“So will the court if we don’t come to a settlement privately. California’s a community property state. Everything gets split fifty-fifty.”

“Works for me.”

“Good. Now tell me about the relationship.”

Brenna wanted to curl up in a ball and have the entire world go away. Some kind of oblivion didn’t sound so bad, right about now. One minute her heart raced so fast she thought it was going to jump out of her throat, the next she couldn’t even find a pulse. She felt both hot and cold. Her body ached.

Less than twenty-four hours ago she’d been blissfully happy. Stupid, but happy. Twenty-four hours ago she’d been working at the job that she hated to pay off medical school for a husband who had been busy screwing someone else.

Anger filled her. Anger and rage and frustration and shame. She felt humiliated. She felt old and used.

None of which was going to help Zach Stryker with her divorce. So she did as he requested and gave him a thumb-nail sketch of her marriage to her soon-to-be ex-husband.

“You’ve been sharing a residence,” he said.

“Right up until I walked out this morning.”

“And a bed?”

She glanced at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. Instead he scribbled notes on his pad. Heat flared on her cheeks. At that moment she wanted to get on her knees and thank God for her Italian genes. They might have given her chubby thighs, but at least her olive coloring prevented her blush from showing too much.

“If you’re asking if we’re sleeping together, then yes. Every night.” She frowned. “Except when he’s gone for his conferences.” Which there had been a lot of lately, she remembered. Tears burned in her eyes. “If you’re asking about sex. Not very often.”

Not even once in the past four months, she reminded herself. Jeff had had so many really good excuses. Her hands clenched into fists. To think he’d wasted his time coming up with reasons to avoid making love. All he’d had to do was tell her the truth. If she’d known about the other woman, she wouldn’t have bothered asking.

Humiliation clawed at Brenna’s throat. That’s what really got her. That she’d asked. She’d known there was something wrong, and like a fool she’d assumed it was the pressure of finally finishing up his residency or the stress of interviewing with different doctors about joining their practices.

“You and Jeff don’t have any children together, right?”

“Right.”

“Are you pregnant?”

The question raced through her like electricity. Her skin seemed to shrink a size and it was hard to breathe.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because a child means a whole new set of legal complications. Are you pregnant?”

“No.”

She pressed her lips together to maintain control, but it was useless. Tears spilled from her eyes.

She jumped to her feet and circled around the desk. A box of tissue sat in a bottom drawer. She pulled out the box and returned to her seat.

“Sorry,” she said, her voice throaty.

“No problem. I take it this is a sore subject.”

“Yeah.” She sniffed and wiped away her tears. “I wanted kids, Jeff kept saying we had to wait. Wait until he was done with medical school, then wait until he finished his internship. Then wait until he had his own practice. I was working eighty hours a week, so it’s not like I had time to brood or anything, but God.” She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. “I wanted kids.”

She still did. The difference was now she didn’t have a husband. No husband, no babies. Her heart twisted.

“Any prenuptial agreement?”

She straightened and stared at him. “No. We never discussed it.”

“Did either of you bring any money into the relationship?”

She laughed humorously. “No. Jeff brought plenty of debt, though. Student loans from college. Those just got bigger as time wore on.”

“So basically you supported him through his medical training and paid for debt he’d incurred before the marriage.”

“You got it.”

“Did he work also? Part-time or summer jobs?”

“No. He studied. We agreed that was his job.” Because she’d been so damn stupid, she thought grimly. Being the perfect, supportive, loving wife had been all she’d aspired to. If that meant two jobs and no free time, hey, she was married. She’d walked away from her family, from the vineyards, and for what?

She balled up the tissue she held. “He didn’t do anything. I worked, I cooked, I cleaned, I picked up his dry cleaning.” Just talking about it made her furious. She rose to her feet and crossed to the window. “I can’t believe it. All these years of my life given over to him, and I have nothing to show for it. I certainly didn’t go to college. I have no education, nothing. I have no life, except for being his wife.” She spun to face Zach. “I gave him my entire being and this is my reward.”

“You loved him.”

“I was a fool.” She rubbed her temples. “I can’t believe I put my husband through medical school and now he’s left me for a younger woman. That wasn’t supposed to happen for at least another ten years.”

