All Chapters of The Wife Who Won : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

I shift the cake box to my left hand, stepping out and closing the silver car door with a gentle thud. The cool air kisses my skin, raising goosebumps along my arms. My lips curve into a shy smile, a blush creeping up my cheeks when I imagine how Mark would react once he sees my new dress. I smooth a hand down the fabric, suddenly self-conscious, suddenly excited.I shouldn't be here.Mark had warned me, more than once, how busy his office would be this month with investors flying in, meetings stacked back to back, barely time to breathe. But I simply couldn't stay away today. For the past two weeks, he'd been going on and on about how much he craved cranberry cake, mentioning it in passing, in jokes, even in late-night calls when his voice sounded too tired to pretend anymore. And as his wife, I took it as my quiet duty, no, my privilege, to satisfy his craving.“Violetta.”Nolan, Mark's secretary, rises a little too fast when I push open the glass doors, his chair scraping loudly ag

I sit in the car long after leaving the office, my hands resting loosely on the steering wheel while the world outside keeps moving like nothing has changed.People walk in and out of the building carrying files and coffee cups, talking into phones, laughing at things that don’t matter. A man from accounting crosses the parking lot and spots me through the windshield. He lifts his hand with a bright smile, I stare at him for a second before raising mine back automatically.He keeps walking just as I look away.I sit silently waiting for the tears. For that crushing feeling people always talk about, the one that steals your breath and folds you into yourself. But my chest stays strangely still. My hands don’t shake. My vision doesn’t blur.Maybe it’s a good thing. Crying over Mark won’t change what I saw anyway.My gaze drifts toward the rearview mirror, catching the passenger seat behind me. A small gift box sits there, tilted slightly to one side from the drive.It's a necklace I bou

The plane descends through heavy clouds just after sunrise, the wing slicing through pale sheets of light as the city slowly comes into view beneath me. From above, everything looks orderly. Streets arranged into neat grids. Buildings rising with impossible confidence. Rivers of traffic glinting silver in the early morning haze.It feels strange looking down at a place that knows nothing about me yet.Three days ago, I was standing in the middle of my apartment kitchen trying to understand how my fiancé and my mother had managed to dismantle my life in a single afternoon. Now I’m flying toward a job interview in a city I’ve only seen in photographs, carrying a single suitcase and pretending I’m not one bad moment away from losing my nerve entirely.The flight attendant passes by with coffee, and I accept it mostly for something to hold. My hands have been restless since takeoff. I keep checking the folder in my bag even though I already know everything inside it. Copies of my résumé,

Chapter 7: ViolettaThe doorbell rings at exactly seven o’clock. I don’t have to check the peephole to know it’s Liv. She has a specific, rhythmic way of knocking that sounds more like a demand than a request. When I open the door, she is standing there with a heavy paper bag in one arm and a bottle of silver tequila tucked under the other. She doesn’t say hello. Instead, she steps past me, stops in the middle of the foyer, and whistles low.“You painted,” she says, her eyes traveling over the warm ivory walls. “I thought I’d have to stage an intervention about your husband’s obsession with prison-cell grey, but you beat me to it.”“I couldn’t breathe in here anymore,” I admit, closing the door behind her.Liv sets the bag on the kitchen island, which is currently the only surface not covered in bubble wrap or packing tape. The scent of spicy tacos and lime fills the air, momentarily masking the sharp, lingering smell of fresh paint. She twists the cap off the tequila and reaches for

Chapter 9: Violetta The airport terminal is a frantic blur of travelers, but Liv is a stationary force of nature at the center of the chaos. She has already claimed a table at a high-end bistro near my gate, surrounded by three shopping bags and two oversized coffees."Sit," she commands, clicking her cup against mine. "We are celebrating the start of the divorce proceedings and the fact that you didn't let that man manipulate you into staying.""I feel like I’m in a dream," I admit, sitting down and taking a sip. "Everything happened so fast.""That’s because you finally stopped moving at Mark’s pace," Liv says. She pulls a small, wrapped box from her pocket, the one I’d seen her holding earlier, and slides it across the table. "Open it now. I want to see your face."I tear away the paper to find a small, high-quality brass compass in a leather case. Attached to it is a note in her messy handwriting: So you never lose your way back to yourself."Liv, it's beautiful," I whisper, trac