My Ex Married My Enemy

The pen was shaking in my hand. Not because the office was cold. The air conditioning was blowing softly above me, but sweat was running down my back. My heart was beating so loud I thought the lawyer could hear it. "Just your signature here, Mrs. Carter," the lawyer said. His voice was soft, like he was talking to a child. "On the last line." I looked down at the paper. DIVORCE DECREE. My name was there. JULIA CARTER. And below it, a blank line waiting for me. Three years of marriage. Finished on one line. "Would you like some water?" he asked. "No," I whispered. My throat was dry. "I want to finish it." I held the pen tighter. My fingers turned white. I pressed it on the paper and signed. My signature was ugly and fast. Nothing like my usual writing. I pushed the paper away from me like it was burning my hand. "There," I said. "It is done." The lawyer nodded and stamped it. The sound of the stamp was loud. Thud. Final. At that exact second, my phone vibrated on the glass table. Loud. I did not want to look. But the screen lit up. Vanessa Cole is LIVE: WE SAID I DO!!! My blood went cold. Vanessa Cole. My enemy since college. The girl who told the whole campus I stole her designs. The girl who told everyone my family was going broke when my mother was in the hospital. The woman who has hated me for ten years for no reason. My hand moved on its own. I tapped the LIVE. Her face filled my screen. Perfect makeup. Perfect white dress. She was laughing, holding a bouquet of white roses. Her teeth were too white. Her smile was too wide. "Oh my God, you guys! Thank you! Thank you for all the love!" she was shouting. "We just finished! We just said I DO!" The comments were moving too fast. Congratulations! You deserve it! Is that Mark? Then she turned the camera. And I stopped breathing. Standing next to her, wearing a black tuxedo and a gold tie, holding her hand tightly, was Mark Harris. My ex-husband. The man whose divorce paper I had just signed sixty seconds ago. He smiled into the camera. That soft smile he used to give me when he wanted me to forgive him. "We didn't want to waste any more time," he said clearly. "Julia and I... we ended a long time ago. Vanessa is my future." The lawyer stood up quickly. "Julia, please, don't watch that." But I could not stop. Vanessa turned the camera back to herself. "And as a wedding gift, my amazing husband just gave me a company! Carter Designs! So I am now officially a CEO, guys! Dreams come true!" My phone fell from my hand and hit the floor with a loud c***k. The screen went black. Carter Designs. My mother's company. My father's life work. Started in a small garage in Brooklyn twenty years ago. "No," I said out loud. My voice was shaking badly now. "No no no no..." "Julia, what is wrong?" the lawyer asked. "He gave her my company," I said. My chest was tight. I could not get air inside. "He gave her my company as a wedding gift." I stood up too fast. The chair fell behind me. Loud. I grabbed my bag and ran out of the office. I did not wait for the elevator. I ran down the stairs, my heels making a hard noise on every step. My eyes were full of tears but I refused to let them fall inside that building. Outside, New York was loud. Cars honking. People shouting. The summer air was hot and sticky. The world was moving, but my world had stopped. My phone was ringing inside my bag. Lily, my assistant. "Julia! Have you seen it? They posted the press release! Mark's lawyers are saying your father signed the transfer last month when he was in the hospital! They say he was of sound mind!" My father was in the hospital last month. He had a stroke. He could barely speak. He could barely hold a spoon. Mark went to visit him every day. I thought he was being kind. "He tricked him," I whispered. I leaned against a dirty brick wall behind the building. My designer dress was touching dirt. I did not care. "Lily, he tricked my sick father." "Julia, where are you? I am coming to you!" I ended the call. I slid down the wall and sat on the cold sidewalk. My legs could not hold me anymore. People in Manhattan walked past and stared at me. A crazy woman in a fine dress sitting on the ground. Then the tears came. Hot and fast. My shoulders shook hard. I covered my mouth with my hand to stop the noise. I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood. I had forgiven Vanessa when she ruined my graduation speech. I had forgiven Mark when he started coming home late. I had forgiven everyone who hurt me because my mother always told me, "Julia, be the bigger person." Being