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fantastic,” Zoe, her lawyer, said.
    Angelina assumed she was being generous, trying to get her spirits up before the proceeding started. “Thanks.”
    “Seriously, you practically glow.” Zoe smoothed a hand over her sleek pageboy. “God, I have the worst headache.”
    “I might have some drugs.” Angelina dug through her four-year-old Coach bag in search of a vial of Advil.
    “Allergies.” Zoe waved her off. “Don’t worry about it. I have no hope of looking as good as you do today. What have you been doing?”
    Angelina flushed as she thought about the nap she’d just taken. Dream sex was a good pick-me-up. Right up until the moment her dream angel had talked.
    Gary didn’t make eye contact. He conveniently hunched over his smart phone, and emailed away with his thumbs. Candy gave her a friendly smile edged with triumph. She thought she’d hit the boyfriend jackpot by snagging a doctor. But Angelina would be damned if Candy took away anything from her kids.
    “Court is in session,” said the bailiff. “Judge Horatio presiding in Guerisse versus Wheldon.”
    The judge nodded to both tables. “Is the paperwork in order?”
    Angelina had been in charge of their financial portfolio. She’d set up the accounts, monitored and maintained the records, so Gary hadn’t been able to siphon out funds, like Janine’s first husband had, before he dumped her.
    The bad news....
    “Your assets were supposed to have been split. Due to market conditions, your assets are listed in the amount of….” Angelina tuned out the judge. She knew to the penny what their assets had been worth and what they were worth now.
    In California, equal property state that it was, she’d get half of their joint assets. Sixteen years of marriage, of dedication, love, duty (and infidelity, the pig) boiled down to fifty/fifty. Except their assets were a mess. Gary had wanted a monstrosity of a house and she had given in. Any equity they had in their house was long since gone. But her half of the assets could be substantially depleted if the house were listed at its old value.
    Craig Lovell, Gary’s lawyer, and a former friend of theirs, was now firmly in the Gary camp. Friends had split along party lines. That was the truly weird circumstance of divorce. She’d seen it with Janine. No matter how hard you tried to stay friends with both husband and wife, the natural inclination was to take a side.
    “Your honor,” Craig began. “I’d like to petition that my client be exempt the cost of the career consultant.” Craig’s emphasis on her court-recommended consultant placed the woman one step up from a streetwalker. The jerk. “My client has already paid for his wife’s home and her living expenses.”
    This was where Gary hadn’t been truthful with his lawyer. Although they’d bought the house together, Angelina’s inheritance had paid off Gary’s medical school debts and bought him into his current practice. Gary was here because he had balked at the bill for her paralegal education as well as the career consultant, and he wanted the court to believe he didn’t have the money. Which he might not, but that wasn’t her problem.
    After they’d married, she’d dropped out of nursing school at Gary’s request. She’d been on track to get her nursing credential when they’d gotten married and within two months, she’d been pregnant, and that had been the end of her medical career. He’d claimed it would be too difficult for him to finish his surgery residency while she went to school and they tried to take care of a baby at the same time.
    So she had no job skills. After she consulted the career counselor, she’d chosen the paralegal field. And if it wasn’t the most fascinating job in the world, so be it. She could get an education and a job within a couple of years.
    But she needed Gary to step up and pay for the tuition and the mortgage. At the look on the judge’s face, Angelina slowly curled her shoulders in, and her