Chapter 1

“You won’t sign these divorce papers, Emma. You need The Marlowe too much to walk away from me.”

Grant said it three months ago, after Sophie Lane asked him to stay when her ex showed up at the hotel.

He canceled our anniversary weekend that same day.

I fought with him and asked what our marriage meant to him.

Grant didn’t say a word. He opened his desk drawer and took out our divorce papers.

I froze. Then I cried and begged him not to divorce me.

He had already signed them.

This morning, I signed them.

At 9:12, I signed something else.

At HR, Denise slid the final form toward me.

“Your resignation becomes effective in four days, on the night of the gala.”

Four days.

The revised gala program had already reached the staff before I made it back upstairs.

Sophie Lane’s name was above mine.

“Grant finally chose her,” one of the assistants whispered.

I stopped beside the bronze elevator doors.

“He didn’t choose her over me,” I said. “Harbor House hired me.”

Their faces changed before they looked away.

The morning after the gala, I would be working across the street as Harbor House’s new general manager.

The salary was nearly twice what Grant paid me.

Before the elevator doors opened, Grant called.

“Sophie moved three donors. Fix the seating plan before lunch.”

He still had no idea.

He had never once opened the staff system himself. That had always been my job.

“It’s her gala.”

“She’s presenting it. You’re making sure it works.”

Then Sophie’s voice slid through the phone.

“Grant, don’t push her. I can present the gala myself. I just don’t want her to feel replaced.”

“You hear that?” Grant said. “She’s trying to protect your feelings. You’re the one making this personal.”

I opened the seating file.

One donor had been placed beside a rival he was suing.

I corrected that one mistake so the staff would not pay for Grant’s decision.

The file reached Sophie’s inbox thirty seconds later.

Grant replied before she did.

“I knew you’d come through.”

I had fixed one problem.

Grant was already treating it as permission to keep using me.

The elevator doors finally opened.

I stepped inside and watched them close between us.

Before I reached the lobby, the management group lit up.

[Emma will finalize all gala operations by six.]

A second notice appeared beneath it.

This one was only on my screen.

[RESIGNATION EFFECTIVE IN FOUR DAYS.]