He thought I'd never risk the family alliance. Never throw away everything our marriage represented.
He was wrong.
"Don't worry," I said quietly. "I won't change my mind."
I turned and walked out without looking back.
I didn't go home.
I booked a hotel room for the month—one month to wait out the mandatory cooling-off period.
One month until I was free.
In the days that followed, Kevin didn't text. Didn't call. Not once.
Word reached me through the grapevine: Christina had mentioned wanting to learn to ski in Switzerland.
And Kevin—ever the doting protector—had whisked her away to his villa there.
My phone buzzed. Hailey Brooks's voice was sharp with outrage.
"Are you kidding me right now?!"
"Everyone knows about that villa, Fern. He built it for you. After he proposed, remember? He said it was to make up for the honeymoon you never got. He swore no one else would ever set foot there."
"And now he's taking his little side piece on vacation?! What is this—is he cheating again?!"
I sat by the hotel's floor-to-ceiling windows, the divorce papers spread on the table before me.
For a long moment, I couldn't speak.
These papers weren't new.