On the way to the celebration for my solo design exhibition, my husband, Harrison, received a call.

A woman's voice filled the car, piped through the Bluetooth system.

"I'm back. And I'm ready to take what's mine."

Harrison didn't respond. His jaw clenched as he wordlessly stabbed the end-call button.

I took it as a clear rejection.

Until late that night, when his lawyer delivered the divorce papers.

Staring into the impenetrable depths of his gray eyes, I calmly signed my name. "Do I need to move out tonight?" I asked.

He must have expected arguments or hysterics, because a rare flicker of surprise crossed his cold, ascetic face.

His Adam's apple bobbed. "No need," he said, his voice low. "This Manhattan penthouse will be transferred to your name tomorrow."

I offered him a brittle smile and nodded.

Harrison didn't know that for a man with his intense need for control, me walking away with his money—calmly and without a single tear—was the ultimate act of war.

————————

1

I glanced at Harrison’s chiseled profile. "It's late," I said softly. "You should get some rest. Don't you have a board meeting tomorrow? I'll take the guest room."

With that, I stood to leave.

As I passed him, he shot out a hand, his grip like an iron clamp on my wrist. The heat from his palm sent a jolt through my skin.

His brow was furrowed, his thin lips pressed into a hard line, as if he were wrestling with confusion, or perhaps suppressing a violent rage.

He demanded, "Avery, why aren't you fighting me on this?"

"And if I did? Would you call off the divorce? Or does the great CEO of the Hawthorne Group get off on watching women grovel at his feet?"

Harrison stiffened, his deep gray eyes boring into me. Finally, he said in a low voice, "I'm sorry. I'll compensate you."

I turned my head just enough to reveal the tell-tale redness in my eyes. "Okay," I whispered. "I believe you."

The living room lights stayed on all night.

The next day, when we went to the courthouse to formalize the divorce, the compensation section of the agreement had several new pages.

After the paperwork was finalized, Harrison took my hand—a first for him. His gaze dropped to my stomach. "Let's have a meal together," he said.

In the past, I would have been ecstatic.

It was so unlike him. Harrison, always so cold and detached, never initiated anything.

But now, I took a half-step back, smoothly withdrawing my hand. I looked down. "Mr. Hawthorne, that wouldn't be appropriate."

Harrison's frown deepened, clearly unaccustomed to the sudden distance between us.

"Avery," he said, a hint of irritation in his voice as his long fingers loosened his expensive silk tie, "a divorce doesn't mean we're enemies. I can still provide for you."

I paused, not answering.

After all, three years ago, he had told me I wasn't even worthy of breathing the same air as him.

Taking my silence as consent, Harrison opened the car door for me himself.

He had never done that for me before.

I lowered my eyes. "The morning sickness is awful. I can't stomach the smell of truffles and oysters at the kind of French restaurants you favor."

Harrison froze, as if the reality of my pregnancy had only just struck him. "I'm sorry," he repeated, his voice strained.

I nodded politely. "Then I won't trouble you, Mr. Hawthorne. I should be going."

Harrison's lips thinned into a hard line, his tall frame rigid with a palpable anger.

But his gaze caught the lingering puffiness around my eyes, and he visibly forced himself to rein it in.

"Get in the car. I'll take you home."

This time, I didn't refuse. A strategic retreat is one thing; making a spectacle of it is another.

Throughout the drive, Harrison seemed to be wrestling with his words, his silence filling the car with a tension so thick it felt hard to breathe.

I knew what he wanted to say.

So I spoke first. "I'll raise this child on my own. When he's born, his last name will be Clark. He won't ever get in the way of you and your... reunion."

I thought my words were considerate, but Harrison's reaction was explosive.

He slammed on the brakes, the tires screeching against the asphalt.

His face was grim, his dark eyes flashing with a fury I had never seen before.

"Avery Clark," he seethed, "are you that desperate to erase me from our child's life?"

I was stunned for a moment.

Harrison was an iceberg, always composed, rarely showing emotion.

He had never lost control, except in the heat of passion, when his hands would grip my hips, his body moving tirelessly, possessively against mine.

This was the first time I had ever seen this raw, untethered rage.

I didn't argue. I curled my fingers, twisting the hem of my shirt. "This child can't be born into a media frenzy over a Hawthorne scandal," I retorted. "If you can't give him a whole family, don't pretend to be some doting father."

After all, everyone on Wall Street knew the two things Harrison Hawthorne despised most were scandals and illegitimate children.

...

In our circle, it was an unwritten rule: no matter how many lovers a man kept on the side, he maintained a public facade of respect for his wife. Airing your dirty laundry weakened the family, so you put on a united front, no matter the cost.

Except for Harrison's father.

Old Mr. Hawthorne was the first to parade his mistress and illegitimate son through the front door.

Not long after, Harrison's mother jumped from the top of a skyscraper.

From a young age, Harrison was tormented by his stepmother and bullied by that illegitimate brother.

Everyone thought he was broken beyond repair.

Instead, he quietly endured, secretly gathering evidence. On his eighteenth birthday, he turned the files over to the FBI and personally sent his own father to prison.

Then, with the help of his maternal grandfather, he seized control of the entire Hawthorne Group.

By twenty, his position in the family was unshakeable.

At twenty-one, the illegitimate brother who had made his childhood a living hell was lost at sea, his body never recovered.

From then on, everyone understood his boundaries.

And now, Harrison's face was a grim mask. "Avery, have the baby," he said, his voice tight with suppressed emotion. "I will use every resource I have to keep you both safe."

I didn't answer.

Because in that instant, his gaze shifted past me, out the car window, and fixed on someone.

I followed his line of sight.

