Chapter 1

After the silver-anniversary dinner, my husband's first love, Sabrina Lowell, posted a photo of two cruise tickets in their old college group chat.

She wrote, "Owen Sanchez deserves to live for himself for once, instead of spending his whole life selling breakfast beside Monica Prescott, suffering for nothing."

She bragged, too, that her own restaurant company was worth tens of millions, more than enough to keep Owen comfortable in his old age.

Owen sent an angry sticker and replied, "Sabrina, don't joke like that. Monica will be hurt."

I actually thought he'd at least keep up appearances, that he still cared about the twenty-five years we'd spent as husband and wife.

But that same night, Owen handed me a divorce agreement.

The house and the pension went to him, and I was still to look after his mother and run the breakfast shop.

On holidays, I'd have to go back to his hometown with him as his wife, so the relatives wouldn't talk.

When I didn't pick up the pen right away, his face darkened and he threatened, "Monica, you're fifty-three. Divorce me, and who else would ever want you? Don't make me leave you with nothing."

My son and daughter chimed in too. "Sabrina's got money and class, Mom. Dad can finally have a good life with her. Stop dragging him down."

I didn't cry and I didn't make a scene. I only added one clause to the end of the agreement, a property-settlement clause.

Owen glanced at it, and his fingers suddenly shook.

The restaurant company Sabrina claimed was worth tens of millions was just one subsidiary my own restaurant brand had recently acquired.

......

"Monica, has being poor driven you insane?"

Owen stared at the property-settlement clause I'd added, his face going black.

The next second, he ripped the agreement to shreds and hurled them in my face.

"You knead dough for a living. Who are you playing at, some big boss? Sabrina's company is worth tens of millions. You couldn't even afford the doormat outside her door, and you want to settle her assets?"

Terry Sanchez drummed his fingers on the table, pushing me along.

"Mom, just sign already. Sabrina's promised to buy me a wedding home outright. You've sold coffee your whole life. Could you ever scrape together a down payment?"

Joan Sanchez hooked up my apron and flung it aside in disgust.

"If you were really somebody, would you be wearing a thirty-dollar rag of an apron? Stop holding Dad back from a good life."

I looked at the two children I'd raised for twenty-four years.

The money for Terry to study abroad, I'd saved it kneading dough at three every morning.

For Joan's heart surgery, I'd sold the gold jewelry my mother left me.

And now all they saw was that I was shabby, that I smelled of kitchen grease.

The doorbell rang.

Sabrina came in with movers and pointed at the master bedroom.

"The old bed's already gone. Put the new mattress here. Owen's back is bad, he can't keep making do."

She saw me and immediately hooked her arm through Owen's.

"Monica hasn't left yet? Maybe the workers should wait a bit, so she doesn't feel awkward."

Owen closed his hand over hers and turned a hard face on me.

"Look at Sabrina, then look at you. You reek of chopped scallions. Just smelling it makes me sick. Fine, don't sign the agreement, but move out tonight."

His mother came out of her room and kicked a dirty mop over to my feet.

"Mop the floor before you go. Divorce or not, the work still needs finishing."

I kicked the mop right back.

"Whoever dirtied it can get down on their knees and clean it.

"I've mopped this Sanchez family's floors for twenty-five years. From today on, it can rot and crawl with maggots for all I care. Don't count on me touching it again."

The room went silent all at once.

I picked up the scraps of the agreement off the floor and tucked them into my pocket.

"Take the house. I don't want it. The housework, the elder care, the breakfast shop, saving your face on holidays, all of it, off the table."

"Owen, you want to run off into the sunset with your first love? Fine. But first we settle twenty-five years of accounts, item by item."

Owen blocked my way.

"My mother took care of you all these years. You can't just wash your hands of her. Have a conscience."

I brushed his hand aside.

"She ate the food I cooked, wore the clothes I bought, and I sat by her bed when she was in the hospital. What did she ever do to take care of me?

"My conscience, you people picked it clean long ago. From now on, anyone who tries to guilt-trip me with it can cough up everything they owe me."

I pulled the door open. Behind me, Owen shouted, "Open the shop at five sharp tomorrow morning! Joan wants warm pastries!"

I walked straight into the elevator.

"If she wants them, let her real mother make them."

"The breakfast sandwiches I make, she's not worthy of eating."

Out of the complex, I got into the black Rolls-Royce parked in the shadow of the trees.

The general manager, Alex James, handed me a folder.

"Chairwoman Prescott, the paperwork's done.

"The company shares your father left you have all been registered in your name."