Chapter 1
Chapter 1: THE WOMAN WHO DIDN’T BEG
My husband told me he loved another woman after twelve years of marriage.
What stunned him wasn’t my anger.
It was that I didn’t fight for him.
I had spent nearly three hours outside a quiet restaurant in Charleston after seeing Julian Mercer through the window with a young waitress.
At first, I told myself I was mistaken.
Julian was sitting at a corner table beneath a brass wall lamp, his jacket folded over the chair beside him. The restaurant was nearly empty. He had always hated eating late, and he had told me that morning he would be in Savannah meeting investors.
But there he was.
And there she was.
She couldn’t have been more than twenty-six or twenty-seven. Dark hair pulled into a loose knot. White blouse. Black apron.
She stood beside his table long after there was any reason for a waitress to remain there.
He wasn’t touching her.
He wasn’t kissing her.
Somehow, that made it worse.
I knew Julian’s faces.
I knew the polite smile he gave investors.
The impatient look he gave lawyers.
The expression he wore when reporters asked stupid questions.
I knew the charming version of him that appeared at charity galas and the exhausted version that came home at two in the morning and loosened his tie before he even made it through the door.
And I knew the way Julian Mercer looked at a woman he loved.
I had once been that woman.
So I sat in my car across the street and watched him look at someone else that way.
When Julian finally walked outside and saw me standing beside my car, he stopped.
For one second, the billionaire disappeared.
He looked like the broke twenty-one-year-old boy I had met in college.
Caught.
Afraid.
Then his expression settled.
He crossed the street.
“Claire.”
I said nothing.
His black Bentley was parked behind the restaurant.
He opened the passenger door.
“Get in. We need to talk.”
I almost laughed.
Twelve years of marriage, and apparently that was how it ended.
Not with screaming.
Not with broken glass.
Not even with a kiss I could point to and call proof.
Just four quiet words.
We need to talk.
The drive back to Hawthorne Manor was painfully silent.
Finally, Julian spoke.
“Do you remember what you told me before we got married?”
I looked through the windshield.