Zach didn’t respond. Brenna knew there wasn’t anything he could say. Instead he asked, “What do you want from Jeff?”

“Blood,” she said flatly. “I want him to pay. He used me and he cast me aside.” Worse, he’d hurt her, but she wasn’t about to say that. The irony of the situation didn’t escape her. Jeff was a cardiologist-he’d known exactly how to break her heart.

“Are you sure there’s no chance of a reconciliation?”

She tried to laugh. “He’s not interested. He’s already moved on. I’m not interested, either. He screwed some bimbo-probably in my bed. Let her have him.”

“He could change his mind.”

“I don’t think so. I think the chances of him leaving his bimbo for an old, used wife are pretty remote.”

“What about you? What if he came to his senses and realized he was an idiot. What if he begged you to let him come back? Would you let him?”

Brenna considered the question. This morning when Jeff had casually announced that their marriage was over, that he had filed for divorce, and oh, by the way, would she please leave the dry-cleaning ticket on the table when she left, she had felt as if a meteor had destroyed her world. She’d been crushed-broken into a million pieces with no hopes of ever being whole again. In that moment she would have done anything to have her life restored.

Since then she’d been on a roller coaster of emotion, up and down, turning at breakneck speed until she didn’t know what she wanted or where she was going to end up. But she did know one thing with complete certainty.

“I don’t want him back,” she said with a conviction that came from the very depths of her being. “It’s not only the infidelity that I can’t forgive. It’s that he wasn’t even willing to try. I didn’t get a vote or a hearing. He decided it was over, so he filed for divorce. I would never trust him again. What’s been broken can’t be fixed.” She leveled her gaze and stared at Zach. “I want him punished.”

Zach nodded. “I can do that. It’s something I do very well.”

8

The printer spit out page after page. Mia glanced at David, who looked just as lost as she felt. The perfectly dressed woman in the bridal registry department smiled as she tore off what looked like an endless list.

“Now, these are just some ideas. Obviously you don’t need to register for everything on the list.”

Mia took the offered papers. “Okay. Great. We’ll, um, just look around?”

“Exactly. Write down your choices as you make them. I’ll be right here if you have any questions.” She smiled again, her perfectly made-up features barely moving. “Do you need a pencil?”

Mia patted the small purse she’d slung over her shoulder. “Got one, thanks.” Then she grabbed David by the arm and hurried away.

“She’s scary,” Mia muttered when they were out of earshot. “Aren’t people’s faces supposed to move when they talk?”

But David wasn’t paying attention. Instead he stared at a large display of china with all the enthusiasm of a vegetarian facing a steak dinner.

“So we have to pick one?” he asked, desperation tinting his words.

“That’s the basic idea.” She scanned the list. “My God. Just the dish section-which they call china-is broken down into sections. Plates, bowls, side plates, dessert plates, fruit nappies.”

David stared at her. “What the hell is a fruit nappy?”

Mia giggled. “Don’t the British refer to diapers as nappies? Maybe it’s some weird kind of fruit diaper.”

David rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right.”

She continued to scan the list. “Serving pieces. Then we move into flatware. I think that’s like knives and forks. Oh, and there’s everyday china or stoneware, which I guess means we’re supposed to have two sets.” She thought about her postage-stamp-size kitchen. “I don’t think we’re going to have room for all this.”

David grabbed the list. “Water glasses, wineglasses, highball glasses, tumblers. What’s a highball?”

“A type of cocktail.” She drew in a deep breath. Somehow she had thought that shopping for future presents would be more fun. “Okay, let’s just start with the china. We don’t have room for one full set, let alone two, so we can find a pattern we like and use it all the time. Later, when we have a house or something, we’ll deal with two sets. How’s that?”

“Great.” He eyed the wall displaying over a hundred different patterns. “What do you like?”

Twenty minutes later Mia was ready to choke the life out of her intended. She liked flowers, he didn’t. She wanted color, he thought beige was enough color for anyone. Then he’d picked a pattern with three dimensional fruit that made her want to gag. They’d discovered that fruit nappies were basically cereal-size bowls, and that they both hated anything with a gold rim, but otherwise, they couldn’t come close to an agreement.