TOO LATE TO LOVE ME, MR. STERLING

I bought a new dress for the occasion. That's the part I can't stop thinking about, even now. Three years of marriage, and I still went to a boutique on my lunch break and spent two weeks' salary on a navy silk dress, because I thought, stupidly, that tonight might be different. It was our third anniversary. Julian had booked a table at Aurelle, the kind of restaurant where the menu has no prices and the waiters move like ghosts. He hadn't booked anything for our first or second. So when his assistant called that morning to say *Mr. Sterling will see you at eight,* I'd practically floated through my whole shift. Pathetic, right? I got there early. Of course I did. I sat at the corner table by the window with my hands folded in my lap, and I watched the whole city glitter below us, and I rehearsed what I'd say. *Happy anniversary. I know this marriage started as a favor to your grandfather. But I think, maybe, we've gotten somewhere.* I'd actually practiced that in the mirror. Out loud. At 8:14, he walked in. Julian Sterling. Thirty-one years old, CEO of Sterling Tech, the man the magazines called "the coldest genius in the country." Dark hair, sharp jaw, black eyes that had never once, in three years, looked at me the way I looked at him. He wore a charcoal suit, no tie, and he moved through the restaurant like the room owed him money. "Aria." "Hi." I stood up too fast and bumped the table. The water glasses rattled. "You look tired. Was it the Tokyo call?" "Sit down." He didn't kiss my cheek. He didn't say happy anniversary. He sat across from me, set his phone face-down on the white tablecloth, and folded his hands, and that's when the first cold finger of dread touched the back of my neck. I knew that posture. I'd seen him use it in boardrooms. It was the posture of a man about to close a deal. "Julian?" "We should order first." "I'm not hungry." "Then we'll skip it." He reached into his jacket, pulled out a thick cream-colored envelope, and slid it across the table until it stopped at my plate. I looked at it. Then at him. "What's this?" "Open it." My hands felt strangely far away as I picked up the envelope. The flap wasn't even sealed. Inside, I found a stack of pages clipped together with a silver bar, and the title at the top, printed in clean black letters. PETITION FOR DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE. For a second my brain just stopped. It didn't understand English. The words were a row of strange little shapes. "This is..." My voice came out as a whisper. "Is this a joke?" "I don't joke." "Julian." "My lawyers drafted it. It's generous. The settlement is more than fair, and I've instructed them to waive the standard waiting period. You can sign tonight and be out of the penthouse by Friday." His tone was flat, practical, like he was reading me the quarterly earnings. "I'd like this to be clean." *Clean.* The word hit me like a slap. "We've been married three years," I said. "Tonight. *Tonight* is our anniversary." "I'm aware." "Then why..." My eyes were burning. I refused to let them spill. "Why would you do this tonight? Of all nights?" "Because tonight is when the contract ends." I frowned. "What contract?" For the first time, something flickered across his face. Not guilt. Impatience. Like I was being slow on purpose. "My grandfather's will," he said. "He insisted I marry within a year of turning twenty-eight, to a woman of his choosing, and stay married for at least three years, or I'd lose my controlling shares in Sterling Tech. He chose you. I complied. Three years, Aria. As of midnight, I've fulfilled the condition." My breath snagged. I'd always known the marriage was arranged. Julian's grandfather, old Henry Sterling, had shown up at the diner where I worked three years ago and told me, with a very strange look in his eyes, that his grandson needed someone steady. Someone kind. He'd offered me a hundred thousand dollars to say yes. I'd said no, at first. Then Henry said something I never forgot. *He's a lonely boy, my dear. He just doesn't know it yet.