Chapter 1

My husband was allergic to peaches. He couldn't touch even a drink with the faintest trace of peach juice in it.

Five years married, and I'd watched every bite and sip that went into his mouth.

Until my husband landed a ten-million-dollar contract for his company.

At the celebration dinner, he actually drank, in front of everyone, the peach juice his little childhood sweetheart had poured for him.

I wasn't surprised. I just turned and held out a set of divorce papers.

Every employee in the room jumped in to accuse me of throwing a fit over nothing!

Leo Harding, humiliated into a rage, tore the papers to shreds and flung them in my face.

"June Walker just didn't want me feeling sick from the wine. She poured me a glass of juice to sober me up, that's all!"

"Besides, if it weren't for June's help this time, I never would've closed a deal that big. There's a limit to how jealous you get to be!"

I lifted my hand and brushed the scraps off my face, then turned and took out my phone.

"You can go ahead and cancel the partnership."

……

The second I hung up, the whole crowd couldn't hold back their jeers.

"Honey, you've been watching too many soap operas! Now you're putting on a little melodrama right here!"

"If June hadn't connected us this time, our company never could've signed a deal that size with Skyline Group. You want to throw a jealous fit, at least read the room!"

Leo stared at me, his face gone gray.

"Because June poured me a glass of juice, you're kicking up a fuss about divorce? Have you lost your mind?"

"Everything I do at work is for you, for this family. Fine, you don't appreciate how hard I work. But you'd end our marriage over one glass of juice?"

Leo's little speech had every friend and relative in the room seething on his behalf.

"Leo's famous for how much he loves his wife. All these years, afraid you'd get jealous, he only hired women who were already married with kids."

"Leo drinks himself to a bleeding stomach at business dinners, for you, for this family. You're his wife and you can't even show him a little understanding? And now you throw out divorce over a glass of juice? You don't know when you've got it good!"

Leo had always been everyone's idea of the perfect husband.

Five years in, and he still bent to my every whim.

Even when I couldn't get pregnant after the wedding, when his family came at me with blame, he'd put himself between them and me and tell them all that he was the one who couldn't have children, that it had nothing to do with me.

And yet this perfect husband was the very man who'd turned my life into a joke.

Leo's assistant, June, came forward too, all wounded innocence, and grabbed my hand.

"Millicent Henson, I've been married with a kid for ages now. How can you still be jealous of me?"

"I was only worried Leo would upset his stomach from drinking too much, so I wanted him to have some juice to sober up. If you don't like it, then I just won't pour for him anymore!"

June and Leo were childhood sweethearts, always calling each other like brother and sister.

When he and I first got together, I minded how close the two of them were, too.

But then June rushed into marriage and motherhood, and that finally put the thorn in my chest to rest.

I flung her hand off, my face cold.

"Once we're divorced, you can feed him juice every day of the week for all I care."

Hearing that, Leo's expression turned uglier still.

"Millicent, are you done? All this over a glass of juice, really?"

"Today is the celebration for me and June, not some stage for a housewife like you to throw a tantrum!"

My expression didn't change. My voice stayed ice-cold.

"Yes, really."

Hearing me, June stepped in at once and deliberately dropped her voice.

"Honey, I know Leo's always busy with work, and you get lonely at home all by yourself. But no pretty young thing out there is ever going to be as good as Leo! He started his own company so young, and now he's landed a ten-million-dollar deal with Skyline Group. There's no limit to how far he'll go!"