Chapter 1: Prepared to Leave
Four years of marriage and Cassidy still didn’t know her husband’s favorite color.
She sat on the edge of their balcony, a cup of chamomile tea warming her hands as the city lights of New York glittered in the distance. The night breeze was gentle, but it couldn’t quiet the growing storm inside her.
The bedroom behind her was silent. Too silent. Zeke had just come home, at two in the morning. Again.
Cassidy didn’t ask where he had been.
He didn’t offer an explanation. There was a faint trace of perfume on his shirt. Not hers.
She took a deep breath, steady and quiet, and walked back inside. Her steps were soft against the marble floor as she moved toward her vanity. She opened the small drawer she rarely touched, pulled out a brown envelope, and set it carefully on the nightstand.
The divorce papers were still as crisp as the day she printed them, four years ago.
That was the plan from the start. If love ever found its way into their hearts for someone else, they’d part ways. No questions asked.
And now she had seen it with her own eyes. Zeke’s smile. His hand brushing back another woman’s hair. Intimate. Familiar. Real.
Her heart didn’t break. It didn’t even crack.
It just... confirmed what she had known all along: there was nothing between them. And maybe there never had been.