"There is no fucking way that she is paying $10 million!" a snarling Jon Jenkins said while sitting next to his pouting sister. Much like the prenup agreement, Kate was using her brother as her attorney, and it wasn't going well for them.

"I'm sorry, is there some confusion in the prenuptial contract that she signed?" my lawyer, Miriam Grant, asked pleasantly.

"You know as well as I do that this agreement is bullshit!"

"The agreement was perfectly fine when you both reviewed it and signed it prior to the wedding. Has something changed to make it less so? Or are you just upset because she violated her end of the agreement and is now being made to live up to it. Because Jon, that is life. You sign an agreement, and you live up to it. If you have a problem with the agreement, we're more than happy to take this to a judge." Miriam never lost her smile, and it was driving Jon insane.

"You know we're not going before a judge!"

"Then we're at an impasse. What do you expect us to do? We're the aggrieved party, we're the ones with the proof of the wrongdoing, we're the ones that are going to win this. You know what the outcome is, so why are you dragging this out? We both know that for your client, that amount of money is what she'll spend on a long weekend."

Jon ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. I didn't feel sorry for either of them. Kate hadn't done anything but look at her nails the entire time we were in the conference room, and Jon just looked as though he wanted some sort of a concession. He wasn't going to get one. Miriam was having fun toying with him, and he knew it. 

"What about child support?" Jon finally asked.

"It is in the proposal we gave you. Cole wants sole custody of Connor, their minor son, and waives all rights to child support as long as you agree to not challenge that custody agreement. You also waive any claims to stop him if he decides to relocate. That is all very straightforward." I felt bad for Miriam, she was like a teacher trying to explain something simple to a student that had no clue what was going on.

"We want those online videos taken down."

Miriam shook her head. "There is nothing we can do about that. They were posted by the other participant of those videos, or his son, based on the e-mail and IP addresses on the account. You would have to talk to them about removing them or bring a suit against them and the web sites they're hosted on."

"Household possessions?"

Now Miriam was getting angry. "Mr. Jenkins, did you read the agreement we proposed before you arrived here today?"

Jon looked down, his silence more than enough of an answer.

Miriam slid her copy across the table, and then another to Kate. "Read that. I'm not going through it point by point. This is an extremely easy and fair proposal based on what the original prenuptial agreement stated. We could easily be asking for child support, but we're being nice here. If you really want to fight this, it will go to court. Once it goes to court, your family's name on the filing will make sure that reporters see it, and then they'll file freedom of information act requests for the videos that are entered as evidence. We all know that you don't want that."

"I'll sign it." Kate finally lifted her head to look at me. "I'm sorry I let our moms get us involved like that. I knew I wasn't ready to be married. Take care of Connor. I won't ask for custody, but my parents will probably want to see him every once in a while. Maybe let them visit?"

That seemed fair. I already knew her mom would be visiting mine, so I had no problem setting up days they could hang out. "Yeah, we'll work something out. They'll see him. You can see him too, when you're ready. I'd never stop that. Just give me notice and we'll work something out. But I don't want to be obligated to do it." I had planned to offer to have her put together a photo album of times that they'd shared with him growing up, but when I looked through all the photos we had, I couldn't find more than three that weren't from the days she was in the hospital giving birth and then recovering. She just never was around him. I didn't tell her that though, it wouldn't have helped the situation.

A short while later, Kate and Jon were gone, and I was the proud owner of a freshly minted and finalized divorce. Yes, it still had to be filed with the clerk of courts, most likely on Monday, but I was a free man! And yet, it wasn't even the highlight of my week.

At work, the team had been on fire. Gina and I had them working like a fine-tuned machine and we'd cleared all the issues that had plagued them before and got them over the finish line. I already knew that Monday we'd be taking a team outing over to Miami Gardens so we could get an early start on the renovation project with the new Dolphins' project. I'd been getting a lot of congratulations on how well we were performing, and if anything, the other team leaders were even more jealous than they'd been before. Dan seemed to be fuming at every meeting, just seeing how well his team was doing now that he was gone. I wonder if he had the brain cells to see the connection?

