Chapter 3

Andrew walked into the room a minute after Ryan left.

He was still holding his phone, and his face was pinched with stress. The press was a mess, and the investors were getting nervous.

But the first thing out of his mouth wasn't, "Are you okay?" It was, "Why did you have Ryan cancel the guarantee?"

I looked at him from the bed. He looked like a stranger wearing a familiar face.

I'd nearly suffocated in the ER, and his priority was his balance sheet.

His company mattered more to him than my life.

I lifted my hand from the blanket and gestured toward my neck, which was still red and raw. "Andrew. Does the fact that I almost died matter to you at all?"

He frowned. "The doctor said you're stable."

"And?" I asked.

"Evelyn, stop this. The company is at a critical point for securing capital. The board is watching me. If you pull the guarantee now, you're cutting me off at the knees."

I stared at him. Five years felt like a bad joke I was hearing the punchline to. "Let me ask you something."

"What is it?"

"What am I allergic to?"

He froze.

I held his gaze. My voice was slow and sharp. "What food will kill me if I touch it?"

His mouth opened, but nothing came out. The only sound in the room was the hum of the air conditioning vent.

He looked away. "Evelyn, does that really matter right this second?"

I laughed. It was a quiet sound with no warmth in it. "It matters. It matters more than anything.

"Because you know that Chloe likes her hot chocolate light on the sugar, with no whipped cream, warm. But you have no idea that a mango could put your wife in the ground."

I watched his expression shatter, piece by piece. The weight that had been sitting on my ribs broke open. It wasn't relief. It was the final freeze of something dying.

"Andrew. I want a divorce," I said.

His face darkened. "You're not serious."

"Dead serious."

"You're going to throw everything away over what happened tonight?"

"Over tonight?" My voice stayed low, but it cut. "Andrew, when I was in the ER, the nurse asked you for my allergy history, and you had no clue.

"I heard you in this room telling Chloe I was acting up for attention.

"I almost died, and your first question was about loan documents.

"And you think this is about tonight?"

His jaw tightened. He was silent for a long time.

When he spoke, it was like he was trying to hold back a wave of irritation. "Okay. I screwed up today. I made a mistake. But you don't have to jump straight to divorce."

I stared at him. "Five years of marriage and not knowing the thing that could end my life is what you call a simple mistake. You must have been incredibly busy, Andrew."

His head snapped up. For the first time, I saw real embarrassment flicker in his eyes. But I was done looking.

"Ryan will send over the agreement," I said. "You can sign it, or I'll see you in court."

"Evelyn." His voice was a warning now. "Don't forget. You were the one who chased me. You wanted this marriage."

His words made me pause. My eyes burned, but I smiled anyway.

"Yeah," I said softly. "I wanted to marry you. And now? I want to unmarry you."

*****

The day I was discharged, Andrew did not bother to show up. His mother, Margaret Shaw, came instead.

She marched into the room in her heels, the cloud of her perfume thick enough to choke on. She settled into the chair and tossed her purse onto the nightstand like she owned the place.

Margaret said, "Evelyn, Andrew has been drowning in work these past few years. The company is enormous.

"You do nothing to help him, and now you want to drag all this private business into the open and talk about divorce. Are you trying to ruin him completely?"

I kept my head down and slowly packed my medication. "Mrs. Shaw, your son nearly put me in a coffin."

"It was a reaction to some fruit. You did not die. You are standing here breathing, are you not?"

My hands paused over the box of pills. It was funny how people think. The knife missed the heart, so suddenly the person holding it is innocent.

I snapped the medicine box shut and looked up at her. "Maybe next time, Andrew should try it himself. See how it feels."

Margaret's face went tight. "What kind of attitude is that?"

"This is who I am. I was only polite before because I was trying to make things work with your family."

She clearly had not expected me to speak to her that way. Her expression flickered between shock and fury. "Evelyn, do not forget who gave you this life you have been living for the past five years.

"You were a junior associate back then. A nobody. Without Andrew, you would have nothing."