My Despicable Ex (Book 1) Read Online Free

anything? She had begged me to break it off with him countless times.
She’d told me constantly that he’d never amount to anything, warned
me that he was a loser, and she’d yelled at the top of her lungs,
“My daughter deserves better!”
    I took a quick peek at Jake
as he wiped the water from his brow. My mind drifted back to months
after the breakup. I dreaded telling people I was single. Nadia
encouraged me, telling me my renewed bachelorette status was going
to be a fun and wonderful experience, but I only considered it a
punishment, as if I’d committed some terrible crime that had pissed
fate off. I was sure nobody could ever love me again. Nadia assured
me that wasn’t the case, but I refused to listen. My world had
crumbled and shattered all around me. Maybe if I was prettier, sexier, or smarter, Jake would’ve
stuck around, I told myself. I felt upset,
worthless, and beyond depressed. “What did I do that was so wrong?”
I often asked. Nadia was insulted by such questions and made me
write down a list of twenty-five things that I loved about myself.
Learning to value and accept myself had helped with the healing
process, and eventually I did feel a little bit better, but there
was no therapy that could help me put my broken heart back
together; Jake had, after all, taken some of the biggest pieces
with him.
    “ Are you listening?” he
asked. “Did you hear what the man just said?”
    “ What?”
    His eyes were wide in
shock. “Your mother left her estate and the sum of fifty million
dollars to… us .”
    “ What!?” I shouted,
standing back up. “Why would she leave anything to him ?” I pointed to the
Will. “Check it again. This has to be some kind of
mistake!”
    “ My team and I were the
ones who put it together,” my attorney said. “Your mother’s
intentions were quite clear.”
    “ No! My mother would never
do that, not in a million years.” The room started to spin, and
everything grew hotter. He handed the official documents to me. As
I ran my fingers over the raised notary seal and stared down at the
words and my mother’s signature, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Why ?
    “ She did not just flatly
leave the money to him. There are some, uh…stipulations to getting
the money,” my lawyer said.
    I sucked in a deep breath, then let it
out slowly. I was frazzled, confused, and discombobulated all at
once. “What kind of stipulations?”
    “ I think it’s best that you
sit down, Ashly,” Jake said. “Let’s figure this out
together.”
    I didn’t want to obey a word he said,
but I sat down and tried to keep my composure. I knew lashing out
at Jake wouldn’t change the instructions my mother had left. I
wanted to ask more questions, but at that point, I could barely
breathe. I was on the verge of hyperventilating, and the last thing
I wanted was for either of those two to give me
mouth-to-mouth.
    “ Take slow, deep breaths,
Miss Roberts,” my lawyer coaxed.
    “ In and out deeply,” Jake
chimed in.
    I stared into his eyes. “I’m not
giving birth here, and even if I was, you sure as hell wouldn’t be
my labor coach.”
    “ C’mon, Ashly. I’m just
trying to help.”
    “ Shut up, Jake,” I said. “I
don’t need your help. I don’t need anything from a coward like
you.”
    He let out a huff and turned back to
the lawyer. “What are these so-called stipulations?”
    “ Miss Roberts’s mother,
Virginia, chose several locations around the world that you must
visit together. Everything will be paid for, and you will be given
an ample allotment of funds for food, personal items, and traveling
expenses. In order to fulfill the requirements, you will have to
provide a photograph of the two of you together at each
destination.” He then turned his gaze to me. “Your mother referred
to these as ‘Kodak moments’. When you obtain all the pictures, come
back to my office for verification. If they are legitimate, each
one of you will be given twenty-five million