Chapter 1 First Chapter

Harper's POV:

I should have known better than to trust happiness.

The bedroom door stood half open. I'd come home early to surprise Connor with his favorite dinner, something I did every week because he once told me it made him feel loved. The apartment was quiet except for sounds coming from upstairs. Sounds I recognized, that made my stomach turn cold.

I pushed the door wider.

Connor was in our bed. The sheets I'd washed that morning were tangled around two bodies, and when the woman turned her head, I saw Jenny's face. My best friend. The person who stood beside me at my wedding.

"Harper." Connor didn't even look surprised. He sat up slowly, like I was interrupting something casual. Like I was the one who'd walked into the wrong room.

I couldn't breathe. My lungs forgot how to work.

"Say something," I whispered, but it came out broken. "Tell me... tell me this isn't what it looks like."

Jenny laughed. She pulled the sheet around herself and stood up, and she was laughing. "Oh Harper. Always so dramatic."

"Dramatic?" The word tasted bitter. "You're in bed with my husband."

"Your husband?" Jenny's voice went sharp and mean. "Because you still have sex sometimes you think that makes him yours? I've been sharing him with you, slut. I decided to be generous."

The room tilted. I grabbed the doorframe to steady myself because my legs wanted to give out. This couldn't be real. This couldn't be Jenny. My Jenny who brought me coffee every morning. Who said she loved me like a sister.

I turned to Connor instead. Maybe he would fix this. Maybe he would tell Jenny to stop being cruel and explain that this was a mistake. A terrible, fixable mistake.

"Connor, please. What is she talking about?"

He got out of bed and reached for his pants. He moved like he had all the time in the world. Like my heart wasn't breaking into pieces right in front of him.

"She's telling the truth, Harper. We're married on paper. That's all. You're my figurehead wife. The one my father loves so much." He said it with disgust, like my relationship with his father was something dirty. "At least you have Dad wrapped around your finger. Isn't that what you wanted from the beginning?"

"What I wanted?" My voice cracked. "I wanted you, I loved you."

"Love?" He laughed and it was cold. "I picked you up from that pathetic bar where you were washing dishes, and you decided to steal my position in my father's company."

"I didn't steal anything," I said, but my voice was too broken.

Jenny stepped closer. Her eyes were bright with something that looked like hate. "Don't even try to defend yourself. You know exactly what you do, Harper. You play this innocent girl act and everyone falls for it. That's how you stole my position one month after you started at Blake Industries. One month. I worked for two years to get that position and you took it from me like it was nothing."

I stared at her. This person, wearing Jenny's face but speaking words I'd never heard before. "You were happy for me. You told me I deserved it."

"I lied." She said it simply. Like it was obvious. Like I should have known all along. "You're a manipulator, Harper. You make people think you're good when really you're just evil."

The word hit me like a slap. Evil. She thought I was evil.

I looked between them. Connor was buttoning his shirt. Jenny was smirking. They looked comfortable together. Like they'd been waiting for this moment.

"How long?" I asked. "How long have you been sleeping together?"

"Before I met you," Connor said. He said it easily like it didn't matter. "Jenny and I were together first. Then I saw you at that bar and I thought... I don't know what I thought. That you were special." He laughed again. "I brought you into my life. Introduced you to my father. Married you. And you repaid me by being exactly what Jenny said you were. A manipulator who stole everything that was mine."

He crossed the room and pulled Jenny against him. He kissed her while I stood there watching. His hand tangled in her hair the same way he used to touch me.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to hit something. I wanted to run. But my body wouldn't move.

"Jenny?" My voice came out small. Desperate. "Tell me he's lying. Tell me you didn't hate me this whole time."

She looked at me over Connor's shoulder. Her expression was flat. Empty of anything that looked like the friend I knew. "Every single day, Harper. I hated you every single day."

Something inside me cracked, like ice splitting down the middle.

"I need you to leave," Connor said. He wasn't looking at me anymore. He was looking at Jenny like she was the only person in the room. "I'll have my lawyer send over the divorce papers. Sign them quietly and maybe I'll let you keep something from this marriage."

"Divorce." The word felt foreign. Wrong. We'd only been married a year.

"What did you think was going to happen?" He finally looked at me and his eyes were cruel. "You really thought I'd stay with you? My father just promoted me to president of Blake Industries, I thought you were going to steal it too-thank God. I don't need you anymore, Harper. I never really did."

He reached into the nightstand. Pulled out a manila envelope. Threw it at my feet.

"Sign them," he said.

I stared down at the envelope. At my name written across the front in neat black letters. Mrs. Harper Blake.

I bent down slowly. Picked up the papers. The edges were sharp against my fingers.

When I looked up, Connor was already walking Jenny toward the bathroom. Her hand was in his. They were laughing about something.

They'd already forgotten I was there.

I stood in the bedroom doorway holding my divorce papers, and I realized something that made my chest go tight and painful.

Nobody had ever really loved me. Not my father who left. Not my husband who lied. Not my best friend who'd been waiting for me to fail.

I was completely alone.

The papers crinkled in my hands.

And somewhere in the bathroom, I heard Jenny's voice, bright and happy, asking Connor something I couldn't quite make out.

His response was clear though.

"Don't worry, baby. She'll sign them."