the bigger person had left me with nothing. No husband. No company. No dignity. "You will ruin your mascara if you keep crying like that." A deep, cold voice came from above me. I looked up, my vision blurry with tears. A tall man stood over me. He wore a dark charcoal suit that looked more expensive than my whole apartment. His white shirt was perfect. His face was handsome but hard, like stone. No smile. His eyes were dark brown and they were looking straight into mine, not with pity, but with something else. Anger. Adrian Blackwood. The billionaire who owned half of Fifth Avenue. My biggest business rival for two years. The man who had called my last collection "pretty but pointless" in Vogue. The man I had told to go to hell at New York Fashion Week. "What do you want?" I spat at him. My voice was broken. "Did you come to laugh at me too? Take a picture? Post it online?" He did not answer. He crouched down slowly until his eyes were level with mine. Up close, I could see a small scar near his left eyebrow. I could smell his cologne - clean and expensive. "I don't laugh at people when they are on the ground," he said quietly. His voice was low and calm. "I only get angry at the people who put them there." He took out a black handkerchief from his pocket and held it out to me. I stared at it. My hands were shaking again. "Take it," he said. "I don't need your help," I said, but my voice cracked. "You do," he said bluntly. No pity. Just truth. "Mark Harris is giving your father's company to Vanessa Cole today. By tomorrow, they will change the name, fire your workers, and sell the building to build condos. Your father's workers will lose their jobs. Your mother's name will be erased from that building. Is that what you want?" My head snapped up. "How do you know that?" "Because I own the fabric factory that supplies your studio. If they close you, I lose two million dollars every month. This is not about kindness, Julia. This is about business. I hate losing money." He stood up and adjusted his suit jacket. His body movement was slow, controlled, powerful. "My car is parked downstairs," he said. "I have a lawyer in my office who can stop that transfer in two hours if we file an injunction. But I need your signature. And I need you to stop crying and start fighting." He started to walk away. I watched him walk. His back was straight. He walked like a man who owned the ground he stepped on. I looked at my broken phone on the sidewalk. I looked at my hands. My mother's ring was still on my finger. The only thing I had left. I wiped my face hard with my own hand, stood up on shaky legs, and shouted, "Wait!" He stopped but did not turn around. "Why would you help me? You hate me," I said. Now he turned. A small, cold smile touched his lips. "I don't hate you, Julia. I think you are too soft for this brutal industry. But you are the only designer in this city who actually knows how to sew. And I hate seeing real talent thrown away because of a useless man." He held out his hand. "So? Do you want to keep sitting on this dirty sidewalk, or do you want to come and take your company back?" My heart was beating fast again, but not from sadness. From something hot and sharp. Anger. And for the first time that day, hope. I took his hand. His palm was warm and strong. He pulled me up in one smooth motion. My body almost hit his chest. I could feel his breath. For a second, we just stared at each other. "Good choice, Mrs. Carter," he whispered. "Don't call me that," I said. "I am not Mrs. Carter anymore." "What should I call you then?" he asked. I looked at his hand still holding mine. "Call me your partner," I said. He laughed for the first time. A short, real laugh. "Partner," he repeated. "I like that." He led me towards his black Bentley parked by the road. The driver opened the door. As I was about to enter, my broken phone buzzed one last time in my bag. I took it out. The screen was cracked but I could still read it. It was a text from Mark: Sorry you had to find out like this. Business is business. No hard feelings? No hard feelings? I tightened my grip on Adrian's hand. My nails dug into his skin. He felt it and looked down at me. "Everything okay?" he asked. I smiled. A smile I had never smiled before. Cold and full of promise. "Everything is about to be," I said. Inside Adrian's briefcase, as he opened the car door for me, I saw a file with my father's name on it - and on top of it was a copy of the same forged signature that stole my company, but Adrian already had it before I even told him my company was stolen.