Chapter 1

The Moleskine journal lay open on Ethan's mahogany desk. My Moleskine. My "Strike List."

My heart hammered. He wasn't supposed to see it.

It was where I wrote down every time Ethan hurt me, every point deducted from our marriage.

One hundred points, and I'd file for divorce.

He'd reached ninety-five. This discovery, his invasion of my privacy, would be the last five.

Ethan stood by the window, his back to me. He didn't turn.

"You saw it?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

He finally faced me, his expression cold. "Saw what? That notebook? Keep your clutter out of my study, Amelia."

He called me Amelia when he was annoyed.

My eyes stung. He hadn't even really looked at it. My pain, quantified, dismissed as clutter.

"Ethan, we need to talk about-"

"Not now," he cut me off. "I have a call."

His study wasn't just a study. It was a shrine to Olivia Vance.

Old photos of them from their Ivy League days at Yale were artfully arranged on the shelves.

Olivia's abstract paintings, ones she'd made in college, hung on the walls.

He'd kept everything. Her favorite books. A dried corsage.

Three years of marriage, and I was an intruder in Olivia's museum.

His phone rang then, a sharp, urgent sound.

He snatched it up. "Mark? What's wrong?"

His face went pale. "Her restaurant? On fire? Olivia-is she...?"

He didn't wait for an answer. "I'm on my way."

Ethan grabbed his keys, his movements frantic.

"The merger presentation is tomorrow, Ethan. You can't-"

"The merger means nothing if Olivia isn't safe!" he yelled, already halfway out the door.

He slammed it behind him.

The sound echoed in the silent apartment, a final punctuation to his priorities. Olivia first. Always.

My heart shattered. The blatant disregard, the casual cruelty.

I grabbed my purse and ran out, hailing a cab.

"Follow that black Range Rover!" I told the driver, pointing to Ethan's car speeding away.

He ran two red lights and swerved through traffic like a maniac.

All for Olivia.

We reached SoHo. Smoke billowed into the sky. Flames licked the trendy facade of "Vance," Olivia's new restaurant.

Ethan was already out of his car, pushing through the crowd.

"Olivia! Is Olivia Vance inside?" he shouted at a firefighter.

"Sir, we don't know yet. You need to stay back."

Ethan ignored him, trying to rush past the police line towards the burning building.

"Olivia!"

His friend, Mark, and another man grabbed his arms, pulling him back.

"Ethan, stop! It's too dangerous!" Mark yelled.

"Let me go! She could be in there!" Ethan struggled, his face contorted with panic.

"Think about the merger, man! If you get hurt, it's over!" David, another of his banker friends, reasoned.

"I don't care about the damn merger if she's not safe!" Ethan roared.

I watched from the curb, a cold knot forming in my stomach. This was the depth of his feeling. For her.

A stark, burning contrast to the ice he showed me.

This was the moment the last five points vanished from my mental Strike List. One hundred.

Divorce.

I remembered meeting Ethan. My senior year at Columbia. My father, a renowned architecture professor, adored him.

Ethan was his star finance student, charismatic, ambitious.

After Dad died, Ethan proposed. He said Dad's dying wish was for him to care for me.

He'd claimed he wanted to marry *me*.

I was grieving, vulnerable. I'd believed him. I'd even been flattered.

The truth came out a year later, at a drunken Wall Street holiday party.

I overheard Mark telling another colleague.

"Ethan finally caved. Married the professor's daughter."

"Thought he was holding out for Olivia Vance."

"Olivia married that Euro billionaire, moved to Monaco, remember? Amy was the rebound. Poor girl."

Ethan's years of rejecting other women weren't focus. It was pining. For Olivia.

The world tilted. My marriage was a lie.

I loved him, or the idea of him I'd built. So, I stayed.

I started the Strike List then, a small, black Moleskine. A way to cope.

A way to measure the slow death of our marriage.

Each transgression, a deduction. Him forgetting my birthday, then flying to Aspen because Olivia faked a ski accident: minus ten points.

Him abandoning me on the side of the I-95 in the pouring rain to pick Olivia up from JFK after her sudden return to NYC: minus fifteen.

Olivia had divorced her billionaire and was back. Ethan's neglect intensified.

Him losing our wedding bands – the simple gold ones I'd cherished – while "helping" Olivia set up a "charity auction" for her new "event planning venture": minus twenty.

The list grew. The points dwindled.

Suddenly, a firefighter near the restaurant entrance shouted, "We found someone! Clear a path!"

Ethan, who had been struggling against his friends, went still.

Then, he saw her. Olivia. Soot-streaked but walking, supported by two paramedics.

Ethan broke free from Mark and David, shoving past a police officer.

"Olivia!"

He reached her just as a section of the burning facade above the doorway groaned, then crashed downwards.

"Olivia, look out!" Ethan screamed.

He threw himself at her, pushing her clear, taking the brunt of the falling, flaming debris.

He crumpled to the ground.

Paramedics rushed to Ethan. Olivia was screaming, hysterical, but mostly unharmed.

Mark ran to my side. "Amy, Ethan's hurt. They're taking him to Mount Sinai. Olivia got out, she's okay, just shaken."

He looked away, then back at me, his expression awkward. "He was just... worried. Old friends, you know."

Old friends. The lie they all told. The lie I'd once tried to believe.

I nodded, numb.

Ethan was injured. Saving Olivia.

The Moleskine in my mind was full. One hundred points.

I'd go to the hospital. Then I'd call a lawyer.