"I want a divorce."
Four words. Just four simple words, and Simon's face drained of color like she'd slapped him.
Good.
Eve wanted him to feel a fraction of what she'd felt three hours ago when she walked into her office and found her husband balls-deep in her personal assistant on her desk.
Her desk.
The mahogany one she'd picked out herself when Phoenix Talent Agency finally turned a profit. The one she'd worked sixteen-hour days at, building something from nothing while Simon claimed he was "too busy with work" to even touch her.
Apparently, he'd found plenty of time for work. Just not the kind he'd promised in their wedding vows.
"Eve, baby, let's not be rash...." Simon started, reaching for her.
She stepped back, her Jimmy Choos clicking against the marble floor of their....no, his....pristine white living room. Everything in this house was white. Sterile. Perfect. Just like the life she'd been suffocating in for three years.
"Rash?" The laugh that escaped her throat sounded foreign, sharp. She'd never laughed like that before. The perfect wife didn't make harsh sounds. She smiled sweetly and nodded and pretended not to notice when her husband's assistant wore his cologne. "You think this is rash?"
"You're upset, I understand...."
"Upset?" Another laugh, this one edging toward hysteria. She welcomed it. "I'm not upset, Simon. I'm done. There's a difference."
His face shifted from shocked to calculating in a heartbeat. There was the man she'd married. The one who saw every conversation as a negotiation, every emotion as a weakness to exploit.
"Eve, sweetheart, if this is about Jessica...."
"Jessica. Her name is Jessica." She dug her nails into her palms, the sharp pain grounding her. "Is that what you called her when you fucked her? Or did you prefer 'baby,' like you just called me?"
Simon blinked. In three years of marriage, Eve had never said the word 'fuck' in front of him. Good girls didn't curse. Perfect wives kept their language clean and their legs open exactly once a week for precisely five minutes.
"I don't know what you think you saw...."
"I saw your dick in my assistant's pussy on my desk, Simon. That's what I saw. What I think is that you're a lying, cheating bastard, and I'm done pretending otherwise."
His jaw tightened. "You're being hysterical."
"And you're being predictable." She walked to the bar cart....his bar cart, everything in this house was his.....and poured herself three fingers of bourbon. Straight. No ice. The perfect wife drank white wine spritzers. The woman she was becoming apparently liked her liquor neat and her truths brutal.
The bourbon burned going down. She loved it.
"How long?" she asked, turning back to face him.
"Eve...."
"How. Long."
He had the audacity to look uncomfortable. "Does it matter?"
"Humor me."
"Six months." He shrugged....actually shrugged....like he was admitting to forgetting to take out the trash. "Maybe seven."
Seven months. Half their marriage. Eve took another sip of bourbon, letting the burn distract her from the hollow ache in her chest. It wasn't heartbreak....she'd stopped loving Simon sometime around month two of their marriage when she realized 'till death do us part' apparently meant 'until you're too exhausted from building your company to notice I'm bored.'
No. This was humiliation. Rage. And underneath it all, a twisted sense of relief.
"Was Jessica the first?"
Silence.
She laughed again, and this time it was genuine. Dark, but genuine. "Of course not. How many, Simon? How many of my employees have you fucked?"
"I don't have to answer that."
"No, you don't. Because I'm done asking questions." She set the glass down with more force than necessary. It didn't shatter....nothing in this perfect house ever broke...but the sharp crack echoed through the room. "I want a divorce. My lawyer will contact you tomorrow."
"You don't have a lawyer."
"I'll get one."
"Eve, be reasonable...."
"Reasonable?" She stepped toward him, and something in her expression made him back up. Good. Let him be the one retreating for once. "I have been reasonable for three fucking years. I've been perfect. I've smiled at your colleagues and laughed at their terrible jokes and pretended not to notice when you came home smelling like someone else's perfume. I've scheduled my entire life around yours, waited for you to have time for me, made myself smaller and quieter and more convenient. And you couldn't even be bothered to fuck your mistresses somewhere other than my office."
"That's not fair..."
"You fucked her today, Simon. Today. While I was in meetings trying to land the Carrington contract that would double my revenue. You couldn't even wait until I was out of the building."
His face hardened. There it was. The mask dropping. "Maybe if you paid half as much attention to me as you do that company...."
"Don't." Her voice dropped to something cold and lethal. She didn't recognize it. She liked it. "Don't you dare make this my fault. I tried. God, I tried so hard to be what you wanted. But you know what? I'm done trying. I'm done being perfect. I'm done being your wife."
She grabbed her purse from the entry table and headed for the door.
"Where are you going?"
She didn't answer. Didn't look back. Just walked out of that perfect white prison and into the night, her hands shaking and her heart racing and her mind screaming with a chaos she'd never allowed herself to feel.
The door clicked shut behind her with a finality that felt like freedom.
Her phone was in her hand before she reached her car, scrolling to Maya's number. Her best friend. The only person who'd know exactly what she needed right now.
Maya answered on the second ring. "Eve? What's wrong?"
"I left him." Her voice cracked. "I told Simon I want a divorce and I left."
"Oh my God. Eve. Oh my God. Are you okay? Where are you?"
"I'm leaving. I need...I need to not think for a while. Come out with me. Please."
"Babe, I can't." Maya's voice filled with genuine regret. "I'm with Tyler tonight. We have dinner reservations and...shit, Eve, I'm so sorry. Tomorrow, I promise. First thing tomorrow we'll...."
"It's okay." She cut her off, forcing brightness into her voice. The people-pleasing habit died hard. "It's fine. I'll be fine."
"Are you sure? I can cancel...."
"No, really. I'm good. I'll call you tomorrow."
She hung up before Maya could argue, before she could beg her to cancel her plans, before she could prove that even in rebellion she was still the perfect girl who never asked for too much.
Her apartment. She should go to her apartment....the one she'd kept even after marrying Simon because some part of her never fully trusted the fairy tale. Smart girl, that part of her.
But she didn't want to be smart right now.
She wanted to be reckless.
She wanted to forget.
She wanted to feel something other than hollow rage and crushing disappointment.
She slid into her car, started the engine, and instead of turning toward her apartment in the Diamond District, she headed downtown. Toward the bar district. Toward noise and alcohol and strangers who didn't know Eve Thorne....perfect wife, successful businesswoman, good girl extraordinaire.
Tonight, she was going to be someone else.
Someone who didn't give a fuck about propriety or expectations or doing the right thing.
Someone who made very, very bad decisions.
The city lights blurred past her windows as she drove, her pulse pounding in her ears, her skin too tight for her body. She felt like she was shedding something...leaving pieces of her old self scattered across the highway.
Good. Let them scatter. Let them blow away in the wind.
She was done being perfect.
And she had absolutely no idea that the decision to walk into a bar alone, raw and reckless and ready to burn her old life to the ground, was about to change everything.
They say the devil takes many forms.
She was about to meet hers.