At the entrance to a charity gala stood a woman in a long white dress. A light rain was falling, clinging to her hair and the fabric of her gown, making her look fragile and artfully pathetic.

I knew, in a heartbeat, that this was the woman from the phone call.

Just as I'd expected, Harrison threw open the car door and rushed toward her. He swept her into a fierce embrace, shrugging off his own tailored suit jacket and wrapping it snugly around her shoulders.

I thought I was prepared, but the sight sent a gut-wrenching cramp through my stomach.

So this was what Harrison looked like when he was in love.

Before I could fully process it, Harrison was striding back, the woman tucked securely under his arm.

He saw me still sitting in the car, and his brow furrowed with impatience. He rapped his knuckles on the window. "Get out," he commanded, his voice laced with ice.

I bit my lip and pushed the door open. The moment my feet hit the pavement, the car sped away, splashing dirty rainwater all over me.

I stood there calmly, watching the taillights of his car vanish into the night. I raised a hand to wipe a stray raindrop from my eye before turning for home.

Though nothing in the penthouse had changed, even the crystal chandelier seemed to radiate a chilling cold.

I took out my phone and dialed a number I hadn't dared to call in three years.

"Hello, Sasha? I have a house on the Upper East Side I need to sell. Know any buyers?"

There was a beat of silence on the other end. Then, her voice sharp with realization, she asked, "You got divorced?"

"Yeah."

"Let's meet tomorrow. We'll talk."

She hung up, but I couldn't stop the sudden, sharp sting in my nose, the burn of unshed tears.

Sasha’s reputation in our circle was less than pristine—in fact, it was abysmal—but she was the only one who had ever been truly kind to me.

She was a notorious art dealer.

She never spoke of love, only money.

She was like a beautiful, expensive doll, passed between wealthy heirs. A few luxury baubles, and she would be all yours.

A house and a car would buy you even more of her devotion.

Everyone assumed she’d be cast aside once her youth faded. But Sasha was smarter than that. She leapfrogged the sons and went straight for their fathers, sinking her claws into a powerful political tycoon.

She got pregnant in secret, gave birth to his son in Europe, and secured her position.

From then on, Sasha no longer had to flatter or flirt, to be treated like a plaything.

At first, I despised her too.

I felt she had no self-respect, no sense of self-worth, and had made a complete mess of her life.

I even told her so to her face.

...

She listened, then took a long, slow drag from her cigarette, exhaling a thin stream of smoke. "There are many ways to the top, Avery. In the eyes of these Wall Street sharks, a woman's dignity is worthless."

"Men hold the money and the power. If you don't figure out how to take it from them, and instead go on about your precious dignity, you're a joke."

"A woman needs money to have power. Once you have power, you can make them kneel and lick your high heels."

I scoffed at her words.

It wasn't until I was in a car accident, my leg shattered, with no way to pay for the surgery, that I truly understood what she meant.

I was utterly alone and had no one to turn to but Sasha.

Now, years later, she was still the only one.

I sat in a quiet SoHo café, a bitter smile on my face. When Sasha swept in and saw my expression, she frowned.

I opened my mouth to say hello, but she cut me off. "This is not the place to talk."

With that, she whisked me away to a private club, secured a room, and got straight to the point. "How much did you get in the divorce?"

I pulled the agreement from my bag and handed it to her.

Sasha glanced at it, one perfectly sculpted eyebrow raising. "Harrison was feeling generous. All his personal properties go to you, plus a fifty-million-dollar settlement. You hit the jackpot."

I don't know why, but my eyes suddenly welled up, and the tears I'd been holding back began to fall.

"Sasha, he wasn't going to give me this much at first."

I had seen the original draft. One apartment—a two-bedroom, just enough for me.

The settlement wasn't small, five million dollars, plus an annual allowance.

It was enough for a very comfortable life.

But for a man of Harrison’s wealth, it was pocket change. It was a cold confirmation of what I’d always feared: to him, I wasn’t worth more.

Sasha didn't offer platitudes. She just pulled a few tissues from her purse, pushed them into my hand, and waited for me to compose myself. "Well, look at you," she said finally. "These rich bastards are stingy as hell, terrified of anyone, especially a woman, getting a piece of their pie. The fact you squeezed this much out of Harrison? That takes skill."

I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

The truth was, when I married Harrison, I never wanted his money. Sasha knew that.

It was why she’d cut me off three years ago when I told her we were getting married.

But when those divorce papers landed in my lap, I couldn't accept it.

I couldn't accept being thrown out of my own life because of a single phone call from another woman.

So I fought back.

Sasha seemed to read my thoughts. She placed the agreement back in my hand. "You did the right thing. You have to walk away with something. The money or the man."

With that, she flagged down a waiter and ordered a bottle of champagne.

"Avery Clark, congratulations on escaping the prison of marriage, and congratulations on becoming a very rich woman. Cheers!"

My fingers tightened around the stem of my glass. I decided to tell her everything. "Sasha, I'm pregnant."

"How far along?"

"Just over three months."

Sasha slammed her glass down on the table, the champagne sloshing over the rim. "That bastard," she hissed. "That absolute monster."

Her eyes were red with fury. It took her a long moment to calm down. "Take his fifty million and the baby," she said, her voice firm. "Go to a state where he can never find you. The Hawthornes will never let an heir run loose. You have to protect your leverage."

I stared at her, shocked.

I thought she would tell me to go back to Harrison, to demand more.

I must have looked naive, because Sasha let out a derisive laugh. "Don't be a fool, Avery. There’s nothing men like that won’t do for power. Your only priority right now is to secure the money and disappear."

Her words were like a splash of cold water.