Chapter 1

My husband humiliates me in public three times just to make his new mistress feel secure.

First, Adrian Hawthorne jerks his arm out of my grasp at a public event and snaps at me for touching him in front of the cameras.

The second time, he shoves me to the floor in front of everyone and walks away without looking back.

The third time, he buys the diamond I want at auction, drops it straight into the trash, and a few days later I see the same ring on another woman’s hand.

Adrian and I have spent years selling the world a perfect marriage.

We smile for cameras, arrive at galas arm in arm, and give investors exactly what they want to see. The stronger our marriage looks, the safer the alliance between our families appears.

In private, we have always been careful not to ask too many questions.

I thought that understanding would keep us peaceful.

Then Adrian starts humiliating me in public.

The first incident makes the gossip pages. The second turns divorce rumors into headlines. By the third, he has made his disgust look almost deliberate.

Later, I learn why.

He has a new girlfriend, and apparently humiliating his wife is how he makes her feel secure.

That night, Adrian tries his usual method of making peace.

He puts a sapphire on my bedside table and asks if I like it.

“I do,” I say. “Let’s get divorced. I’m tired, and I want to sleep.”

-

I don’t expect my divorce papers and a sapphire to appear in front of me on the same night.

The stone is flawless, deep blue, and obviously expensive.

Far more expensive than the diamond Adrian bought at auction a few weeks ago.

He stands beside the bed and gives me a detailed explanation of where the sapphire came from, its clarity, its rarity, and why it is worth so much.

He sounds more dedicated than the auctioneer who sold us the last one.

When he is finished, he looks at me with a faint smile.

“You like it, right? I picked something better this time.”

This is how Adrian apologizes.

He never actually says sorry.

He gives me jewelry, property, shares, whatever he thinks will make the problem disappear.

For years, I accepted it.

A gift meant he was willing to make peace. I would take it, give him the answer he wanted, and we would go back to being the perfect power couple everyone saw in public.

Tonight, I look at the sapphire again.

“I like it,” I say. “Let’s get divorced. I’m tired, and I want to sleep.”

Adrian smiles automatically.

“Knew you’d like it. Get some rest, then. I still have to go out—”

He stops.

Slowly, he turns back to me.

“What did you just say?”

I know he heard me.

So I lean against the headboard and look at him without repeating myself.

After a few seconds, his brows draw together.

“You’re serious?”

“Does discussing divorce in pajamas make me look too improper?”

His expression hardens.

That word clearly reminds him of the first time he humiliated me in public.

He thinks for a moment, then gives a short, disbelieving laugh.

“Is this some new way of pouting?”

I say nothing.

“Like those people who threaten to break up because they want attention?”

Still nothing.

“Sienna, don’t be childish.”

His voice turns colder.

“Do you really think this marriage belongs only to the two of us?”

Of course it doesn’t.

Our wedding joined two family businesses, two boards, two sets of shareholders, and years of carefully built partnerships.

The public likes us together.

Investors like us together.

Our families definitely like us together.

That has always been part of the deal.

Adrian looks at me as if he is explaining something obvious to a child.

“You should know when to stop. Don’t make this ugly enough that no one can clean it up.”

His phone rings. He glances at the screen, and his expression immediately softens before he answers.

“You’re scared?”

A pause.

His voice drops.

“Then next time I’ll get you a smaller place. Maybe you won’t be so nervous living alone.”

I look down at the sapphire.

Adrian keeps talking.

“Fine, fine. Wait for me. I’ll calm things down at home and come over.”

Another pause.

“Five minutes? That’s a little demanding, don’t you think?”

He says it like he is teasing her.

Five minutes later, he is already at the bedroom door.

He adjusts his cuff, glances back at me, and seems completely certain that when he comes home, this entire conversation will be over.

To him, this is just another fight, another gift, and another time I will forgive him.

“Think about it,” he says. “Maybe by tomorrow, you’ll realize you owe me an apology for bringing up something this ridiculous.”

Then he leaves.

The sapphire stays on my bedside table.

So do the divorce papers.