Chapter 1

He dropped to his knees right there under my apartment building.

In front of Aiden Hall.

That man who had spent three years married to me without ever truly looking at me.

That man who had treated me like air for the sake of Sophie Dane.

Now the president of Cole Capital was kneeling in the rain, soaked through, apologizing again and again like his life depended on it.

How funny.

Where was he when his mother humiliated me with money?

Where was he when I spent night after night alone in an empty house, unable to sleep?

Now that I had dragged him into court and ruined his reputation, he suddenly wanted to call it love?

I looked at his bloodshot eyes and felt nothing.

Only contempt.

Love that comes too late is cheaper than dirt.

What he did not know was that my revenge had only just begun.

And he knew even less about the real tragedy behind our marriage.

The whole thing had been a lie from the start, staged by the people closest to him.

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My thirty-second birthday happened to be the third anniversary of my marriage to Grayson Cole.

At five o'clock sharp, I left work and went to the grocery store.

I bought sea bass, asparagus, and a small cut of steak.

Every one of them was something he had once mentioned at dinner in passing.

I remembered everything.

Back at the suburban villa everyone called home, the silence felt like another kind of weather.

The housekeeper had already left.

There was no sound in that huge place except my breathing.

I changed out of my lawyer's suit, tied on an apron, and walked into the kitchen.

For one brief second, I caught my own reflection and nearly laughed.

In court I fought over property division and dignity for other women.

At home I played the role of a good wife waiting for her husband to come back.

I had been performing that part for three years.

Long enough to nearly believe it.

At eight, the table was set.

Four dishes. One soup. A glass of red wine for me.

I waited.

At nine, the food went cold.

I reheated everything.

At ten, it went cold again.

This time I left it there.

It takes three minutes to reheat a dish.

How long does it take to warm a dead heart?

At ten-thirty, the code lock at the front door beeped.

He was home.

His steps were steady as always.

He smelled like a sweet floral perfume that was not his.

My stomach turned.

He glanced at the table, then tossed me a branded envelope from some luxury department store.

"Allowance," he said.

That was his preferred way to fulfill his duty as a husband.

Efficient. Convenient. Emotionless.

I looked up at him.

"Grayson, do you remember what today is?"

He paused while loosening his tie, frowned as if he had been handed a difficult equation, then gave up.

"Not important."

Then he went upstairs.

Not important.

My birthday was not important.

Our wedding anniversary was not important.

The evening I had spent preparing everything was not important.

I poured my wine down in one swallow, got up, and dumped the fish, the asparagus, the steak, and the soup into the trash one by one.

It sounded like a funeral.

A quick, careless one for a three-year marriage.

Then I messaged my best friend Chloe Benson.

I decided.

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