Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
VIVIAN
A year ago
When you can’t remember the last time you felt loved, it’s time to change your life.
Or change who you’re spending it with, and I plan to.
I’m fighting like hell to end my miserable marriage. A cheating man doesn’t have to lay a hand on you to try to bury you in the dirt.
But fuck David.
I’m a seed, waiting to bloom again.
And Jace Ryan is my sunshine.
He’s my new photography friend. I’ve always wanted someone to share my passion. I mean… my passion for the art.
As far as my other passion?
Okay, honestly, yes, Jace is hotter than the sun. I sweat at the heat he radiates. I’m curious about the ink underneath his starched collar. I’m sure by his ripped forearms that his body matches. And I’m tempted because a man of Jace’s size must be very big… everywhere.
It makes my soon-to-be ex-husband seem even smaller.
Jace’s request that I teach him photography made for a great day at work. To say nothing of the sex-swing drama.
But now I dread unlocking my front door to find David, squatting in my home. But thankfully, the alarm beeps, signaling I have my house to myself.
It’s a house my sweet father bought for me before he died. It’s my inheritance. A home built in 1700 that he’d been eyeing for years. It’s a rare property, owned by women artists for centuries.
A soft-green stucco four-story narrow house, it’s nestled on a corner in historic Charleston. My favorite is its brick-walled garden hiding a soaring pergola blooming with white jasmine; a romantic spot I often use for bridal shoots.
It was supposed to be my sanctuary. A place where I could remember my father’s life, his legacy dedicated to art and nature, not his death. Not the ALS neurodegenerative disease that slowly took him away from me.
I still have my mom. She’s still full of life, and I’m grateful.
My parents divorced when I was young, but they stayed close friends. My dad supported her art, career, and travel. My mom is a renowned photojournalist, dedicated to telling every woman’s story around the world.
The last time I heard from her, she was documenting the real “Kingdom of Women” in China.
While my kingdom is threatened by a little tyrant in yellow Crocs, an orange beanie, and a need to grab his crotch every five seconds like he’s got chronic jock itch, minus being a jock anymore.
Somewhere along the way, David went from cute to clownish. From charming to conniving. From caring to cutting my heart out.
And I want it back.
My heart. My house. My pride. I’ll wage a war to have peace again.
For now, I call upon the soldier by my side in this fight. Every fight. My childhood best friend, Harlow Sutton—Charleston’s toughest young lawyer clad in linen and lace.
“There you are.” She sighs, relieved by my call.
“I left you a voicemail with my update; we still haven’t heard from the little dick dipper.
He’s got twenty-four more hours left in his bullshit discovery process before we’ll surely go to trial.
But don’t worry. If a duck had his brain, it’d fly north for the winter.
David will find nothing on you, while we have him on three counts of adultery. ”
I wince. Not at the adultery. I’ve had months to grieve and get really damn pissed about finding him in bed with three women. Don’t know what they got out of that night but a quick serving of a cold Vienna sausage.
But I got sad, then mad, then I got my best friend, an attorney.
I wince because Harlow Sutton is a loaded, legal canon. She’ll bomb any wrong man’s world into smithereens. Then, she’ll pucker her elegant rouge lips and spit on his dust.
She makes badass look beautiful.
“I love you.” I sigh. “Thank you so much. We’re almost there.”
“And when you win, which you will,” she assures, “you and I are taking a girl’s trip. I’m thinking Vegas and man-meat revue shows.”
“Speaking of man-meat.”
I need to tell someone, and Harlow is the only friend I have left.
I let my world get so small. David’s friends became mine. His loves my likes. His preferences my priority. His emotions my responsibility.
In retrospect, I admit that I fell into the role of the “perfect wife” until I perfectly lost myself.
Now I know better. Marriage is meant to enhance your life. Not expect you to give yours up to make someone else’s better.
But the good news is you can always get your life back, bit by bit.
Or in my case…
“Man-meat?” Harlow sounds as excited as I feel. “Do tell!”
“I made a new friend today. Well, sort of new. We’ve been working together for months, and—”
She gasps. “Oh, dear hot man-meat made in heaven. Please tell me we’re talking about the colossal clit thriller who guards the door at Delta’s. He’s your fuckable friend now?”
I twist my lips, afraid to confirm what my clit knows. “Which guard? There are two.”
“Don’t play cunty and coy with me.” She fusses. “You know the one: the huge, hot hunk who doesn’t have a ring on his finger but has a huge crush on you—that one.”
“Jace isn’t crushing on me.”
“A-ha! I rest my case, your honor. My client’s spontaneous utterance reveals her horny guilt.”
“I’m not horny. I’m…”
Lying through my teeth.
So full of shit, my eyes are brown.
Just ask the last thought I have every time I play with a vibrator. The sudden image of Jace Ryan on top of me thrusts into my mind, and I fall over an orgasmic edge.
“I’m not ready,” I confess nervously. “I just think Jace is super sweet and a good friend; he restores my faith in men. And he just wants me to teach him about photography, and that makes me happy.”
“I know.” Harlow drops her sassy tone to a serious one.
“I know David’s put you through hell, while all you did was be his devoted wife.
And if I didn’t have more scumbags like him to defend my clients from, I’d do the crime and the time for you, girl, you know it.
So hang in there and enjoy your new friendship with the hot hunk at the door.
” She practically sings, “You know, once your divorce is final in a few weeks, you two can—”
“Oh god, don’t make me think about it.” I plop down on my sofa. “Being with Jace would be way too gushy to be true.”
Harlow laughs. “Gushy?”
“How else can I describe the ocean between my thighs when he’s around?”
“Well, good for you! Sounds like there’s a wet new life awaiting after this horrible dry marriage is over.”
I sigh to the ceiling fan, lazily spinning above. “God, I sure hope so.”
But my hope is dashed the next day when David shows up, sneering in my studio doorway after my happy client leaves.
He has one hour left in his discovery process as he rips our divorce decree in half, right in front of my face. “Here’s your divorce, sugar pie.”
“You’re a dumbass,” I seethe, swatting his hands away. “You’re the one who cheated, so I’ll get my divorce. We’ll just print another decree, and if you don’t sign it, you can go to jail.”
“Oh,” he jeers, “even when a judge makes me sign it, you’re still mine.
You can’t be with anyone else.” He smells like a skunk with stoned eyes, all glassy and beady.
“Because you can divorce me, Vivian Tate, but you and your daddy’s millions can never leave me.
If you do, the whole world will see how his innocent daughter did this… ”
He holds up his phone, his screen playing a video.
In two shocking seconds, I realize it’s me. In four scandalous seconds, I recognize what I was doing. In six horrific seconds, I figure out it was David’s plan all along.
His shameful scheme to trap me and my father’s money.
The jail bars slam shut on my life.
And I’m trapped in his prison forever.