Chapter 1

On our wedding anniversary, I was holding my prenatal scan for quadruplets, ready to surprise him.

Instead, he beat me to it with a "surprise" of his own, "The woman I've loved for ten years is back. Let's get divorced.

"This 67 million dollars is compensation for you."

Looking at the transfer notification on my phone, I smiled. "Deal."

He never expected me to agree so fast. That was what made him panic and try to take it back.

The candlelit dinner for our third wedding anniversary was laid out across a long table draped in expensive velvet. Flames flickered quietly in silver candlesticks, lighting up the handsome but icy face of the man sitting across from me.

Jonathan Grant, my husband, was staring at me with those deep eyes I once got lost in, saying the cruelest words I'd ever heard, "Emily Lane is back. We're getting divorced."

The air seemed to freeze. Even the candlelight looked still.

My fingers tightened around the thin ultrasound report tucked inside my coat pocket, suddenly cold. Printed on it, plain as day, were four tiny gestational sacs, huddled together like four little stars.

I had planned to tell him this huge news on a day that was supposed to be special: to tell him he was going to be a father, and not just any father, but father to four babies.

But instead, he handed me a bigger shock.

It felt like an invisible hand had wrapped around my heart and squeezed hard. After that first choking second came a thousand tiny stabs of pain.

I could still clearly remember that pitch-black midnight half a month ago. On the footage from the dash cam I'd just installed, the man I'd loved for three years was crouched under my new car with pliers, sabotaging my brakes.

And the very next day, he wrapped an arm around me, handed me an accident insurance policy worth 10 million dollars with his name listed as the beneficiary.

He said tenderly, "Claire, this way, even if something happens to you, I'll still have something to live for."

Thinking back on it now, it was laughable. The thing he'd want to live for wasn't me. It was the 10 million dollars, and clearing space for the woman he really loved.

I took a deep breath and forced down the bitterness and nausea climbing up my throat.

When he saw I hadn't spoken for so long, impatience flashed across his face. He probably thought my silence meant I was stalling, winding up for some hysterical scene.

He pulled out his phone from inside his suit jacket and tapped the screen a few times, "This 67 million dollars is compensation for the past three years," he said, his tone full of smug charity.

"You're just a housewife. Without the Grant family, you're nothing. This money is enough to keep you comfortable for the rest of your life."

Ding.

My phone buzzed on the table. The screen lit up, and a bank transfer alert filled my vision.

[Your account ending in xxxx has received a transfer of 67 million dollars.]

That endless string of zeros made my vision blur. Seventy million.

Enough to buy off the three years I'd poured into this marriage, the love I'd been stupid enough to believe in, the life he had nearly taken from me, and even the fatherly love my four unborn children would never get from him.

I slowly lifted my head and looked at Jonathan's face, full of impatience and arrogance, and all of a sudden, I smiled. Not a bitter smile. Not a miserable one. It was light, real, and relieved from the bottom of my heart.

"Deal," I picked up my phone and gave him that clean, simple answer. My voice wasn't loud, but it landed clearly in the silent dining room.

The expression on Jonathan's face froze instantly. The tears, the questions, the breakdown he'd expected never came.

He stared at me like he was seeing me for the first time. The calm control he'd been wearing cracked.

"Claire Bennett, what the hell is that supposed to mean? You don't care?" He asked.

I slipped my phone into my pocket. The smile never left my face, but the last bit of warmth in my eyes was gone, "Seventy million to buy out three years of marriage and my own stupidity? That's a damn good deal."

After saying that, I got to my feet and prepared to leave that disgusting place.

My reaction had clearly thrown him off completely. He shot to his feet, grabbed my wrist, and for the first time, his voice held urgency.

He said, "I didn't mean I really wanted a divorce. I just saw you've been unhappy lately and thought I'd provoke you a little with this."

That excuse was so bad it was almost funny.

I stared at the hand gripping me. That same hand had once held pliers and tried to send me straight to hell.

A wave of pure physical disgust rushed up in me.

"Don't touch me." I yanked my hand free and, for the first time in front of him, let my disgust show without hiding any of it. "You make me feel filthy."

His whole body stiffened. His eyes were full of shock and hurt.

As if hearing that from me was harder for him to take than the divorce itself.

I couldn't be bothered looking at his fake face any longer. I pulled another document from my Hermès bag and tossed it onto the table in front of him.

Black words on white paper. The title hit hard.

[Divorce Agreement]

"I've already signed it. You can sign anytime, and it takes effect immediately." I said.

He lowered his head in disbelief to stare at the papers, then jerked it back up at me. Panic filled his eyes, "You wanted this for a long time?"

I curled my lips in a mocking smile and didn't answer.

Yeah. Ever since I saw the dash cam footage. Ever since I found out he wanted me dead. I'd been waiting for this day.

Jonathan Grant, you thought you were the hunter with everything under control. Too bad I'd already been standing by the trap, waiting for you to fall in.

Before he could react, I turned and walked out. My heels clicked sharply against the polished marble floor, crisp and final.

"Don't you dare leave, Claire. Get back here. We need to talk," his furious roar came from behind me.

He rushed up to grab me, but I moved faster and shut him inside.

At the door, I pulled it open, then right in front of his disbelieving eyes, I slammed that heavy solid-wood door shut and, out of sheer kindness, hit the dead-lock button from outside.