Chapter 1

Ethan Fowler stood in the impossibly sleek corporate headquarters of the Anderson Hospitality Group.

The air conditioning was a quiet hum, a stark contrast to the clatter and heat of his kitchen. For ten years, seven admiring her from the back of the house and three as her husband, he had loved Jocelyn Anderson. He believed his devotion was a slow-burning fire that would one day warm her.

Jocelyn, his wife, was a Wharton graduate, the COO of this empire, and a woman who dressed in clothes that cost more than his monthly rent back in Queens. She was successful, driven, and completely emotionally distant. He knew she trusted him, but he also knew it was the trust you give a loyal employee, not a husband.

He watched her now, her focus entirely on the laptop in front of her. He placed a stack of documents on her polished desk.

"These need your signature."

She didn't look up. "Leave them, Ethan. I' ll get to them."

"There' s one on the bottom you need to see now."

His tone, usually soft and accommodating, was flat. It made her pause. She finally lifted her eyes, a flicker of annoyance in them before she registered his expression. She sighed, pulling the stack closer and flipping through the pages. Contracts, invoices, supply agreements. And at the very bottom, a divorce petition.

Her perfectly manicured hand froze over the paper. "What is this?"

"It' s a mistake," Ethan said, his voice hollow. "Our marriage. I' m correcting it."

The breaking point had come two nights ago. He' d been looking for a book in one of the many sterile, untouched rooms of their Central Park West condo.

He found an old college photo album instead. It was filled with pictures of Jocelyn and a handsome, smiling man named Wesley Clark. They were laughing, holding hands, their faces close. It was a kind of happiness she had never, not once, shown him. Tucked inside the back cover was a printout of an email she' d sent to a friend a week before their wedding.

The words burned into his memory: "I' m marrying Ethan. He' s safe. Loyal, uncomplicated. He won' t get in the way of my career or my feelings for Wes. It' s just a strategic move to get my family off my back about the merger."

A placeholder. That' s all he had ever been. Ten years of his life, dedicated to a strategic move. The hope he' d clung to for so long didn' t just die; it felt like it had never been real in the first place.

Jocelyn stared at the petition, then at him. Her business-like composure was a mask, but for the first time, he saw a crack in it.

"This is because of my family, isn' t it? My uncle' s comments at dinner last week-"

"No," Ethan interrupted. "This is because of you. And me. It was never real, Jocelyn."

She closed her laptop. The quiet click echoed in the large office. "I have a business trip to Aspen tomorrow. We' ll discuss this when I get back."

"There' s nothing to discuss."

He turned and walked out of her office, not looking back. He didn' t go to the kitchen. He took the elevator down to the street, hailed a cab, and went back to the condo that had never felt like a home. He packed his few belongings: his well-worn cookbooks, his photography gear, and the clothes on his back. He left his key and the signed divorce papers on the kitchen counter.

Then, Ethan Fowler walked out of Jocelyn Anderson' s life for good.