Free The Pre-Nup by Beth Kendrick

partition between the two dressing rooms shuddered slightly as Jen changed out of her gown. “You’re not a bitch. You’re just hurting right now. And angry. But get angry at the person who really deserves it: Michael. Don’t take it out on Mara.”
    Ellie didn’t say anything.
    “Hello?” Jen prompted.
    “You’re right,” Ellie said. “But I can’t say to Michael what I just said to Mara.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because.” She thought about that framed family photo resting on the mantel. “Sometimes we have to make compromises.”
    “Meaning what?” Jen sounded confused.
    “I don’t know.” Ellie pressed her lips together. “I’m sure we’ll get it all worked out in therapy.”
    “You need to start taking better care of yourself.” Jen’s shadowy form appeared on the other side of the slatted white door to Ellie’s dressing room. “A salad and a morning walk here and there isn’t going to cut it. Tell you what: Call me tomorrow afternoon when Hannah goes down for her nap, and I’ll come over and go through some yoga poses with you. Work up a detailed exercise and nutrition plan.”
    “Once a personal trainer, always a personal trainer.” Ellie pulled on her green cashmere hoodie and jeans and emerged from her fitting room.
    “I’ll swing by around three-thirty. You know you can’t wait.” Jen closed her eyes and pretended to meditate.
“Ommm…”
    Ellie laughed and surrendered to the inevitable. “Bring on the walnuts and the downward-facing dog. Are you sure you’ll have time, though? I know you have to work, and with the new P.R. push—”
    Jen stopped smiling. “I can take some time off.”
    “So you keep telling us.”
    “No, I mean it.” Jen’s voice rose. “I know everyone likes to tease me, but it’s not funny anymore. I’m not just some soulless workaholic. I have needs, I have feelings—”
    Ellie squinted at her. “What’s going on with you?”
    Jen hesitated, then whispered, “Can you keep a secret?
    “Oh, please, no more secrets.” Ellie recoiled in horror.
    “Well then, can you do me a favor?”
    “That I can do. Anything. You name it.”
    “I need the number for your marriage therapist,” Jen said. “Or I’m going to have a few pre-nup problems of my own.”

    Mara Chapter
8
     
    D on’t freak out,” said a familiar voice when Mara opened the front door to her town house.
    She jumped and dropped her keys with a clatter. “Holy crap, Josh, don’t
do
that!”
    “Sorry. I was trying not to startle you.”
    “Too late.” She clutched her chest. “You didn’t happen to bring a defibrillator, did you?”
    He was standing in front of the glass doors that overlooked the golf course, which was dark and empty at this hour. “We need to talk.”
    “I’m all talked out.” She deposited her handbag on the chair next to the door and tossed her keys into the little silver bowl on the hall table. “And I’ve had more than enough drama for one night. How’d you get in here, anyway?”
    “You gave me a set of keys,” Josh reminded her. “When you moved in.”
    “Well, how’d you get past the guard at the front gate?”
    “I waved and said hi. They recognize me.”
    “I told the home-owners’ association president that security in this community was a joke.” Mara strode toward the breakfast bar that separated the kitchen from the living room. “I’ll take my keys back now, thank you very much.”
    Josh shifted his weight and ignored her demand. “Look. I didn’t mean to spring the new version of the pre-nup on you at the jewelers’. If you hadn’t found it in my pocket—”
    She rounded on her heel and started pacing a tight, straight line between the kitchen sink and the refrigerator. “Don’t give me that. Why would you carry it around in your pocket if you didn’t want me to find it?”
    “How was I supposed to know you’d pat me down like a customs officer looking for contraband?”
    “You
wanted
me to find it,” Mara accused,