He Asked Me To Divorce, I Said Yes Chapter 03
After hearing me out, Mia said, “There are plenty of ways to climb in this world, but women only get two. Either you become powerful enough that men answer to you, or you figure out how to take their money.”
“Men control the world’s money and power. If you don’t do everything you can to wrest some of it away from them and instead sit around talking about self-respect, then all that talk is a joke.”
“A woman needs money before she can feel secure. Security is what gives her power.”
I scoffed at her.
It wasn’t until I was in a car accident, broke my leg, and faced a surgery bill I had no way to pay that I understood how much money mattered.
There had been no one at my side. Mia was the only person I could call.
Now, years later, she was still the only person I could turn to.
I gave a bitter smile as I sat in the coffee shop. The moment Mia walked in and saw me, she frowned.
I tried to greet her, but she cut me off. “This isn’t the place to talk.”
She took me to an upscale restaurant and got us a private dining room. She immediately asked, “How much are you getting in the divorce?”
I pulled the divorce settlement agreement from my bag and handed it to her.
Mia’s face lit up after a single glance. “Julian is generous as hell. You’re getting all the properties he owns, plus a five-million-dollar cash settlement. You hit the jackpot.”
My eyes burned without warning, and then I couldn’t stop crying.
“Mia, he wasn’t going to give me this much at first.”
I had read the original settlement. Julian had offered me a modest three-bedroom condo of about eleven hundred square feet, which was more than enough space for me alone.
The cash payment hadn’t been insignificant either: three hundred thousand dollars up front, plus seventy-five thousand a year in spousal support.
It was enough for me to live very comfortably on my own.
Yet to Julian, it was pocket change. Somehow, that made me feel as though I wasn’t worth any more than that.
Maybe I wasn’t.
Mia didn’t comfort me. She simply pulled two tissues from the box and pushed them into my hand.
Only after I had calmed down did she say, “Then you did damn well. Rich people are usually stingy. They’re terrified everyone—especially women—is after their money. Walking away with this much from Julian took skill.”
I opened my mouth, but no words came.
The truth was that when I married Julian, I had never expected to get anything from him. Mia knew that.
That was why she had cut me off when Julian and I got legally married in a civil ceremony three years earlier.
But when the divorce settlement agreement arrived, I couldn’t accept it.
I couldn’t accept being thrown out of my own home just because another woman said so.
So I had instinctively wanted to fight back somehow.
Mia seemed to understand. She placed the agreement back in my hands and said, “You did the right thing. Money or the man—you should get one of them.”
Then she called over a server and ordered a bottle of champagne.
“Nora, congratulations on getting out of a dead marriage—and on becoming a rich woman. Cheers!”
My grip tightened around the champagne flute. I didn’t hide the truth from her.
“Mia, I’m pregnant.”
“How far along are you?”
“I just hit three months.”
Mia slammed her glass onto the table. “Julian is a fucking asshole!”
She was so furious she felt lightheaded, and it took her a while to recover. When she finally did, she said without hesitation, “You’re still early. Get an abortion as soon as possible.”
I stared at her in shock.
I had assumed that once Mia learned I was pregnant, she would tell me to keep the baby and keep collecting child support from Julian.
When I told her what I had expected, she gave a scornful laugh.
“I only did what I did because I had no other way to secure my future. You’ve already got a divorce settlement big enough to set you up for life. Why have a baby? Do you really want to be tied to Julian forever?”
Just like that, everything clicked.