t
o after the divorce? You know how much of my congregation I’ve lost because of the shit you spread about me? I’m still repairing that damage.”
“I only told them the truth. I can’t help how they relayed it. And I had to do something after you put rumors out there that I was some pill-popping tramp who strayed on you.”
“Right. Because you were an angel. Gabriel was just lying about you meeting him mornings in the guest house. I should’ve known then and let you have someone on the side to degrade yourself with. You always did like to slum it.”
Her nails dug into her palm. That story again. She knew damn well Doug had either paid her former personal trainer money or blackmailed him to go to the press and fabricate some story about her. It had to have been something big because before that, Gabriel had been a friend to her, keeping her company and making her laugh during those often lonely days. The guy was probably going to graduate school on a full ride now, courtesy of her ex-husband.
“Good-bye, Doug.”
“Hold on,” he said, right as she was about to pull the phone from her ear. “I do have one way I may consider giving you the funds you need.”
Her gut knotted at his tone, but she forced herself to stay on the phone. She knew whatever he was going to propose would be something she didn’t like, but she was willing to do a lot to keep those kids at Bluebonnet from losing funding. “And what’s that?”
She could almost feel his viper grin over the phone. “I would need you to beg, darling. Get on those pretty knees and tell me how you can’t get through without me. That I was right. Then, you’d need to go to the press, admit to your affair with Gabriel and your emotional problems, and tell them that I was a good husband who took care of you.”
Her lunch almost came up at the image, the bitter taste burning the back of her throat. “Fuck you.”
He laughed. “I’ll take that as you considering the option. Try it your way first if you’d like. I’m sure raising a few hundred grand on your own between those dead-end jobs you’re doing will be easy as pie. You know where to find me when that flops.”
The dial tone buzzed in her ear—harsh and final. Round three thousand and four to the snake. It seemed like every time she went to battle with Doug, he ended up with the last word and the smile. She hung up the phone and rubbed a hand over her face, all the starch draining out of her.
“Everything okay, Vanessa?”
She looked up. It was on the tip of her tongue to correct the guy on her name, but frankly, she didn’t remember his either. She’d gone on so many assignments for the temp agency in the past few months that they were all starting to blend together. “I’m fine. What can I help you with?”
He dropped a small voice recorder on her desk. “I’ve dictated a report that I’d like you to type up for me. I’ll need it before I leave today.”
“Sure. I’ll get right to it,” she said with practiced enthusiasm even though she’d never typed from dictation before.
After a quick nod, he strode off and she tucked the earbuds into her ears without hitting Play. The office hummed around her as she sat there at her borrowed desk, watching people moving back and forth with their tasks, chatting with co-workers and catching up from the weekend. No one had asked her how her weekend had been. No one cared. She was a stranger. No one knew that she’d had the best sex of her life on Friday night and had passed out from a fire. No one knew that she’d slipped out of the hospital before Van could get there because she couldn’t trust herself to turn him down. No one knew that her ex-husband had just ripped one final rug out from under her. And no one knew that the fate of an entire charity and at least a hundred kids was now resting on her very unqualified shoulders.