Reclaiming Mrs. Wolfe

Chapter 1

The silk of my dress felt like a shroud.

I sat at the corner table of L'Oiseau Bleu, the most exclusive restaurant in Manhattan, watching the condensation drip down my untouched glass of sparkling water. I had been sitting here for exactly sixty-four minutes.

I wasn't surprised. That was the saddest part.

"Another bottle of the '96, Mrs. Wolfe?" the waiter asked, his eyes darting toward the empty chair across from me. His pity was sharper than a knife.

"No, thank you, Marcus," I said, my voice steady despite the hollow ache in my chest. "He'll be here."

I was a mess. Ethan Wolfe didn't do anniversaries. He did acquisitions. He did hostile takeovers. He did everything except look at the woman he had married five years ago to keep his inheritance. To him, I was a piece of furniture—reliable, quiet, and entirely replaceable.

The door chimes signaled a new arrival. I sat up straighter, smoothing the hair I'd spent two hours styling into a sophisticated bun.

Ethan walked in.

He didn't look like a man coming to celebrate five years of marriage. He looked like a man finishing a chore. He was devastatingly handsome in a way that felt aggressive—sharp jawline, eyes the color of a winter sea, and a custom-tailored suit that cost more than my first apartment.

But he wasn't alone.

A woman clutched his arm. She was a flash of crimson silk and blonde ambition. Melanie Vance. His "Head of Marketing." The woman the tabloids had been linking him to for months while I sat in our penthouse designing the very logos that made him billions.

"Grace," Ethan said, sliding into the chair across from me. He didn't kiss my cheek. He didn't even look at the small, wrapped gift I'd placed on the table. "Melanie is joining us. We're in the middle of the Sterling acquisition. We don't have time for a long dinner."

Melanie offered a shark-like smile. "I hope you don't mind, Grace. Business waits for no one."

The air left my lungs. "It's our fifth anniversary, Ethan."

He glanced at his Patek Philippe watch. "And it's a Tuesday. Marcus, bring the menu. We have twenty minutes."

The middle of the dinner was a blur of corporate jargon and deliberate exclusion. They talked over me as if I were a ghost. Melanie laughed at his jokes, her hand lingering on his forearm. Ethan, usually so cold, actually smiled back at her. It was a smile he hadn't given me since the day we signed the marriage contract.

"You're quiet tonight, Grace," Ethan finally said, cutting into his steak with surgical precision. "Is something wrong with the wine?"

"I'm leaving," I said quietly.

"Good. We're almost done anyway," he replied, not catching my meaning.

"No, Ethan." I reached into my clutch and pulled out a thick, cream-colored envelope. My hands didn't shake. The five years of silence had turned into a cold, hard diamond of resolution. "I'm leaving you."

The clatter of his fork against the porcelain plate was the loudest thing in the room. Melanie's smirk faltered. Ethan's eyes finally met mine, narrowing in genuine confusion.

"What is this? A tantrum?" he hissed, his voice dropping to a dangerous low. "Not here, Grace. Don't embarrass me."

"You did that the moment you brought her to this table," I stood up, the chair scraping harshly against the floor. I slid the envelope across the white linen. It didn't contain a card. It contained the end of Grace Wolfe.

He didn't open it. He just looked at it with disdain. "You'll be back in the morning. You have nowhere else to go. You're a Hart, Grace. Without the Wolfe name, you're nothing."

"Watch me," I whispered.

I turned and walked out of the restaurant, stepping into the torrential New York rain. I didn't call a car. I didn't go back to the penthouse. I walked until my heels ached and my dress was ruined.

I pulled my burner phone from my pocket and dialed a number I hadn't called in years.

"Silas?" I said when the lawyer answered. "It's done. Transfer the Sterling accounts to my name. And Silas... make sure he doesn't find out I own the company he's trying to buy. Not yet."

I looked back at the glowing lights of the Wolfe Media Tower.

"Grace?" Silas asked. "The divorce papers you just gave him... you know they're missing the final filing page, right? Your grandmother made sure of it."

I stopped under a streetlamp, the rain blurring my vision. "What are you talking about?"

"Ethan just signed those papers," Silas's voice was grim. "But as far as the law is concerned... you're still his wife. And he has no idea that by signing that specific version, he just handed you the keys to his entire empire."