"You and Mateo both decided that?" A pen had materialized between her fingers. At the ready to take notes, or lecture, or stab me. Preferably stab me.
"No, we never talked about it," I said. "But we don't need a divorce contract. That's fucked up, don't you think? It's like dooming us from the start."
Mateo and I had never had the conversation, but I knew my fiancé. If one of us were worried about the possibility of calling it quits, we never would have gotten engaged in the first place. Agreements like this were for people with asset management and money tied up in stocks, second homes to account for. That was not us. Apart from the success of the cam page, we were extraordinarily regular people. To me, a prenup was like admitting we weren't positive about one another. That while things might be great now, there could be a day I didn't love him anymore, and that just wasn't fucking possible.
"That is the most childish way to perceive this, Natalia." Bella nearly scoffed. "This isn't a loyalty test. This is protectingeach other in a worst-case scenario. I see it day in and day out. Couples who thought the sun shone out of each other's assholes fighting over canned beans in the pantry. Men caught wanking off to a twenty-year-old on OnlyFans while their wife bathes their children resentfully in the bathroom. Things change, people evolve, life happens."
I crossed my arms over my chest and sank my teeth into my tongue.Mateo wouldn’t do that, I thought. My skin bristled but I swallowed down a sour retort. "Matty and I aren't like that.”
She nodded sympathetically. "I know you're not. And this is not me trying to say I think you're going to have a failed marriage. But think about Mateo." Bella's pen hovered over a paragraph of words. "He is the breadwinner, he owns a business, he has assets from the military, benefits, money, et cetera. This is to say, if you two ever needed to go your separate ways, his business still belongs to him. If nothing else this isshowinghow much you love him. Willing to lose your main source of income over a divorce if it comes to it."
I could have screamed.Iwas the breadwinner.Iowned a business.Iwas not helpless, or dependent on anyone to take care of me.Itook care of myself. But like always my mouth remained shut. Prioritizing keeping my personal life to myself because it was the one thing I had that no one else could take from me. It was my and Mateo's secret to share. Frankie and Ophelia were the only two people we trusted with it.
A deep, long, annoyed breath let out through my nostrils. "So this is me agreeing not to claim any stake in his company in the event of a divorce."
"Part of it." Bella tapped on a highlighted passage. "This also keeps your inheritance safe, like any money from Mom and Dad. It defaults debt back onto the person with the debt, and details protocols if—God forbid—one of you kicks the bucket."
My knuckles rapped on my wooden chair. If I had to pick and choose my battles, letting Bella explain a bullet-pointed legalese to me was the least I could do, regardless of what I was going to do with the information afterward. She went on and on, scribbling into the margins upside down, stripping each sentence into something understandable, and after the final sentence, she flipped the binder closed and pushed it toward me again.
"This is just a draft. I'll need you and Mateo to sit down and go over your assets together, compile an itemized list of what you want to keep separate, and then we can go from there."
I wouldn't be doing any of those things, but I put on my brave face and smiled as I said, "Thanks for giving me the rundown. I'll talk to him."
Bella checked the time on her cellphone and dropped it back into her bag, then rooted around for her keys. "I have to get back to the office, but seriously, Talia, don't shove that thing into the back of a closet as soon as you get home and forget it exists.”
That was exactly what I was going to do.
“I have to go to the florist and design the flower arrangements for the wedding anyway.”
"Did you talk to Mom?" she asked, standing from the chair as it scraped across the floor. "Dad's birthday dinner is coming up."
Right. My father's sixtieth birthday. A night of listening to the same stories about the good ol’ days at Harvard and then watching him drink gin and tonics until he falls asleep on one of the pool loungers. Even more exciting now that my in-laws were invited there to bear witness to it.
"Anna is already permanently scarred from that dress fitting. I can only imagine what the Durans are going to think of us after a night with John Russo."
"It'll strengthen your bond." Bella trotted toward the exit, her expensive heels striking the floor with each step as I followed."You couldn't hide us forever, Tals. Mateo is part of the family now."
I couldn't hide him from them, but I could protect him from them. I'd been doing it, and I would keep doing it for as long as I needed to. Until my parents stopped treating me like a child, and my sisters started seeing me as an equal. So that I didn't have to make excuses for them every step of the way. Being with Mateo taught me how loveshouldfeel, how a healthy relationship works, and what I would never settle for. The two of us were going to break our generational curses together.
That prenup could go fuck itself.
chapter thirteen
Natalia
PretendingI had a job was harder than keeping my real one a secret. I was planning the wedding entirely from the driver's seat of my car on most days, relying on retail therapy and drive-thru meals to keep me company. If it weren’t for the fear of getting caught and arrested for public indecency I might have also started filming content from the front seat, too.
Our client base declined every time we missed a regularly scheduled posting day. Even when Mateo came home early enough to make some quick magic, we were pigeonholed into short, uninspired bursts of coitus by the looming presence down the hall. I missed my apartment bedroom and the makeshift studio Matty and I used to film most of our sex in when Frankie was still living in Florida. Back when things were easy and I could orgasm as loud as I wanted to whether it was six at night or nine in the morning.
Five o’clock rolled around and I made my way back to the house after yet another grueling day of bumming Wi-Fi from the local library to field important vendor phone calls and emails. In the last week I’d finalized the floral arrangements, sticking to the classic white rose theme that was elegant, but ultimately boring, and mailed the invitations, which were equally sophisticated andforgettable. I had to remind myself several times that black tie was everything I ever wanted for my wedding day, because the more I agonized over the details, the more I realized the dream had more to do with proving my parents wrong than color schemes.
The house was quiet inside. I dropped my bag on the entry table and kicked my shoes into the small coat closet by the front door. The Durans were usually milling around the living room but the television was off and the kitchen was empty. Eventually I heard a hushed conversation happening behind the open crack in the guest room door. Anna was folding laundry into piles on the bed, and David was sitting near the headboard. I would have walked away had I not heard my name mumbled in the conversation.
“She means well,” Anna was saying. “But I have to worry, or what kind of mother would I be? He’s choosing his friends over his family, he’s barely eating, and he’s having panic attacks.”
“Times are different, Anna,” David answered. “Women aren’t traditional anymore, they’re independent. They have full-time jobs just like their husbands, and when they have kids they put them in daycare. It’s how the world is going.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.” Anna’s voice dipped lower, but not low enough that I couldn’t hear it. “It might make sense if they had a baby, but…she’shere, most of the time. All I’m saying is that Mateo goes to work all day until late at night. The least he should expect is a hot meal when he gets home at the end of it.”
