Chapter 1
My job is… unusual. I break people up for a living.
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Not the legal kind–that’s what lawyers are for. I handle the messy, emotional fallout that comes before the paperwork is signed.
They say love is priceless, but men and women who just whispered “I love you” to their partners can place a six–figure order with
me seconds later.
Take right now, for instance. A text from my husband, Andrew, just lit up my phone. He’s asking if I’d prefer Paris or Singapore for
our wedding anniversary.
And a second later, a young woman with a delicate, pretty face walked into my office.
She was timid, gathering her courage before she finally spoke. “I’d… I’d like to place an order. For my boyfriend. He’s decided
divorce his wife.”
I kept my face neutral and picked up the client intake form. And then I saw the name.
Andrew Cole.
My hand froze for a fraction of a second. The girl across from me, head bowed, continued in a small voice, “My boyfriend says his
wife is a good person, so he doesn’t want to hurt her.”
A dry smile touched my lips. I stared at the photo on the format Andrew’s face, a face so familiar it had somehow become a
stranger’s.
It was a bitter thought.
In my third year as a breakup specialist, I’d finally received my own case.
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I set the file down and took a proper look at the girl.
Jenna.
She wasn’t as beautiful as me, merely pretty in a fragile, unassuming way. Slender–she’d definitely never had a child. She carried
an air of inexperience, but her clothes and speech suggested a good education. When she mentioned being the other woman, her eyes darted away, a flicker of what looked like shame.
“Ms. Thorne,” she began, her voice gaining a little confidence, “what would you recommend for a situation like mine? My boyfriend
said it would be best if… if the woman initiated the divorce herself. They’ve been together a long time, you see. It would be awkwa-
rd.”
She bit her lip, offering a shy, almost innocent smile. If I wasn’t absolutely certain she didn’t recognize me, I would have thought
she was mocking me to my face.
I stretched my lips into a professional smile. “Ms. Bird,” I said, using her last name from the form, “how long have you and he been
together?”
The question seemed to catch her off guard. “What?”
I raised my voice slightly, keeping it steady. “Before I can propose a strategy, I need to understand every detail of your relationship.”
Understanding dawned on her face. She nodded, her voice as bright and cheerful as a songbird’s. But with every word she spoke. another piece of my smile chipped away.
“We’ve been together for three years. We met at the hospital”
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She blushed, a soft pink dusting her cheeks. “His family member was having surgery, something serious, I think. He was so scared, just smoking in the hallway. I was passing by and… well, I said a few words to comfort him.” She gave a self–conscious laugh. “We got to talking, and less than a week later, he asked me to be his girlfriend.”
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As I listened to her sweet recollection, a sharp, violent pain lanced through my chest.
“Was the day you met… today?” I asked, my voice dangerously calm.
Her eyes widened in disbelief. “Yes! How did you know?”
I managed a faint smile, my eyelashes trembling as I looked down.
Of course, I knew. Because three years ago today, I was at City General, giving birth to my first and only child with Andrew.
on an
Doing the math, while he was meeting her in a hospital hallway, I was on an operating table. A difficult labor that turned into an
emergency C–section.
I had passed out three times.
The memory, once a testament to my strength, now felt like a dose of slow–acting poison, spreading through my veins. I took a
silent, deep breath and forced myself to ask the next question.
“Are you aware that he has a child? A daughter. She’s three, just started preschool.”
“Of course,” she said, the timidity on her face replaced by a casual shrug. “What about it?”
“He’s already promised me,” she continued, “that after the divorce, I’ll be her new mom. She’s just a little kid, you know? They don’t really know the difference. Over time, she’ll accept whoever is there. Don’t you think so, Ms. Thorne?”
My knuckles turned white as I gripped the file. I nodded, my voice betraying nothing. “Yes. You’re right.”
Too bad you’ll never get the chance.
My agreement seemed to open the floodgates. She leaned forward, eager to share more, to brag. “He even showed me a picture of his wife. She has this long scar on her stomach… it’s hideous. He told me himself, every time he sees it, it makes him physically
sick.”
She paused, then looked at me conspiratorially. “Ms. Thorne, what do you think is wrong with that woman? With a scar that ugly, why would she cling to man who doesn’t want her? Is she that desperate for love?”
A smail, cruel laugh escaped her lips.
I laughed too, but my eyes were glacial. “Is it possible… that his wife never knew any of this?”
Jenna raised an eyebrow, her tone absolute. “Impossible. He has a physical aversion to her. You’d have to be an idiot not to notice that. You have no idea, Ms. Thorne. With me, he’s so passionate, so alive. He says he’s been starving at home, completely uninter- ested in his frumpy wife I mean, if it were you, wouldn’t you find it strange? Three years without being intimate with your husband?”
“Strange,” I answered instantly. My gaze was numb, fixed on the platinum wedding band I hadn’t taken off in four years.
Andrew and I came from different worlds. My family had money; his didn’t. Yet we’d made it, from college sweethearts to the wed-
ding aisle, eight years of history between us.
When I was sick, he’d literally jumped from a second–story dorm window to get me medicine in the middle of the night. When I was sad, he’d run across town to find the one bakery that made my favorite macarons, just to see me smile. He was there for every ultrasound, every doctor’s appointment. Every time he came home, the first thing he did was hug our daughter, Lily, and me, telling
us we were his everything.
Even his excuse for our separate beds these past two years had been wrapped in a blanket of care. “Leslie,” he’d said, stroking my
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hair, “you went through so much bringing Lily into the world. I could never put you through that again.”
I thought it was just what happened to marriage. That the fire cools to a quiet, steady warmth.
How could I have known? It wasn’t that he’d lost his appetite. It was that he was eating out.