* And I'd said yes. Not for the money. For the lonely boy. God, I was such an i***t. "You knew," I said slowly. "This whole time. You've been counting down." "I've been honoring an agreement." "And what about me?" He blinked. "What about you?" "I'm a person, Julian! I cooked your breakfasts. I stayed up when you had your bad nights. I went to every one of your awful corporate dinners and smiled at people who looked straight through me." My voice trembled and I hated it. "I thought we were building something." "We weren't." Two words. Flat. Final. He didn't even look away when he said them. The restaurant noise swam around us. Soft music. Clinking silverware. A woman at the next table laughed at something. It felt obscene, all that normal life going on while my heart split open under the white tablecloth. "There's someone else," I said. It wasn't a question. For a long moment, he didn't answer. His phone buzzed against the table, and I saw the screen flash before he flipped it over. One word. *Vivienne.* I knew that name. Everyone did. Vivienne Lowe. Julian's childhood sweetheart, the woman he'd supposedly loved since they were teenagers, the one who'd gone abroad for "medical treatment" two years before I ever met him. I'd seen her photo in a drawer, once, tucked under his watches. Lovely, delicate, with long dark hair and a smile that looked like it had never been told no. "She's back," I said quietly. "She's returned to the city. Yes." "And she's sick?" "She's recovering." "And you're going to marry her." Julian's jaw flexed. "That's none of your concern." "I'm your *wife.*" "Not for much longer." It was so cruel, and so calm, that I almost laughed. I looked down at the papers in my hands. My fingers were shaking so badly the pages rattled. The numbers on the settlement page swam. Ten million dollars. A penthouse in the east village. A monthly allowance for life. He was buying me off. Politely. Like I was an old couch he'd grown tired of. I thought about the girl who'd stood in the mirror this morning practicing a speech. I thought about the navy dress. I thought about every night I'd waited up for a man who came home at three a.m. and slept in the guest room, and never once told me why. Something inside me went very, very quiet. It wasn't heartbreak. Heartbreak is loud. This was something older. Something that had been sitting in the dark for three years, waiting for permission to wake up. I looked up. "Do you have a pen?" Julian's eyebrows lifted. Just barely. "I'm sorry?" "A pen. Do you have one?" He hesitated. For one tiny second, he looked almost uncertain, as if he'd braced for tears and screaming and a glass of wine in his face, and none of those had arrived. Then he reached into his jacket and drew out a slim black fountain pen, the same one I'd seen him use to sign every deal he'd ever made. "Aria, you don't have to do this tonight. You can read it over, talk to a lawyer..." "I don't need a lawyer." "The settlement..." "Keep it." He stared at me. "What?" "I don't want the money." I flipped to the last page. My name was already typed neatly at the bottom, *Aria Vance Sterling*, next to a line waiting for ink. "I don't want the penthouse. I don't want the allowance. I came into this marriage with a suitcase, and I'll leave with a suitcase." "Don't be ridiculous." "I'm not." I uncapped the pen. "I'm being clean." I signed. The nib scratched across the paper, loud in that quiet restaurant. *Aria Vance Sterling.* The last three letters felt like they didn't belong to me. They never had. When I finished, I capped the pen, set it gently on top of the papers, and slid the whole thing back across the tablecloth to him. "Happy anniversary, Julian." I stood. My legs held. I don't know how. He was staring at the signature with a strange, blank look on his face, like a man who'd braced for a fight and found the other side had simply stopped existing. His mouth opened. "Aria..." "Please don't." "Where will you go?" "Does it matter?" Something moved in his eyes then, quick and dark and gone before I could name it. But I didn't wait to figure it out. I picked up my purse, turned around, and walked out of Aurelle with my spine straight and my heart in pieces. The elevator doors slid closed behind me. I made it all the way to the lobby, all the way out through the revolving glass doors, all the way onto the cold sidewalk before my knees finally started to shake. Three years. Gone in six minutes. I stood under the awning, breathing hard, watching the traffic blur, when my phone buzzed in my purse. An unknown number. A single text. *It's finally time, Miss Valmont. Don't go home. Come to the address below. Hurry.* I read it once. Then I read it again. Because I'd never in my whole life been called Valmont.