Chapter 1
The moment Declan Hawthorne looked at my three daughters, I watched five years of arrogance disappear from his face in less than ten seconds.
Until that morning, I hadn’t spoken to my ex-husband in nearly five years.
I had worked very hard to keep it that way.
Atlanta was a large city.
Our social circles had separated after the divorce, our friends had chosen sides, and I had quietly removed myself from every charity board, country club dinner, holiday gala, and ridiculous old-money function where I might have been forced to hear someone say his name.
Declan Hawthorne belonged to the world of glass towers, private clubs, inherited estates, black cars, and newspapers that described men like him as
visionaries
when they had simply been born into rooms ordinary people could never enter.
I belonged to a different world now.
A better one.
One I had built myself.
That Wednesday morning, I boarded Delta Flight 1187 from New York to Atlanta after completing negotiations for the largest contract my environmental consulting company had ever pursued.
I should have been exhausted.
Instead, I felt light.
Three nights away from my daughters had been three nights too many, and all I wanted was to get home, let three four-year-olds knock me backward in the hallway, eat whatever chaotic dinner our housekeeper had attempted to keep warm, and fall asleep with at least one tiny foot somehow pressed against my ribs.
I settled into seat 2A, tucked my laptop underneath the seat, opened the paperback novel I had been carrying around for six months, and ordered sparkling water.
Then a man stopped beside me.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
My entire body recognized his voice before my brain did.
I looked up.
Declan Hawthorne stood in the aisle.
Five years had changed him slightly.
His dark hair was shorter at the sides.
There were faint lines near his eyes.
His shoulders seemed broader beneath a charcoal suit that probably cost more than some people’s rent for six months.
But his expression had not changed.
Controlled.
Evaluating.
Superior.
For one second, we simply stared at each other.
Then the corner of his mouth lifted.
That smile.
I remembered that smile.
It was the one he had worn whenever I suggested something he considered naïve.
Whenever I challenged one of his decisions.
Whenever he wanted me to understand that I had spoken but nothing I said could possibly alter the outcome.