Chapter 1
By the third year of my marriage to mafia boss Nathan Blackwell, I had turned myself into a silent shadow.
He said he liked simple, understated things, so I locked my closet full of red dresses in the deepest corner of the attic. Every day, I wore cream-colored cotton dresses, arranged flowers, and brewed coffee at home.
He said the business world was too dirty, so I obediently stepped away from the company I had built with my own hands and retreated behind the walls of this mansion.
My world shrank into a gilded cage. The most important thing I did each day was wait for him to come home.
But over the past three months, Nathan had come home less and less. Whenever he did return, his shirt carried the same unfamiliar perfume.
The scent was loud, brazen, and impossible to ignore. It smelled like wild roses.
A friend hinted, "Once the novelty wears off, who stays interested in a housekeeper who spends all day in the kitchen? You have to make him want to win you over again."
So that day, I cooked all his favorite dishes. I pulled out the slip dress I hadn't touched in three years and put on bright red lipstick in front of the mirror.
But when Nathan came home, he brought another woman with him. She was his right-hand aide, Sienna Cross.
She wore a tight bodycon skirt. Her hair fell in long waves. And she carried that familiar perfume.
"Nathan, so this is your... housekeeper?"
Nathan didn't deny it. He didn't even spare me a glance.
I said nothing. I threw out the cold food and texted a number that had been silent for years.
Claire: Book me a flight home.
……
Nathan Blackwell took off his suit jacket and handed it to Sienna Cross without a thought, as if they had done this a thousand times before.
"This is Sienna Cross. She was a few years behind me at business school, and she just came back from Alden Row. From now on, she'll be Blackwell Group's Chief Strategy Officer."
Sienna proudly flicked her long waves over one shoulder and looked around the clean, warm home I had worked so hard to maintain.
"Your housekeeper is pretty good. She keeps the place so nice. I'm nothing like that. My place is always a mess, and all I know how to do is handle merger deals and make money for the company."
I curled my hand into a fist, my nails digging into my palm as I stared hard at Nathan.
Nathan was looking at Sienna with a softness I hadn't seen in his eyes for a long time. His gaze held approval and admiration, along with a faint, unspoken spark.
He had looked at me that way three years ago, when he was still pursuing me.
"Claire, get a guest room ready for Sienna. She just came back and hasn't found a place yet, so she'll stay with us for now."
"Stay... with us?"
"What?" Nathan finally looked at me. His tone was so flat that he really did sound as if he were giving orders to a housekeeper. "Do you have a problem with that?"
I gripped the hem of my silk slip dress and shook my head.
Only then did Nathan seem to notice what I was wearing. His brow furrowed.
"Can you work in that?"
When he allowed someone else to call me a housekeeper, I didn't lower my head.
When he let another woman move into our home, I didn't lower my head.
But those words finally made me lower my head. The slip dress I had put on to please him had become something humiliating. It burned against my skin like fire.
I lowered my head and bit my lower lip hard. I refused to let anyone see how red my eyes had become. When I spoke, my voice was still thick with tears.
"No. Not really."
Nathan's voice stayed calm. He didn't notice anything wrong.
"Then don't wear that again."
That night, Nathan slept in the study.
I stood outside the study with the divorce agreement in my hand and heard a woman laughing inside.
"Nathan, is she really your wife? Does she wait for you to come home like this every day? Oh my God. Does she have nothing else to do with her life except wait for you?"
I tightened my grip on the document until my fingertips turned white.
Nathan's voice was low and calm, as if he were commenting on a household appliance. "She wasn't like this before. She used to corner people at the negotiating table until they had nowhere left to go."
"Seriously?" Sienna sounded disbelieving. "I really can't tell. Now she looks like some frumpy middle-aged woman... no, sorry, like a proper housewife."
Nathan's voice carried a faint smile. He even sounded indulgent.
"People change."
Sienna laughed, her tone coy.
"Then who do you think is better, me or her?"
I didn't hear Nathan's answer. I only heard Sienna laugh even harder. Her laughter cut through the door and straight into my heart.
I looked down at myself.
My fingers touched my lips and came away with a smear of red. I wiped it on the hem of my dress. The color bled into the fabric, leaving a stain that would be hard to wash out.
Suddenly, I remembered what Nathan had said when he saw me in this dress.
"Don't wear that again."
Yes, it wouldn't happen again.
It wasn't that I would stop wearing beautiful dresses. It was that I would stop doing the filthy chores that left me smelling of grease and shame.
