She told her friends she married him for money. He'd been ready for that day for years.
Andre walked out of the restaurant and never looked back.
Jasmine sat frozen at the round table. The divorce papers were right in front of her, his signature still wet on the last page.
Her three best friends just stared. Nobody touched their food.
Ten minutes ago, she'd been laughing.
"Did you think I married you for love?" she'd said, right there in front of everybody. "Who doesn't want money these days?"
She said it loud. She wanted the whole table to hear.
And Andre smiled. Calm. Tired.
"I knew a day like this would come," he said. "That's why I put everything in my mother's name. The house. The cars. Even my company. Everything."
Now he was gone.
"Girl," Tiana said slowly. "Is that true?"
"He's bluffing," Jasmine snapped. "You can't just put a whole company in your mama's name. My lawyer's going to eat him alive."
She called her lawyer. 9 p.m. on a Friday. Voicemail.
She called again. Voicemail.
Brianna leaned in. "Jas... you really said you married him for money? Out loud?"
"Everybody marries for money," Jasmine said. "At least I'm honest about it."
Brianna and Tiana gave each other a look. Kendra, the quiet one, was looking down at her phone.
Jasmine caught it. "What are you doing?"
Kendra didn't answer. She just turned her phone face down.
Jasmine drove home planning her next move. The house in Buckhead. The Range Rover. The beach condo in Miami. Half of it was hers. Georgia was fair about these things. She'd read up on it.
She pulled into the driveway.
Her key didn't work.
She tried again. And again.
Then she saw the envelope taped to the glass. Her name on the front, in handwriting she knew very well.
Not Andre's.
His mother's.
This is a fictional story. Names, characters and events are invented. Any resemblance to real people or events is coincidental.
