Chapter 1

Lucia Sanchez's little assistant liked to play pranks.

I was in the shower when I heard him shouting for help — my wife had collapsed down in the basement.

I ran down without even bothering to throw on a robe, and found the door locked behind me.

That was how I ended up trapped for three days.

No one came.

By the time they let me out of the basement, I was starving.

I saw the leftover cake sitting on the table and shoved a bite into my mouth.

Lucia turned a cold stare on me.

"Let's get divorced."

I lifted my red, swollen eyes.

"Over one bite of cake?"

"Yes."

Lucia forced me to sign the divorce papers in front of everyone.

And she demanded I walk away with nothing.

Everyone there was outraged for me.

"Lucia, it was your assistant who pulled the prank."

"Your husband was locked in the basement for three days. What's wrong with him eating one bite of cake?"

Lucia's voice was cold.

"If it isn't his, he has no right to touch it."

"Besides, isn't this exactly the trick he used to squeeze my assistant out in the first place?"

Everyone looked at me, some with pity, some with sympathy.

I lowered my head and pulled a pale smile onto my face.

"Fine. I'll sign."

1

I reached for the pen.

But after three days without food, I was too weak to even grip it.

"Lucia, before I sign, could I please eat something first?"

I looked at that piece of cake.

I pressed a hand to my starving stomach and swallowed hard.

"No."

Lucia didn't even glance at me. She picked up the cake.

And dropped it into the trash without a moment's hesitation.

My face went ashen.

The people around us couldn't stand it anymore.

"Lucia, what could he possibly have done that's so unforgivable you have to humiliate him like this?"

"Right, he's been locked in a basement for three days without a single meal."

"It's just a bite of cake. There's no need to torture the man over it."

Lucia looked around at all of them.

And spoke without a trace of feeling.

"He deserves it."

"I've said it before. I hate it when anyone around me has no sense of boundaries."

"He knew the cake was Justin's. Even if Justin didn't want it and it was going in the trash, no one else gets to touch it."

Justin Fox. Her male assistant.

The root of every one of the countless fights we'd had.

And the one she'd always defended for no reason at all.

As she said all this, she seemed to have forgotten.

That it was Justin who'd played the prank, who'd tricked me into being locked in that basement.

That I'd been left there to starve for three days.

That I'd called her seventy-two times.

And not one call had gone through.

Now she stood there like a bystander with nothing to do with any of it, saying things this cruel, this cold.

"I'll agree to the divorce."

I tugged at Lucia's sleeve.

"I'm begging you. Not in front of all these people. Please?"

"At least let me go put some clothes on first."

I held a hand over myself, so ashamed I wanted to disappear.

I'd only just been let out of the basement.

And Lucia had already brought this crowd to corner me.

Forcing me to sign the divorce papers in front of everyone.

I hadn't even had time to change.

I could feel plenty of oily, leering eyes stuck to my body.

All I asked of her was to leave me one last shred of dignity.

What I got instead was a flat, unquestionable no.

"No."

"What if you run off?"

Lucia looked at me with cold eyes.

"Edward Stephens, I want you to sign these papers in front of everyone."

"I want to use this to tell every single one of them."

"Justin is not a mistress."

She threw my hand off, cold as ice.

I stumbled back a couple of steps and nearly fell to the floor.

My face went even whiter, drained of every drop of color.

And all at once it came clear to me.

Lucia was doing this to get back at me.