Chapter 2

Divorce Settlement.

My fingers tightened around the envelope. The edge of the papers dug into my palm as I looked down at the ring on my finger—the same ring I had spent four years pretending meant more than it did.

“Ken.” Wyatt’s voice pulled me back. “Let’s get into the study.”

Garry’s best friend looked uncomfortable, which made the humiliation worse.

I followed him inside.

The heavy oak doors shut behind us, cutting off the driveway. Wyatt gestured toward the chair across from the desk.

“Garrison wanted to make sure everything was handled properly.”

Handled.

Of course. Everything in Garrison’s world was handled. Companies. Problems. Contracts.

Apparently wives too.

I sat and opened the folder. The first page was the divorce decree. The pages behind it contained the settlement.

My eyes moved over the numbers.

I read the figure again, certain I had missed something. Maybe there was a decimal I hadn't noticed, or one of the zeros didn't belong there. I went back to the beginning and read it more carefully, but the amount stayed the same.

I turned the page, expecting an explanation that would make it less shocking.

Instead, there was the house, followed by investment accounts, trusts, and other assets I hadn't even known existed.

By the time I reached the last page, I was beginning to understand what Garrison had done. He hadn't thrown this together after deciding to end our marriage. He had gone through every detail, calculated what I would need, and arranged everything so that once I walked away, I would never have to ask him for anything again.

“You don’t have to worry about your future,” Wyatt said. “Garrison made sure you would be financially independent.”

I looked down at the papers again.

Financially independent.

There was something so painful about realizing that Garrison had thought this carefully about my life after him.

He had planned how much I would receive, where I would live, and how I would support myself. He had made sure I would be taken care of.

Everything except the one thing I had wanted from him.

“Financially independent?”

Wyatt frowned.

“It looks more like a payout.”

“Ken—”

“The house. The money. The investments.” I tapped the papers. “He planned everything.”

“Because he wanted you protected.”

Protected. Garrison loved that word. It was the closest he ever came to admitting he cared.

My gaze dropped back to the settlement.

He had given me nights in his bed, his surname, a beautiful house, and a ring he had never meant the way I did.

Crumbs.

***

Two years earlier

At 2:13 in the morning, the synchronization test finally turned green.

I stared at the monitor. “No.”

Beside me, Garrison leaned closer. His tie had disappeared hours ago, his sleeves were rolled to his elbows, and for once he looked less like the man whose photograph appeared on business magazines and more like someone who had been awake for nineteen hours.

The test ran again. Green.

I laughed.

Garrison looked at the screen, then at me. “You fixed it.”

“We fixed it.”

“No.” He reached across me and tapped the line of code I had rewritten. “That was you, Ken.”

Something in his voice made the ridiculous exhaustion worth it.

We ended up sitting on the floor beside the server rack because every chair in the lab was covered with printouts. Garrison found a packet of stale pretzels in the vending machine and handed me the less broken half.

“Romantic,” I said.

His mouth curved. “Don’t get used to it.”

I laughed again, and for a few minutes he laughed with me.

That was another version of Garrison. The one who occasionally forgot to be careful.

This was the Garrison I had caught in rare moments over the years: the one who stayed beside me through impossible nights at the office, who noticed when I was tired or cold before I said anything, who could make me laugh when neither of us had slept enough to find anything funny.

He never let that version of himself stay for long. Maybe that was why every glimpse of him had mattered so much.

It was the part of Garrison I had fallen in love with.

A shiver ran through me - the air-conditioning was brutal. Without saying anything, he took off his jacket and settled it around my shoulders.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re freezing.”

“You always think you know better.”

“Usually because I do.”

I turned to answer him and found his face much closer than I expected.

His gaze dropped to my mouth. Neither of us moved. His hand lifted, almost touching my cheek.

I thought he was really going to do it.

Then something changed in his expression, and he stood.

“You should get some sleep, Ken.”

And just like that, he was Garrison Sterling again.

***

That was the problem with crumbs. Sometimes one of them tasted enough like a feast to keep you starving.

