DIVORCE HIM THEN HE BEGGED

The pen was heavier than she expected. Amara Lane held it above the line where her name belonged, and for one long second the only sound in the penthouse was the tick of the antique clock she had chosen three years ago. Kane had called it unnecessary. He had never once asked her to take it down. "Sign it," Kane Ashford said. He didn't look at her. He stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows with his back half turned, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a phone he wasn't reading. The city glittered behind him as though it belonged to him. In a way, it did. His lawyer, Mr. Whitmore, cleared his throat from the far end of the table. "Mrs. Ashford, as I explained, the settlement is generous. Thirty percent of marital assets, the Lakeview apartment, and a monthly allowance for—" "I don't want it." The room went quiet. Kane's shoulders shifted. It was tiny, barely a movement at all, but Amara had spent three years learning every shift of that man's body. She knew the difference between his irritation and his boredom. This was irritation. "Excuse me?" Mr. Whitmore said. "The apartment. The allowance. The percentage." Amara kept her voice soft and even, the way she'd kept it through every cold dinner and every empty birthday. "I don't want any of it. I only want the divorce." Now Kane turned. Cold gray eyes met hers across the length of the polished table. He was devastating in the way expensive things are devastating: sharp lines, perfect tailoring, nothing out of place. Three years of marriage, and she still forgot to breathe when he looked at her directly. He almost never did. "Is this a game?" he asked. "No." "You want me to believe you're walking away from thirty percent of the Ashford estate for nothing?" "I'm not asking you to believe anything." She lowered her eyes to the paper. "I'm asking you to let me go." A muscle jumped in his jaw. "Fine." He said it like a door slamming. Amara pressed the pen to the page. Amara Lane Ashford. Her hand did not shake. She was proud of that. She had practiced the signature the night before, alone in the guest room where she'd been sleeping for the last eight months, until her hand stopped trembling. Until it looked like the hand of a woman who did not care. She capped the pen and set it down. That was it. Three years, undone by a single line of ink. Mr. Whitmore gathered the pages with the brisk relief of a man who had expected a scene and been spared one. "I'll file this first thing tomorrow. The divorce will be final in thirty days." "Thank you," Amara said. She stood. Her legs held. Good. She slid the ring from her finger. It caught the light for one glittering second, a diamond the size of a promise, and then she set it on the table beside the pen. It made almost no sound at all. Kane watched the ring. Not her. The ring. "You'll regret this," he said quietly. Something in her chest pulled so tight she thought it might snap. Probably, she thought. For the rest of my life. "Maybe," she said aloud. She picked up the one thing she'd brought with her to the table, a thick cream-colored folder, and placed it in front of his empty chair. "This is for you." Kane's eyebrow rose. "What is it?" "Everything you'll need to run your life without me." She managed a small, polite smile. "Your schedule, the names of the household staff, your grandmother's preferences, the vendors who can be trusted and the ones who can't. Open it when you're ready." For the first time, something flickered across his face. It was there and gone so fast she might have imagined it. Then his expression hardened. "I ran a billion-dollar company long before you walked into my life, Amara." "I know," she said gently. "But you never once ran a dinner party, a charity board, or your grandmother's seventieth birthday." His mouth thinned. He said nothing. She hadn't expected him to. She turned and walked toward the door. Her heels clicked on the marble, and every step felt like walking across broken glass in silk slippers. Don't look back. Don't look back. If you look back, you won't be able to leave. "Amara." She stopped. She should not have stopped. Behind her, Kane's voice was low, controlled, and edged with something she couldn't name. "If you walk out that door, don't come crawling back." Her fingers tightened on the handle. Three years ago, she'd have turned around. Three years ago, she'd have crossed the room and touched his face and begged him to tell her what she'd done wrong. "I won't," she said. She opened the door and walked out. The private elevator took forty-one seconds to reach the lobby. Amara counted every one of them. Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine. Forty. The doors slid open on the marble lobby, and the doorman nodded with polite indifference, as if she were any other resident and not a woman who had just torn her own life in half. She walked past him. Past the fountain. Past the glass doors, into the evening air. Only when she reached the sidewalk did her knees finally give. She caught herself against a lamppost and pressed her hand over her mouth, and the sound that came out of her wasn't a sob so much as the ghost of one, thin and broken. Her eyes burned. She would not cry here. Not in front of his building. Not where anyone who worked for him might see. Her phone buzzed in her coat pocket. She almost ignored it. Then she saw the number. No name. No contact. Just a string of digits she knew by heart, and the four words that appeared beneath it. Unknown: Is it done? Amara stared at the screen. The city noise faded to a dull hum. Slowly, with a hand that had finally begun to shake, she typed a single word. Amara: Yes. The reply came within seconds. Unknown: Good girl. Your father's debts have been cleared, as promised. Now disappear, and do not contact my grandson again. Not ever. The phone slid in her grip. Above her, thirty-one floors up, Kane Ashford was standing at the window, staring at a folder he had told himself he wouldn't open. He had no idea that the woman he'd just let go was standing on the street below, shaking. He had no idea she had never stopped loving him. And he had no idea that the woman who had just made her sign away her marriage was sitting in his own family's house, sipping tea. Forgive me, Kane, Amara whispered to the empty street. Then she lifted her chin, wiped her eyes, and walked into the dark.