CHAPTER 1
My husband forgot to hang up the phone, and that was how I heard him bury our marriage before he ever touched a shovel.
I had called Hunter from our bedroom with nothing dramatic in mind. It was nearly eleven in the evening, the city outside our high rise windows in San Diego was glowing in soft gold and blue, and I was standing barefoot on the carpet holding my phone against my ear. I was completely ready to say the same small thing I said most nights when he worked late.
“I love you, so please drive safe,” I murmured into the receiver.
Instead of a response from him, I heard my husband laugh. It was not the light laugh he gave prospective clients, nor was it the polite and polished one he used at charity dinners. It was certainly not the patient one he offered my father whenever money was on the table. This laugh was lower, warmer, and careless in a way that made my skin tighten before I understood why.
“Isabelle, baby, relax,” Hunter said through the speaker. “Once the ten million comes through from Kylie’s father, I am filing for divorce.”
The room around me did not move, but somehow the whole world shifted on its axis. I stood there with one hand on the phone and the other resting against my ribs, acting as if I could hold myself together manually. For several long seconds, I thought my brain had misheard him out of pure mercy. Hunter could be many things, including ambitious, charming, and impatient with small talk, but I had never known him to be cruel, calculating, or capable of speaking about me as if I were a locked bank account he needed access to.
