Chapter 1

The crystal flute felt cold in my hand.

Chloe, Ethan's sister, beamed, her smile too wide, too bright under the chandeliers of the country club.

"To ten years, Elara!" she announced. Her voice, dripping with Southern sweetness, carried across the murmuring crowd. "And to new beginnings."

She pressed a heavy vellum envelope into my other hand along with the drink. "A little something to mark the occasion. My graduation, Ethan's company going public, and your... anniversary."

I knew that tone. I'd heard it for a decade.

Ethan was across the room, schmoozing with a woman in a sleek, silver dress. Victoria Vance, his Ivy League "ideal." He didn't look my way. He rarely did, not when he was climbing.

I was the mud on his expensive shoes, the bayou he'd crawled out of.

The "surprise" cocktail, Chloe called it. I took a sip. Sweet, fruity, with a bitter aftertaste that bloomed too late.

Ten years. The decade my grandmother had spoken of. Her letter, locked in its carved wooden box, waiting.

I opened the envelope. Divorce papers.

A wave of something cold, then hot, washed through me. Not just the drink.

Relief.

It tasted like freedom, sharp and unexpected.

A cramp seized my belly, doubling me over.

The room tilted.

"Elara, darling, are you quite alright?" Chloe's mother, a woman whose smile never reached her eyes, materialized beside me. "You look a fright."

"She's just being dramatic," Chloe said, her arm linked with Victoria's now. They looked like a matched set. Polished. Expensive.

Another cramp, fiercer this time. I felt a sickening warmth spread down my thighs.

I looked down. Dark red bloomed on the cheap fabric of the dress Ethan's assistant had picked out for me.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," Chloe's mother hissed, stepping back. "Someone get her out of sight."

Ethan finally noticed. He strode over, his face a mask of irritation. "Elara, what's wrong? Go to our room. Now. Don't make a scene."

His concern was for the scene, not for me.

The blood was pooling around my feet. People were staring, whispering, moving away as if I carried a swamp plague.

"Sign it," Chloe said, her voice hard. She thrust a pen at me. "You've held onto him long enough. You can't use a baby to trap him this time, can you?"

My hand shook as I took the pen.

I remembered a different Chloe. Small, shivering in my arms during a Louisiana winter, too scared to even sip the warm milk I offered after their world fell apart.

"Chloe," I began, my voice raspy. "Who taught you to... to do this?"

Her eyes, so like Ethan's, flickered with something that might have been fear, then hardened. "Don't you dare lecture me. You're nobody."

I used to make her write lines from an old etiquette book when she was cruel.

But I wouldn't be here tonight.

"Tell Ethan to teach you better," I managed, a sigh escaping me.

Ten years of care. Wiped out by a few whispers from a more polished crowd.

I turned, leaving a crimson trail on the polished floor.

The master suite was a wreck. My few clothes, the ones I'd brought from home, were slashed. My grandmother's worn book of Cajun remedies was torn, its dried herbs scattered. On the bathroom mirror, scrawled in my own expensive lipstick – a gift from Ethan I never used – was a single, stark message: GET OUT.

I sat on the edge of the pristine, untouched king-sized bed.

My grandmother's letter. Chloe must have found it, torn it to shreds.

I gathered the pieces. The old, familiar cursive. "Ma chère petite-fille..." My dear granddaughter.

Tears I hadn't shed for years pricked my eyes.

Tonight. The ten years were up. Midnight.

I had come to this marriage with nothing but what I could carry and the weight of Ethan's promises.

I would leave with even less. Just myself. And this torn letter.