“No wonder I didn’t see you after the funeral you were tied up with something big.
Let’s see what you picked out.”
Ethan reached to flip the page, and Claire’s heart shot into her throat.
His phone rang before he got the chance.
Rosalind, telling him to hurry.
He answered and started to walk off until Claire caught his sleeve, mouthing quietly.
“Sign it first.”
Ethan hesitated a beat.
Something in him didn’t want Claire finding out about him and Rosalind.
Not yet.
But Claire’s hearing wasn’t reliable enough to catch a phone conversation, let alone the person on the other end of the line.
So he juggled the call in one hand while the other followed the line of Claire’s fingertip across the page, scrawling his signature without reading a single word of it.
The moment he finished, Claire snatched the folder back and turned for the stairs.
Ethan’s hand went suddenly empty.
He caught her wrist without thinking.
“Something else?”
He studied her, suspicion creeping in.
She was acting strange today.
For no clear reason, he added, “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Claire only blinked, calm.
“It’s fine.
Go.”
Guilt cut through him unexpectedly.
Claire had never done anything but love him completely.
Last year, when he’d used a “business trip” as cover to see Rosalind on their anniversary, Claire had booked a ten-hour flight just to surprise him there.
He’d been furious the entire visit.
She’d assumed she’d disrupted his work and apologized, promising never to ambush him like that again.
She must be crushed about missing another anniversary.
But she was always so quiet about her own disappointment this year she hadn’t even let it show.
Maybe…
I should carve out time.
Come back for the day.
Make it up to her.
“Claire, I”
The phone rang again.
Ethan’s jaw tightened, and he let her hand go.
“I have to go.
Behave while I’m out.”
Once he’d left, Claire pulled the divorce agreement back out and checked his signature one more time.
She went to her room, found a black velvet ring box, and dropped the wedding ring inside without a flicker of hesitation.
She thought for a second, then wrote a small card to go with it: Wishing you happiness.
She tied it shut with gold ribbon and tucked the whole thing into her nightstand drawer.
On the ride home, old memories surfaced one after another.
Ethan didn’t love her.
That much was now certain, and it had cracked something in her chest.
There had been moments, flashes where the humiliation of being used as a stand-in nearly broke her control entirely.
But hate wasn’t the word for what she felt.
When the Ashfords had wanted to send her back to the orphanage as a child, it was Ethan who’d fought to let her stay, arranging for the family’s groundskeeper to raise her instead.
The cochlear implant in her ear, the expensive one Ethan had paid for that too.
Honestly, without him, she might not have survived long enough to be standing here at all.
So this was fine.
She’d played the understudy long enough.
Now she was simply stepping off stage with severance.
Claire took inventory of the jewelry and designer pieces she’d collected over the years and called in two resellers to buy the lot.
There wasn’t much, mostly things Priya had picked out on Ethan’s behalf for birthdays and anniversaries, barely worn.
The total came to just under two million.
When the transfer hit her account, she looked at the number on her screen and finally let herself smile, soft and real.
Then she called Professor Wren.
“Professor, I’ve decided.
The rainforest research expedition you mentioned I want in.”
“You?
The devoted Mrs.
Ashford, trekking into the rainforest with us?
No, who is this?
Get off Claire’s phone this instant!”
Claire laughed despite herself.
“Professor, it’s really me.
My hearing makes calls hard, that’s all I would’ve texted, but I figured you wouldn’t believe a text either.”
Professor Wren scoffed.
“Of course I don’t believe it.
You rushed into marriage before you even finished your degree, skipped every field expedition for years, such a waste of talent!
Are you certain this time?
Once you sign, there’s no backing out.
Minimum six months in the field, zero phone signal.”
“I’m certain.
I won’t back out.”
“Fine, fine come sign tomorrow morning!
Glad you finally came to your senses.”
After hanging up, Claire sent Naomi a screenshot of her account balance.
Hey gorgeous, free tonight?
Care to grace me with your presence for dinner?
Naomi replied instantly: My schedule is famously packed, but for you, I’ll graciously make an exception
Claire pictured Naomi’s smug little face typing that and laughed out loud.
She booked a private room at The Gilded Fork and skipped back to her room to change.
A silver-white kitten launched itself at her ankles, tumbled sideways, then flopped over with a demanding meow.
“You brave little thing, blocking my path that earns you kisses.”
Claire scooped up Whisper and peppered her with a dozen kisses.
Whisper the kitten she’d taken in after the wedding.
Back then, Ethan had always leaned on “work” and “travel” to avoid any real intimacy between them.
Alone, aching with loneliness, she’d found a barely-weaned kitten on the roadside, a distinctive tuft of black fur over one ear and brought her home like it was fate.
Ethan never objected to the cat, but he’d banned her from his study and bedroom.
Looking back now, he’d probably just wanted something to keep her occupied, anything to stop her from wondering why her husband never touched her.
She’d asked him outright, once, why a man who claimed to love her never wanted her.
His excuse: he was sick.
Worried her first time would be ruined by his condition.
Better to wait until he was fully healthy.
She’d believed it, he’d even shown her a medical report to back it up.
It hadn’t mattered much to her either way.
As long as his heart belonged to her, the timing of everything else felt small.
Until yesterday, when the truth came out.
He wasn’t sick at all.
The person he actually wanted was sleeping in his dead brother’s bed.
Meow
The sound snapped Claire back to the present.
She tore open a cat treat and watched Whisper devour it, patting her small head gently.
“Whisper, baby, you’re coming with me.
We’re finding a new home.”
Smack, smack, smack went Whisper’s tiny jaws.
Once her makeup was done, Claire picked a beige long dress with a matching coat and ankle boots, and spun once in front of the mirror.
Divorced women really did look better.
She caught a cab and arrived at The Gilded Fork at six sharp.
The host led her upstairs, and the second she stepped out of the elevator, she walked straight into Ethan.
Their eyes met.
His brow furrowed instantly.
“Claire, are you following me?”
She almost laughed at the sheer nerve of it.
Caught in a lie, caught cheating, and somehow he still had the audacity to turn it around on her.
Rosalind appeared from around the corner just then, spotting Claire, a flicker of satisfaction crossing her face.
“Claire’s here too?” She turned to Ethan.
“Since she’s already here, we can’t just leave her standing in the hall.
Come on in.”
“I won’t intrude, I’m meeting friends for dinner,” Claire said evenly.
“I’ve got the Rose room booked.”
There were only four private rooms on the floor, two large, two small, each named after a flower.
It was strange enough that Ethan was meeting people at a restaurant instead of his usual clubs and bars; running into him here at all felt like an accident of timing.
Rosalind clearly assumed otherwise.
She glanced toward the open door of the Magnolia room.
“Your friends aren’t even here yet.
Come sit with us for a bit first.
The room’s full of Ethan’s people.
Ethan, don’t you think?”
His frown deepened.
The last thing he wanted was Claire in that room.
Given how she still felt about him, there was no telling what she might say if pushed.
Rosalind gasped suddenly.
“Ow Ethan, my foot, it hurts so much”
He scooped her up instantly, alarmed.
“You shouldn’t have walked out on that ankle.
I’m taking you home.”
“I only wanted Claire to come in and liven things up a little.
You’re always so hard on her, she’s too scared to even speak up…”
Rosalind peered at Claire over Ethan’s arm, eyes bright with challenge and quiet triumph.
“Fine.
Don’t move.
If you want her in that room, she’ll go in.”
Ethan held Rosalind tighter, not bothering to turn his head, and simply issued the order.
“Claire.
Aren’t you coming in?”