Gina had been overlooked for so long for a manager position that I was thrilled to see her getting noticed for her stellar performance. I didn't even think I'd have to say anything for them to consider giving her my job once I left. But there was a big part of me thought she'd be the perfect person for me to have on my own team if I was going to start my own consulting company. With two solid managers, we could really take on a lot of work and make a quick name for ourselves. I had a feeling she'd go for that too. If she stayed at our current company, she'd have to fight the system every day. With me, she'd already be at the top and getting the good projects because she already knew how much I valued her.

I liked the sound of that. I'd have to talk to her when we got into the project some more. But now that I was going to be sitting on $10 million in seed money to start a business, it was a much more realistic possibility. I'd also talk to Kaia about it, so defuse any potential jealousy up front. I'd want to hire Kaia if I could, and not just because I want to spend every moment with her, but because I'd seen how hard she was working already, and I knew she could be good at this job once she got done with her school. She had such wonderful charisma, that she would be great in any consulting or sales work. At a minimum I wanted to give her an internship.

I'd had my Tuesday and Thursday dates with Kaia, both nice dinner dates at local places. One was a great Mexican restaurant with delicious street tacos and elote, the other an Italian with wood fired pizzas and great pasta selections. I wanted to take her to someplace fancy, but that might be a couple weeks away. Next week my company was holding their office holiday party, they always held it a month after Christmas so they could get better venues at good prices, and I'd want to take Kaia to that. Maybe the week after I could take her to a nice place and talk more about our future now that the divorce wasn't hanging over my head?

On Saturday, I determined something particularly important. Hayden was never, ever, going to drive my boat. I tried, believe me I did, but she was distracted by everything she saw. I was thankful that she hadn't been distracted during my surgery, because it didn't matter if it was another boat, a bird, or an oddly shaped cloud, she had issues paying attention to where we were headed in the boat. To her credit, she didn't argue, she knew better after we almost hit a small sailboat. But as a consolation, we decided to plan a group outing with Heather and Kaia. Nobody would be turning that down.

When the Twin Stars pulled in, it was a much better group getting off the boat than the last time, and there were no threats required. That was much preferred over the previous week.

"I'm going to marry that girl," Hayden whispered to me as they were tying up the boat.

"Damn, already?" I knew they were moving fast, but that was supersonic!

"I mean, I'm not asking right now, but I can tell you right now that it is gonna happen. I need you to be my best man." Hayden hadn't taken her eyes off her girlfriend the entire time they were in view, and the smile on her face made me realize how in love she was. I had a feeling that Kaia and I looked at each other like that a lot too. It was a nice feeling.

On naval bases, when a carrier battle group comes into port, there are thousands of sailors coming into port after months at sea. On the pier would be awaiting the families of the crew. In many cases, loved ones would hurl themselves into the arms of the sailors that they'd been without for all that time. That is what I felt like now, though on a much smaller scale. I hadn't seen Kaia since I kissed her goodnight on Thursday, and though we'd texted and called multiple times since then, seeing her just lifted my spirits. Heather was wrapped around Hayden and kissing her deeply while the nurse was trying not to fall into the water at the ferocity of their kisses.

Kaia and I were more reserved, but she still melted into my embrace, and I inhaled her sweet scent. She'd just spent eight hours in the sun while working on the boat and I didn't care. She still smelled wonderful, and the taste of her neck as I nuzzled her was no less delightful. Was it too early for me to tell her I loved her? We were about to have a family night with the kids and my mom, I think this would be a good time to tell her. There was no reason to hold it back.

"Hey there beautiful," I murmured into her ear. "You ready to go have a fun night?"

"I smell like fish and I'm sweaty!" she complained lightly but didn't make any move to escape my arms.

"You smell like heaven, and you're all mine," I countered. She was everything I needed.

"Hey!" called out Heather. "We're heading out! You guys have fun and use protection!"

We both just shook our heads, knowing that wouldn't be an issue tonight. But I had to think of what would happen when we were ready. The last thing I wanted was our first time to be in a guest room of my mom's house or Heather's dad's house. I needed to do something special for her.