Chapter One: The Other Lady In His Heart
Maya POV
"We need to get a divorce, Maya."
The words came from behind me while I was standing at the stove flipping steaks. My hands froze mid-motion, and I barely noticed the hot oil that splattered and hit my face. The pan was sizzling loud, but his voice cut right through it.
"We're only married on paper anyway. It's been four years now. Time to call it quits," Adrian Blake said, his tone flat and emotionless, like he was discussing the weather.
I bit down hard on my lip, tasting copper.
I guess I always knew this day would come eventually.
Four years ago, my family went bankrupt. The stress was too much for my parents to handle, and they took their own lives together, leaving me, barely an adult, to deal with everything alone. The debt, the shame, the endless questions from people who used to respect us. All of it landed on my shoulders.
Before everything fell apart, my grandfather and Adrian's grandfather had been close friends. They'd fought together in the war years ago, and Adrian's grandfather had even saved my grandfather's life once during a particularly brutal battle. On his deathbed, my grandfather reached out to his old friend, worried sick about what would happen to me. He asked him to look after me, to make sure I'd be okay.
That's how Adrian and I ended up married. It was arranged between the two families, a marriage of convenience to honor an old debt and put my grandfather's mind at ease before he passed.
Over the years, I'd fallen completely in love with Adrian. I really thought that if I just tried hard enough, if I was a good enough wife, patient enough, kind enough, that maybe one day he'd actually love me back.
Turns out I was completely wrong about that.
"I'm offering you fifty million dollars and the penthouse on Riverside Drive. The divorce papers are right here. Sign them if you don't have any objections."
Adrian slid a thick document across the kitchen counter toward me. His face was set in that stern, cold expression I'd gotten so used to over the years. To him, this was just another business deal. Nothing personal. Nothing emotional.
I picked up the papers with shaking hands and scanned through the numbers.
Fifty million dollars for four years of marriage. The Blake family was still loaded, that's for sure.
"Do we really have to?" I asked quietly, setting the papers down and looking up at him.
The man I'd loved for four years stood there looking impossibly handsome like always, with that perfect face that never showed me anything but coldness and distance.
"Yes," he answered immediately. No hesitation. Not even a pause to think about it.
My heart felt like someone had squeezed it in their fist, but I wasn't going to beg or make a scene. I'd tried talking to him about our marriage before, tried to get him to open up, tried everything I could think of. He'd never listened. What was the point of dragging this out?
At least I'm walking away with fifty million dollars for the years I spent being his wife. That's more than most people get for a failed marriage, right?
"Alright then," I said, picking up the pen.
I pressed it onto the paper and signed my name quickly, decisively. Maya Chen. My signature looked confident even though my hand was trembling.
Adrian looked genuinely surprised by how quickly I'd signed. The Maya he knew had always been so hesitant, so careful about every decision, always second-guessing herself. He'd never seen this decisive side of me before.
For some reason, something flickered across his face, almost like disappointment, maybe? It left this weird bitter feeling hanging in the air between us.
"I'll let you know once the divorce is finalized. If possible, I'd appreciate it if you could move out tonight," he said, his voice businesslike as he brushed past whatever that uncomfortable moment had been. Then he just turned and walked out of the kitchen.
It was painfully clear he had zero interest in talking about this any further. The conversation was over. Our marriage was over.
That same night, I found all my belongings thrown out on the front lawn. The housekeeper had wasted no time clearing me out of the house as soon as she'd heard about the divorce. It's not like she'd ever respected me anyway, but now that Adrian and I were officially splitting up, she didn't even bother pretending anymore. She was openly hostile.
"Serves you right, you gold-digging parasite! About damn time they decided to kick you out!" she shouted from the doorway, her voice dripping with satisfaction.
I crouched down on the cold grass and started gathering my scattered clothes, my books, my personal things that had been tossed around like garbage. The night air was freezing, and every gust of wind felt like it was rubbing salt directly into an open wound. My hands were shaking, from the cold or from trying not to cry. I wasn't sure anymore.
Just then, I heard the sound of a car pulling up behind me. A tall, elegant woman stepped out of an expensive black sedan.
"Ms. Whitmore! You're here! Welcome, welcome!" The housekeeper, who had literally just been screaming insults at me, immediately switched to this sickeningly sweet tone and practically ran to greet the new arrival.
But the woman, this Briar Whitmore person, didn't even glance at the housekeeper. She walked right past her like she didn't exist.
"Be careful with my things," Briar said coldly, her eyes fixed on the housekeeper who was now scrambling to grab designer luggage from the car. "If you break even a single item, you wouldn't be able to replace it if you worked your entire pathetic life."
I froze where I was kneeling on the grass, my arms full of my own cheap clothes. In just a few seconds, everything clicked into place in my head like puzzle pieces I'd been refusing to see.
This was her. This was the reason.
Briar Whitmore was the woman Adrian actually wanted. The woman he'd been waiting for. The reason our marriage had always felt so empty and one-sided.
I'd been nothing but a placeholder. A temporary obligation he'd been stuck with because of our grandfathers' friendship. And now that enough time had passed, now that his duty was fulfilled, he was finally free to be with the person he really loved.
My entire body felt numb, and not just from the cold anymore. My heart was breaking, actually physically breaking, but some part of me had known this was coming all along. I'd just been too stupid or too desperate to accept it.
