Chapter 2

The drive from the mirrored glass tower to the penthouse passed in a blur of tinted windows and the low hum of the engine.

Ten days.

That was the number ticking in the back of my mind. Ten days from now would have marked the decade. The anniversary of the day we met. Ten years since a boy in a university library asked to borrow my corporate finance notes. He never gave them back. He just kept taking.

The penthouse was quiet.

I keyed in my security code. The lock flashed green.

Everything inside was glass and brushed chrome. I had picked out the coffee table. I had chosen the sheer curtains that filtered the afternoon light. I had argued with the contractor over the exact shade of the hardwood, so Marcus would have the right backdrop for his interviews.

Now, the glass walls only reflected a stranger leaning hard on a cane.

My phone vibrated against the marble island.

Marcus.

I watched the screen light up. I let it ring.

It stopped. A beat of quiet. Then it started again.

I hit accept. I put him on speaker.

“Hannah.” He was breathing hard, the sound thin through the microphone. “Tell me you went home. Tell me you're at the apartment.”

“I am.”

“Good. Stay right there. I'm clearing my afternoon now.”

“Don't.”

“You're angry. You have every right to be angry —”

I opened the hallway closet. I pulled out my suitcase.

“I'm packing, Marcus.”

“Stop. Just stop moving and listen to me.”

I limped into the bedroom and tossed a row of hangers onto the dress.

Three times I had tried to anchor us. Three times he had cut the rope.

“Year four,” I said to the empty room.

“What?”

“Our fourth anniversary. I booked the rooftop. I ordered that vintage Bordeaux you pretended to understand.”

“Hannah, why are you bringing this up right now?”

“You texted me at midnight. You said you were finalizing the logistics for a hostile takeover. You told me to eat dinner without you.”

I remembered the waiter pouring the dark wine, the condensation sliding down the stem and pooling on the white tablecloth. I drank it alone.

“I was building our future!” His voice spiked, defensive. “You know how hard I worked for that initial capital.”

“Year six,” I continued.

I moved to the master bathroom and swept my arm across the counter. The glass bottles clinked together like broken teeth.

“The Paris summit,” I said. “You told me to pack the white dress. You said we had something permanent to celebrate.”

“We did. We doubled our European market share.”

“At the investor dinner, a managing partner asked when we were getting married. Do you remember what you said?”

Silence on the line. Just the faint sound of Manhattan traffic behind him.

“You laughed,” I told him, staring at my pale reflection in the bathroom mirror. “You said I was married to the P&L sheets. You told them a wife was a liability on the cap table.”

My fingernails had cut half-moons into my palm. The skin had nearly broken. But I smiled. I swallowed the humiliation like a pill. I lowered the bar again.

“I had to project focus,” Marcus pleaded. The line crackled. “The European investors were traditional. They wanted a ruthless CEO, not a romantic.”

“Year eight.”

I walked back into the bedroom. I leaned my weight against the dresser.

My right leg throbbed — a sharp spike of heat, the body's reminder of the spiral staircase.

“The industry gala,” I said.

“Hannah, please stop doing this.”

“You promised you'd announce us to the board that night.”

I had stood in the front row. I'd worn the sapphire dress he'd bought me.

Marcus had taken the podium. The cameras flashed. He announced the preliminary Whitford merger talks instead. He didn't look at me once during the speech. Afterward, a financial reporter asked who the woman in the sapphire was.

*She's a great asset to our strategy team,* he'd said.

An asset. A spreadsheet. A piece of office furniture.

“I bought the ring, didn't I?” Marcus shouted. His voice was raw now. “I gave you a ring, Hannah!”

I opened my bedside drawer.

I pulled out the square velvet box.

Inside was a diamond on a plain platinum band. He had slid it across the kitchen counter one morning, while scrolling through his emails. He hadn't even stood up from his stool. *Here. So you know I'm serious about this.*

He'd told me not to wear it to the office yet. He said it might send the wrong message to the senior partners.

“You never wanted me to wear it,” I said, tracing the cold metal.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I kept it in a drawer for a year, Marcus. While you bought Sloane an emerald and put it on her finger in front of five hundred people.”

“Sloane's ring is a prop! It's a PR stunt to calm her father down!”

“Okay.”

“It's not real, Hannah! You are real. You're the one who built this empire with me.”

“I know.”

“Then don't leave. Put the suitcase away. We can fix this.”

“We're done, Marcus.”

“You can't do this. We have a ten-year history. You don't end that with one phone call.”

“I just did.”

I pressed the red button and ended the call.

The apartment went still.

I looked at the diamond in my palm. The stone caught the last light coming through the floor-to-ceiling glass.

Cold. Flawless. Worthless.

The doorbell rang.

Sharp, heavy chimes.

I walked to the intercom. The security screen showed a woman in a heavy suit standing in the hallway.

Ruth Calloway.

My father's old chief of staff. The woman who'd run the European division with an iron fist for thirty years.

I buzzed her in.

The heavy oak door swung open.

Ruth stepped inside. She didn't look at the art on the walls. She didn't look at the sweeping view of the skyline. She looked at my cane, then into my eyes.

“Your mother sent me,” Ruth said. Her voice was a thin blade.

“I told her I only needed a car to the airport.”

“You're a Vale. We don't do things quietly anymore.”

Ruth signaled behind her. Two men in dark suits stepped in past her. They didn't ask questions. They walked straight to my bedroom and picked up my bags.

“Ten years,” Ruth said, stopping beside the glass coffee table. She ran a gloved finger over the edge, checking for dust that wasn't there. “You gave that boy a decade of your life.”

“I was waiting for him to be ready.”

“Men like Marcus Hale are never ready. They sit on a good thing until someone else takes it away.”

I watched the men carry my life out the door.

No tears. No shaking hands. No screaming.

The fire in my chest had burned out.

“Are you leaving anything behind?” Ruth asked.

I looked down at my right hand. The ring was heavy and foreign.

I walked back into the master bedroom one last time. The bed was made. Crisp white linens. The pillows were fluffed the way the housekeeper I had hired liked them.

I placed the diamond ring dead center on his pillow.

The metal sank into the soft cotton, leaving a small depression.

I walked out of the room. I didn't look back.

The heavy glass door of the penthouse clicked shut behind me, sealing off the last nine years of my life.

Marcus always said a ruthless CEO cuts a bad investment before it sinks the rest of the portfolio. He always said a clean break, no emotion, was the only way to survive a crash.

I stepped into the elevator.

I'd do it for him.

Three days later. The Pierre Hotel.

A cold autumn rain slicked the streets of Manhattan. Heavy drops hammered against the lobby's glass. Inside the Grand Ballroom, a sea of black tuxedos and designer gowns filled the space beneath three crystal chandeliers.

We had scouted this venue together three years ago. We had tasted the catering menu in a private room upstairs. We had chosen this place for our wedding reception.

Now I wore a tailored black suit. My weight leaned hard onto a wooden cane.

Ruth Calloway walked at my shoulder. Two senior partners from the Vale Trust trailed behind us, carrying briefcases of dark Italian leather.

“They'll try to stop you at the door,” Ruth said, adjusting the collar of her blazer. “He'll use the crowd. He'll use the spectacle of this night to force you into submission. It's the oldest trick in the corporate playbook.”

I looked at the heavy oak doors of the ballroom.

“Those days died in the hospital, Ruth.”