I had spent four years telling myself that wanting more would only make me greedy, that I should be grateful for what he was willing to give me.

But looking at the settlement now, I understood something I hadn't allowed myself to admit before.

I didn't want his crumbs anymore.

My fingers loosened around the papers, and I turned back to the settlement.

“There’s something I want changed.”

Wyatt looked up. I slid the folder toward him.

“Does he want me to leave today?”

My fingers tightened around the edge of the paper. Wyatt’s expression softened. “No.”

“Then what does he want?”

He hesitated. That was an answer enough.

I turned to another page. There it was. “My employment.”

“There’s an agreement for my departure from Sterling Tech,” I said, but my finger paused on a specific sub-clause. “And an assignment of the database synchronization patents filed under my contributor tag.”

A short laugh escaped me. Of course there was.

He had chosen the house I would live in, the money I would have, the investments that would support me. But he also wanted me to leave my brain behind. A perfectly organized exit, stripping my name from the very foundation of the tech empire we had built side-by-side.

I closed the folder. “I’m not signing this version.”

Wyatt stared at me. “What?”

“I have amendments.”

His eyebrows rose. “Ken, this is an extremely generous settlement.”

I pushed the folder across the desk.

“The house.”

“What about it?”

“I don’t want it.”

Wyatt blinked. “You don’t want the estate?”

“No. Convert its value into cash.”

He stared at me for another second before pulling a legal pad toward him. “Why?”

My eyes swept around the study, taking in the shelves Garrison had chosen, the furniture Garrison had chosen, the house that had never really belonged to me no matter how many mornings I had woken up inside it.

“I’m not living here after this. I don't want something he bought for Mrs. Sterling," I replied, lifting my chin. "I want something I built for myself.”

Wyatt studied me, then wrote it down.

“Alright. What else?”

“The settlement gets transferred in full one week before the divorce becomes final.”

His pen paused. “You think Garrison wouldn’t pay you?”

“I think I want to know that when I walk away, there is nothing left between us that requires me to come back.”

Wyatt looked hurt by this answer, but he nodded. “Fine. Anything else?”

“Yes.” I straightened in the chair. “I want Garrison to take me to the airport.”

Wyatt looked up.

“Personally.”

“Ken—”

“No driver. No assistant. No car arranged by his staff.”

My nails pressed into my palm beneath the desk.

“If he wants this marriage over, he can take me there himself.”

Wyatt was silent.

“He can look me in the eye and say goodbye when I leave." I wanted one final memory of the man I loved, not reduced to paperwork. I deserved that much.

Something shifted in his face. Pity, maybe. I hated it. But he wrote the demand down.

“I’ll speak to him. Is that it?”

My heart gave one violent beat. “No.”

Wyatt’s pen hovered above the paper. I could hear the faint ticking of the clock across the room. One second. Two. Three.

“There’s one final condition.”

I forced myself to say it before courage abandoned me.

“I want him to kiss me goodbye at the airport.”

Wyatt’s pen stopped. The silence that followed was so complete I could hear my own breathing.

His eyes lifted to mine. “Ken...”

My throat burned. I kept my chin raised.

Wyatt set the pen down. “You know Garrison.”

Yes, I did.

I knew who Garrison was. A man who could memorize the way I took my coffee and somehow never ask what I dreamed about. A man who could give me pleasure without kissing me. A man who had spent four years standing one step away from tenderness and retreating every time I noticed.

And I knew what happened whenever I reached for more. Last night, I had been foolish enough to try.

Wyatt’s voice softened. “He may not agree to that.”

Genevieve’s crimson dress flashed through my mind. Then Garrison’s voice. It’s time to get divorced, Ken.

Fine.

He wanted to end our marriage. He wanted to send me away with enough money to erase every practical reason I might ever need him again.

Then I wanted one thing he could not wire into an account, assign to an assistant, or bury in a contract. One thing only Garrison himself could give me.

“I know,” I whispered.

Wyatt watched me carefully.

“Then he can refuse.” I slid the settlement back toward him.

“He can take it or leave it.”