Free The Pre-Nup by Beth Kendrick Page B

went rigid. “Do you really think a marriage license is the same as a pre-nup? Or is this your way of telling me you don’t want to get married anymore?”
    “I do want to get married. But I need a safety net.”
    “Marriage doesn’t come with a safety net. Sorry. I stand by my offer: I’ll scrap the cheating clause if you scrap the rest of the pre-nup.”
    She wrapped her arms around herself. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I wish it were that simple, but…”
    “But what?” Josh crossed his arms, mirroring her defensive posture.
    “But things happen. I mean, look at Ellie. She thought she and Michael would be together forever.”
    “You’re not Ellie. I’m not Michael.”
    “I realize that, but do you see where I’m going with this?”
    “All I see is that you sabotage us every chance you get.”
    She gasped. “How can you say that? I have never—”
    “Let me finish.” He set his jaw. “Whenever I try to take things to the next level, you kick and scream and do something guaranteed to push me away. You were sabotaging us in San Diego, and you’re sabotaging us now with this pre-nup.”
    Mara didn’t say anything.
    “I don’t know what you expect me to do,” Josh said. “I’m not a masochist. I’m not a doormat.”
    She reached out for him and murmured, “I love you.”
    He didn’t take her hand. “It’s decision time, Mara. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Do you really want our marriage to be based on a bunch of conditions starting with ‘hereto’ and ‘whereas’?”
    Her hands remained outstretched. “I will never, ever cheat on you again. You have to believe that by now.”
    “According to you, it doesn’t matter what I believe.” He fished her house keys out of his pocket and plunked them down on the counter. “It’s about what we put in writing. If you get to protect yourself, so do I.”

    Jen Chapter
9
     
    S o tell us.” Chelsea Kincaid, the perky, Permatanned host of
Up with the Sun, Phoenix!
flashed her dazzling white smile and settled back into her interview chair. “How does a local woman like you build her own nutrition empire before the age of…how old
are
you, if you don’t mind my asking?”
    Jen tried to laugh this off. “A lady never reveals her weight or age.”
    “But you look so young,” Chelsea exclaimed. “You look like you’re barely out of college. And certainly, you’ve got nothing to play coy about in the weight department. Come on, let us in on some of your secrets.”
    Jen smiled, took a deep breath, and reminded herself to speak clearly and slowly, just like she’d practiced with Deb, the publicist she’d hired to help springboard her company’s profile from local to national. “Balance and variety,” she said into the TV camera. “That’s the key to health, inside and outside. Eat a variety of whole, unprocessed foods and challenge your body by changing up your workouts. Don’t be afraid to try something new.” Deb had coached her to turn all her interview responses into a pitch for her product. “In fact, I came up with the idea for Noda one day while I was rock climbing in Sedona.”
    Chelsea played along with the segue and held up a bottle of Jen’s energy drink. “Noda: the antisoda. Love it! So you came up with the idea on a cliff?”
    Jen forced herself to relax and let her guard down a bit. “Well, I wasn’t always so health-conscious. Back in college, I developed what would probably qualify as a clinical dependency on diet cola.”
    “A caffeine junkie!” Chelsea bobbed her head. “I can relate!”
    “I knew all the chemicals were bad for me, but I just couldn’t kick the habit. I swear, diet cola is more addictive than nicotine! And I had lots of friends in the same boat. We drank six cans a day, some of us, and every time we tried to quit, we’d get horrific withdrawal symptoms: headaches, irritability, the shakes.”
    “That’s what I’m like when I don’t get my morning coffee!” Chelsea laughed.
    “I