Chapter 1

I cancelled the supplementary card again. The one my wife had handed to her little assistant on the outside.

His luxury purchase wouldn't go through.

The call went to my wife.

I thought Gillian Sanchez would do what she always did.

Call and coax me, tell me not to lower myself over some junior assistant.

Instead, she slid an agreement across the table to me herself.

"You've had your fill of playing controller all these years. Starting today, we split everything down the middle."

"After all, I'm not the broke girl I used to be. I don't need you anymore."

"As for that card, cancel it all you like. I've already gotten him a new one."

I looked at the agreement meant to draw a clean line between us, and gave a cold laugh.

"And if I refuse?"

Gillian kept that same detached calm and produced a second document. Divorce papers.

"Then we get divorced."

I reached out and tore the papers to shreds. "There's something you should understand."

"Whoever pays the bills is the one who calls the shots."

Everything she had, she owed to me. Now that she'd made it.

She wanted to kick me aside.

Where does anyone get a deal that sweet?

Gillian watched me, wary. "What are you doing?"

I said nothing. I turned and had someone tie up her little assistant.

1

"Gillian, save me!"

The assistant looked like a startled bird, hands and feet bound.

His white shirt was already soaked through with sweat.

Watching Hal Pruitt scream in terror for help.

I clicked my tongue and marveled.

"No wonder he's got Gillian wrapped around his finger. What a pitiful little thing."

"Shame is, I've seen plenty of men like you. They usually don't end well."

My father was always a philanderer.

In my earliest memories, the men he brought home were beyond counting.

And my mother, with an iron hand, brought every one of them to heel.

Not one of them ever dared come to the door and stir up trouble.

Right now, taking a page from my mother, I meant to make this little assistant suffer a little.

But Hal was young after all, full of energy, and his screaming was giving me a real headache.

"You old man, let me go!"

"You can't win Gillian's heart, so you tie me up and torture me. What kind of man does that?"

I laughed and stood up.

"You think I came here as the wife, to teach the mistress a lesson?"

"You've got it wrong."

"I came as a creditor. I'm here to collect."

Let me do the math for him.

"How much of my money have you spent these past few years? Want me to get a lawyer to add it up for you?"

"If you don't pay it all back, I can have you charged with robbery."

The assistant's face went white in an instant.

He'd taken a supplementary card off her five times, just on that.

I'd cancel one, and Gillian would turn around and get him a new one.

I'd done the rough math before coming.

The money Hal had run through, if it wasn't eighty million, it was at least fifty.

"How is any of it your money? Gillian gave it to me, plain and simple."

Hal kept his neck stiff, that same stubborn look on his face.

I scoffed.

"But her money came from me too. Didn't you know that?"

He knew perfectly well. From the very start, Gillian was nothing but my poor first wife.

Penniless, with nothing to her name.

I was the one who gave her the first pot of gold to start her business.

I was the one who reached out when she hit a cash crisis.

Even the lucky cat in her company office had my face on it.

Everyone knew: the Sanchez Group she built with her own hands, the name itself came from me.

But now Hal bit down hard on his lip, refusing to admit any of it.

"You're lying!"

"That was between the two of you, back then. But she's the group's CEO now. She told me every cent she gives me is clean, that she earned it herself."

What a joke. Even the supplementary card she gave away was one I'd set up.

I could cancel it whenever I wanted.

And she calls it clean.

But the next second, the assistant lifted his chin.

"If you don't believe me, look at the bank card in my jacket. It's got her name right on it. My jacket's right there."

I turned to look at the suit jacket on the wooden chair.

Dug it out.

The moment I saw the front of that bank card, something in me dropped.

I recognized this card. I was there when Gillian set it up.

She'd said, plain as day, that she was going to put money into this account. That it would be the childcare fund for our children someday.

By the start of the year she'd already saved up fifty million.

She said our kids would be born into comfort.

That it wouldn't matter if they weren't clever at school.

That she'd never even have to work a day in her life, that she could live worry-free and happy.

And now she'd handed this card to Hal.

Blood roared up in me. I grabbed the fruit knife beside me and walked toward Hal.

"I'd love to hear you say it."

"What exactly did you do, to make her hand over even this?"

Hal's little face went white with fear. Before he could get a word out.

A sharp voice cut in from behind me.

"Stop!"