Chapter 1

“Ma’am, your husband completed the equity transfer registration yesterday. You now own zero shares.”

The lawyer slid the corporate registration documents toward me and pointed to the signature on the last page.

The three wildly scrawled characters were obviously not in my handwriting.

I stared at the page, my mind going blank for three seconds.

That was the company we had built over seven years, the company I had nearly worked myself to death for.

Thirty-five percent of the shares, valued according to the latest round of financing, was worth twenty-eight million.

And now, it belonged to my husband’s first love.

The woman who had once dumped him for being poor, gone abroad, and married a foreigner.

When my best friend sent me a photo, I was feeding my daughter some baby food.

In the photo, my husband, Ethan, was having dinner with a woman at a restaurant in Hudson Yards.

The woman wore a beige trench coat, her long hair falling over her shoulders, and she smiled sweetly. A cake sat in front of her, with candles shaped like the number “18.”

The caption contained only one sentence:

“Guess who I ran into at Hudson Yards today? Your husband is celebrating Madison’s birthday.”

Madison.

Ethan’s college ex-girlfriend.

The woman who had dumped him after graduation and moved to Canada.

She had just gotten divorced and returned home last month.

As I stared at the photo, my hand trembled, and the spoon fell to the floor.

My daughter began to cry.

I picked her up and soothed her, while one thought raced through my mind.

Last week, Ethan had told me the company needed to increase its capital and expand its shareholding, and that I needed to sign some paperwork.

He brought a thick stack of contracts to the street outside my office and had me flip to the last page and sign it in the car.

When I said I wanted to read the contents, he told me, “They’re all standard clauses. The lawyer has already reviewed them. If you’re worried, take them home and read them carefully.”

I took them home.

But my daughter had a fever that day, and I cared for her until three in the morning before rushing to a project presentation first thing the next day, so I left the contract on my desk without even opening it.

When I returned home last night, I realized it was gone.

I asked Ethan about it, and he said, “Since you didn’t sign it, I withdrew it. I’ll prepare another copy.”

I hadn’t thought much of it at the time.

But now, looking at the photo of Madison blowing out her candles, I heard a loud buzz in my head.

That contract had nothing to do with increasing capital or expanding the shareholding.

It was an equity transfer agreement.

He had wanted me to transfer the shares I owned in the company to Madison.

My name is Claire. I’m thirty-two years old, and I’ve been married to Ethan for five years. We have a two-year-old daughter.

We got together during our senior year of college.

After graduation, I joined an internet company in operations, while he took the civil service exam twice and failed both times. Later, he went to work in sales for a small private company. His salary was low, but he was charming and knew how to make people happy.

My mother told me, “It doesn’t matter if a man is poor, as long as he treats you well.”

When I thought about it, I agreed, and I married him.

The first two years of our marriage were painfully tight.

We rented a partitioned room in an old neighborhood downtown. A programmer with insomnia lived next door and pounded on his keyboard until two every morning. Ethan and I didn’t even dare speak loudly.

The turning point came in the third year of our marriage.

One of my college classmates started a cross-border e-commerce business and asked me to become a partner.

I hesitated for a long time because I would have to quit my stable job, and Ethan didn’t support me much either. He said, “Starting a business is risky. Why are you, of all people, running around trying to make something happen?”

But I went anyway.

The three of us became partners, and each of us contributed our own startup funds.

I invested all the $15,000 I had saved and borrowed another $10,000 from my mother.

My mother transferred the money without a second thought and said, “As long as it makes you happy.”

The first two years, we truly fought for our lives.

I was in charge of the supply chain, running to factories every day, bargaining with suppliers, and keeping an eye on quality.

Once, to meet a shipment deadline, I stayed away for an entire month. When I came home, my daughter didn’t even recognize me.

My partner, Victor, called me “the toughest woman alive.”

When I was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer, I was still answering client messages while hooked up to an IV.

But the results didn’t let us down.

In our fourth year, we secured Series B financing, and the company’s valuation passed $100 million.

Based on the price from the latest financing round, my shares were worth $28 million.