𝖫 𝖤 𝖬 • 𝖮 • 𝖭 𝖠 𝖣 𝖤

XII: Jealous

loss :

"Every fear...every nightmare...anyone has ever had."

_ _ _

Six Years Ago

"Repeat after me," The officiant smiled at them lightly before putting his focus on Chris, "Do you, Chris, take this woman to be your wife, to love her, to honor her, and to comfort her and to keep her in sickness and in health, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better and for worse, 'till death do you part?"

Chris licked his lips and sniffled, looking Tayla in her eyes happily before nodding his head, "I do,"

"Now, you, Tayla." He now put his attention on her, "Do you take this man to be your husband, to love him, to honor him, and to comfort him and to keep him in sickness and in health, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better and for worse, 'till death do you part?"

Everything he asked Chris, he asked her to say and she responded the same.

Gladly.

"I do,"

There wasn't a single person in the room who wasn't shedding happy tears. Everybody knew how good they looked together and how happy they were.

It was no denying it.

The officiant smiled happily, "By the power given to me by the State of California, I now pronounce you husband and wife." He looked over at Chris who was excited and impatiently waiting for him to tell him the six words he's been waiting on.

"You may now kiss your bride,"

_

Present

"So he's agreeing to giving you the house, you get shared custody of Ayla but he gets to have her three days every week. He also agrees to giving you $15 million in emotional distress-"

"I don't want his money." She interrupted her lawyer finally looking up at him. He raised an eyebrow and looked down at his paper before looking back at her.

If it was ANYTHING she wanted him to give her, it was half of his company and being Co-CEO.

"Well...he offered. He said he wants to make sure his child is okay."

"And she is. I have more than enough of my own to care for her."

"Tayla, you gotta understand. Us doing this between the two of you without you two even being in the same room is what's making this process harder than it needs to be. We're trying the best we can to make sure this goes smoothly without taking it to court. You lucky it is us and not a judge making all the decisions,"

She sucked in a breath feeling herself get overwhelmed by the situation and stood up from her seat. Bad enough they were having this conversation at the meeting room at her job.

"Can we pause it?"

"...You want to pause the divorce? Again?"

"Nobody said it'd be this hard." She mumbled and let out a breath walking to the window in the room that overlooked Los Angeles.

"They don't tell you this part of marriage because it's not something we plan on going through. As a divorcee myself, it gets hard and will get harder from here but only if you let it."