He Shamed Me, I Married My Billionaire Suitor

When I held out the divorce papers, Chase Holt was sitting in the Simulation Center, guiding Chloe Laine through her drills. He didn't even glance at me. " What are you pitching a fit about now? So I gave the inaugural flight assignment for the new route to Chloe. That's all." I said nothing and just watched him quietly. Chase finally pulled his eyes from the screen, his face full of displeasure. "Is this still about that order of vibrators?" He went on, "You're already a top-ranked captain at this company. Gossip like this can't actually hurt you. Chloe is different. She's new, and any bit of bad press could ruin her whole career. Can't you act like an adult for once?" I fought down my anger and held the papers out to him again. "Sign them." At that exact moment, the door of the simulator opened. Chloe, beaming, froze the instant she saw me and instantly put on a nervous, innocent little expression. "Oh, Tara, you're here too. I came to ask Chase to walk me through the emergency landing procedure, to get ready for the new route." As she spoke, she toyed with a set of Porsche keys. The limited-edition collectible on them was one I'd waited in line for ten hours to buy after finishing a red-eye flight, all because Chase had said he wanted it. And that car was the tenth-anniversary gift I'd given him just two weeks ago. "It's fine. Once your boss signs the papers, I'll be on my way. Otherwise, I'm just wasting your time." Chase's expression turned ugly, but he caught the look of expectation in Chloe's eyes, and in the end, he signed his name, reluctant the whole way through. "Tara, don't come crying to me later." As I stepped through the doors of the Simulation Center, a wave of relief washed over me. Ten years together, seven of them married, and today, it was finally over. Just then my phone rang. I picked up, and the voice on the other end was bright and exciting. "You're getting divorced? Looks like these ten years of waiting weren't for nothing after all." "I just filed. The paperwork's all done. There's a mandatory sixty-day separation period, so probably about two months," I said. "That's nothing. I could wait for you my whole life." The thought that in sixty days, I'd finally be free made me laugh out loud. After all these years, the endless tolerance and sacrifice left me utterly worn out. On the way home, a friend called and asked me out to a bar to catch up, and I agreed without a second thought. Back when I first got together with Chase, he laid down a rule forbidding me from going to bars, and I really never went again. I barely reached the bar's entrance when a new message popped up on my phone. "Get the hard-to-find imported sleep blend ready at home now. I'm heading back later." Chase always slept badly, and the formula for that diffuser was something I'd pulled every string I had to get from overseas. But since he was so rarely home, it hadn't been used in a long time. I'd just finished reading the message when another one came in. "The team just told us we have to run flight training for the new hires. I won't be home tonight." I let out a cold laugh and dragged his number onto the blocked list. Flight training, my foot. It was just the same old excuse, dusted off and used again. Sure enough, in the middle of the night, Chloe posted a new photo on her feed. She was wearing a brand-new Patek Philippe, smiling radiantly, with a caption that read, "I hope this beautiful time slows down, just a little more." Before I fell asleep, a message came in from an unknown number. "Done acting up yet? You're not a little girl anymore. Don't be so petty. Your birthday's next month. I'll spend it with you." I stared at the message, and a strange daze came over me. During the past ten years with Chase, apart from those first few years when he'd at least say happy birthday to me, even that had eventually disappeared. I'd never minded, telling myself it was just his easygoing, careless nature. But now I saw it clearly. He was only careless with me.