Free A Better Man by Leah McLaren

an alternative strategy and I’m offering one, so if I were you I’d listen carefully.”
    Nick nods. The back of his neck tingles. “Go on.”
    Gray begins to speak in a practised monotone that tells Nick he’s made this speech many times before. “Tell her you love her. Boost her confidence. Encourage her to go back to the law. Make sure she follows through. Support her pursuit of outside interests—and I don’t just mean the gym. Take her away on holiday. Entertain the kids when she’s busy. Take a break from your Saturday morning cycling races and actually spend time with your family. Offer to paint her toenails—whatever it takes. Just make sure that when you finally drop the bomb, she can no longer reasonably accuse you of being a bad husband. Not only will this weaken her case financially, but she’ll feel subconsciously indebted. The settlement will be tipped in your favour. I’ve seen it many, many times.”
    “What sort of a time frame are we talking about here? I want to get on with my life.”
    “I’ve never seen it work in less than six months.”
    Nick leans back, raking his nails through his hair, and exhales. April seems like a lifetime away.
    “The main thing is to keep up the act until you see tangible results,” Gray explains. “I’m happy to check in every couple of weeks or so to monitor the situation.”
    Nick rubs his face. “But Maya’s a family lawyer. Hasn’t she seen this trick before? And even if she does buy it, won’t she feel like the rug’s been pulled out from under her when I
do
deliver the bad news?”
    A look of satisfaction crosses Gray’s face. Nick sees that this is the side of his job he loves most: the military strategy of the human heart.
    “You see, that’s just where you’re wrong, my friend. Believe it or not, most people are genetically predisposed to believe good news even when it’s patently ludicrous. Even if they are trained—as in the case of your wife—to sniff out a rat when others can’t. It’s called the confirmation bias, and it’s what keeps us getting out of bed in the morning in spite of climate change, collapsing economies and the fact that the party’s over once the crude oil’s gone. Maya may question Nick 2.0 a little at first, but if you’re persistent, she’ll quickly become accustomed to her new and improved husband. More crucially, when you finally
do
announce that you want out—for reasons of self-actualization, in the most non-acrimonious way possible—her reserves of anger and resentment, which I suspect runneth over at the moment, will be sufficiently depleted to allow a
much
more civilized dissolution of the marriage—that is, one in which she does not end up taking you to the cleaners. You’ll still need to do some divvying up, of course, but the finalamount will be significantly reduced. Who knows? You might even be able to settle out of court. Especially if you’re successful in encouraging her to go back to work.”
    Nick’s closes his eyes and presses a finger to each temple. He thinks of a question. “How much do you figure I can save myself by doing this?”
    Gray, who has clearly been anticipating this question, makes a couple of scratches on the calculation sheet and slides it across the smooth desk. Nick barely needs to look down to glimpse the new number.
    “I’m in,” he says.
    Without needing to, the two men shake.
    When Gray gets up to leave, Nick hands him back the “Wakefield Family Assets” file.
    “I think it’s safer for you to keep this—for now.”
    Gray nods and shoves the file into his overflowing briefcase. And then he is gone.

CHAPTER 6
    Maya’s been seeing Antonio at Drama Salon since the late 1990s, when she was a law student posing as a saucer-eyed party girl on the weekends. The salon sits on one of the city’s skeeziest corners—she secretly relishes the incongruity of having to weave through a small crowd of crackheads hawking ancient hubcaps to get a headful of premium