Chapter 1 - THE THREE HOURS I STOPPED BEING HIS WIFEThe ice water hit my back so hard I lost my breath.
I was already on my hands and knees on the marble floor of our Greenwich foyer when David tipped the white bucket over me. Water ran through my hair, under my cream silk blouse, and across the bruises Julian had spent most of the night putting there.
“Stay down and learn,” my husband said.
Three hours earlier, I had still been arguing with him.
Now I was calculating which breaths hurt the least.
Julian Kensington stood to my left in the navy suit he'd worn to dinner. No tie. Sleeves still buttoned. Not a strand of dark hair out of place.
That frightened me.
Rage I could understand.
Julian looked managerial.
David lowered the empty bucket.
He had worked security at our house for eleven months. Former Stamford police, according to Julian. Quiet. Divorced. Two daughters.
He wouldn't meet my eyes.
On the grand staircase, Maya Lawson rested one hand on the railing.
Her navy dress looked untouched.
She smiled.
“Three hours taught nothing.”
I tried to crawl.
Julian grabbed the shoulder of my wet blouse and hauled me halfway upright.
My vision went white.
“Look at her.”
I did.
Maya had spent the last four years as Julian's chief strategy officer at Kensington Private Capital.
She had also spent at least eleven months sleeping with my husband.
I had discovered that part at 6:40 that evening.
The financial part came fifteen minutes later.
That was why I was on the floor.
Julian tightened his fist in my blouse.
“You sign, this ends.”
On the console table behind him sat the document he wanted.
A personal guaranty.
A pledge agreement.
And an amendment transferring control over my voting interest in Vance Heritage Holdings.
My mother's company.
My separate property.
Forty-two percent of a business Julian had spent five years telling me was boring, old-fashioned, and badly managed.
Tonight, suddenly, he needed it badly enough to beat me.
I knocked his hand off my shoulder.
He swore.
David moved instinctively toward me.
I caught his sleeve.
My fingers found the chain at my neck.
The jade pendant had hung there since I was five years old.
I had hated the man who gave it to me for almost thirty years.
I had also never managed to throw it away.
I tore the chain free.
Then I shoved the pendant into David's palm.
“Take this. Go now.”
His eyes finally met mine.
He looked down at the small oval of dark green jade.
On the back were two initials.
D.V.
Julian noticed.
“What did she give you?”
David closed his hand.
Maya's smile disappeared.
Julian took one step toward him.
“Give it to me.”
David didn't.
That was the first thing anybody in that house had refused Julian all night.
I crawled closer to him.
“New Haven,” I whispered.
Julian heard me.
His expression changed.
He knew the name I hadn't said yet.
The man whose photograph had been removed from every family album before I started kindergarten.
The man my mother had taught me to call a liar.
The man I'd ignored every Christmas card from since I was eighteen.
Daniel Vance.
My father.
Julian turned toward David.
“You walk out that door, you're finished.”
David looked at me again.
My lip was split.
My right eye was swelling.
My blouse was torn.
For three hours he had obeyed because Julian paid his salary.
Now he looked at the woman paying the actual price.
He put the jade pendant in his pocket.
Then stepped backward.
Julian lunged.
David raised both hands.
“I quit.”
“You don't quit in my house.”
“I just did.”
Maya descended two steps.
“David, don't be stupid.”
He looked at her.
“You watched this.”
“So did you.”
That landed.
He glanced toward me.
Then he walked toward the service corridor.
Julian followed.
I grabbed Julian's trouser leg.
He kicked free.
Not hard enough to break anything.
Hard enough to put me back on the floor.
“David!”
David stopped.
I forced the next words out.
“Don't call him.”
Julian smiled.
He thought I'd changed my mind.
I looked at David.
“Go to him.”
David understood.
The jade wasn't a message that could be intercepted.
It was proof.
My father had carved that pendant himself when I was four.
If Daniel saw it in a stranger's hand after twenty-nine years, he would know I had sent the stranger.
David disappeared down the hall.
Julian reached for his phone.
Maya moved toward the security panel.
I heard doors locking electronically.
Then the chandelier above me blurred.
The last thing I remember before losing consciousness was Maya saying:
“If Daniel sees that jade, we're going to have a much bigger problem than Victoria.”
May you like
And Julian answering:
“I know.”
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