Chapter One
Mandy
A week before our third anniversary party, Damon and I went to war over flowers.
I wanted peonies—pink and white, soft-throated, blooming open like they didn't know how to hide anything.
Damon took one look at the mock-up board and frowned, the same frown he wore when a first-year associate botched a filing.
"Hydrangeas," he said, tapping the design with one finger.
"Denser. Fuller. They'll hold their shape all night instead of wilting under the lights."
We sat on opposite ends of the sofa, neither of us budging. Flowers, then the color palette, then the linens—each round of it drawing the air in the room tighter.
When he realized I wasn't going to fold, Damon exhaled through his nose, pulled out his phone, and dialed the florist.
He set it on speaker between us, drumming his fingers against the table with the same unhurried confidence he wore into a courtroom.
"Give us your honest opinion. Peonies or hydrangeas—which holds up better for tonight?"
The florist's voice came through, careful and a little too eager to please. "Mr. and Mrs. Walker, peonies are lovely, but delicate—short bloom window. Given transport and the venue hours, you'll likely see petal drop by late evening. Hydrangeas would hold their structure much more reliably for—"
Damon hung up before she finished the sentence.
He looked at me, one eyebrow arched, that cool little smirk already blooming at the corner of his mouth.
"See? I win."
Something small and sharp lodged itself under my ribs.
I win. Two words. One tiny skirmish in a war I hadn't realized we'd been fighting for three straight years.
The rug for the living room. Where we spent New Year's. Which tie he wore out the door in the morning. It didn't matter how small the disagreement was—Damon needed to be the one standing on top of it when the dust cleared.
Then, just as the disappointment started to settle cold in my stomach, he dropped the act. His arms slid around my waist from behind, his chin coming to rest on my shoulder, his voice dropping into that low, honeyed register he saved for exactly these moments.
"Don't be mad, sweetheart." His breath stirred the hair at my ear. "There'll be cameras everywhere tonight—the hydrangeas are for the room, for the photos. I know peonies are the ones you actually love."
He turned me by the shoulders until I was facing him, and there it was—that same tender, unguarded look that had undone me a hundred times before.
"I already called the florist back. Starting tomorrow, fresh peonies at our door every morning for a week. Dew still on the petals. Your study, our bedroom—wherever you want them."
He kissed my forehead, murmuring against my skin. "Let me have the party. The peonies are yours. Deal?"
I let myself melt against him, laughing despite myself.
But even as my mouth curved into a smile, some cold, unreachable corner of my chest didn't unclench.
I knew him too well by now. His first instinct was never how does this make her feel—it was how do I make sure I'm right.
Winning came before anything else, even before me.
He'd built a career on never losing, and somewhere along the way he'd stopped knowing how to lose gracefully to the people he loved, too.
When I tried to explain this to my parents, they laughed it off every time. "What couple doesn't argue? Damon's young, successful, competitive—of course he pushes. A little friction is just the seasoning in a marriage."
And some days, I almost believed them. I wasn't exactly the yielding type myself. In the courtroom I fought for every inch, never gave ground, never blinked first. Maybe I was just as guilty of turning our marriage into a tug-of-war neither of us knew how to put down.
If everyone else thought we looked perfect together, if every marriage came with its share of friction—then maybe this was just what marriage was.
I breathed in, and buried the ache one more time, deeper than the last.
At least he'd ordered the peonies. At least he still tried. Don't be greedy, Mandy, I told myself. Nobody gets a flawless husband. No marriage comes without cracks.
* * *
The night of the party, the ballroom glittered—hydrangeas in towering white arrangements, candlelight bouncing off crystal, everyone's best version of themselves on display.
Senior partners. Rising socialites. A handful of Damon's biggest clients, circling the room like they owned it. And in the middle of them, impossible to miss in a plunging red dress, stood Chloe.
She'd hired Damon for two of the ugliest divorces of the decade and walked away both times with more money than she knew what to do with. The way she looked at him wasn't subtle. It never had been. It was hunger dressed up as gratitude.
I was mid-conversation with a partner's wife when I caught sight of her—pressed close to Damon's side, swirling her champagne, one finger trailing slow down his lapel.
Her voice carried, pitched just loud enough.
"Mr. Walker, every time I watch you destroy someone in court, I get chills. When are you going to let me hire you for something more... private?"
Damon just stood there. Smiling. Letting her stay close enough to touch.
Something in me went sharp and cold and immediate.
Not tonight. Not at my own anniversary party.
I crossed the room on four-inch heels, unhurried, my face arranged into something pleasant and unbothered. I slid into the space beside Damon like I'd always belonged there—because I had.
"Chloe. It's been a while." My smile didn't waver.
Before she could answer, I lifted my left hand, slow, deliberate, and let the diamond Damon had put there three years ago catch the light—hard, blinding, unmistakable.
I brushed my ringed fingers along his jaw, wiping away a faint sheen at his temple like it was the most natural gesture in the world.
"You've worked so hard tonight, sweetheart." My voice went soft, syrup-sweet, laced with something unmistakably possessive underneath. The ring flashed once more between us, a silent, glittering declaration.
Damon tilted into my touch without a second's hesitation, one arm curling around my waist to pull me flush against him.
I turned back to Chloe, whose smile had gone thin and brittle at the edges. Mine stayed perfect. "I heard you're house-hunting again. If you need anything legal, Damon's always happy to see you—at the office. Tonight, though..." I let the pause stretch, just long enough. "He's mine."
Damon didn't wait for Chloe to recover. He pulled me tighter against him, pressed a kiss to the corner of my mouth, and turned to her with a smile so polite it could've cut glass.
"Sorry, Chloe. My wife's too stunning tonight—I can't focus on anything else. I'm afraid business is going to have to wait."
Chloe's smile cracked at the corners. She murmured a stiff happy anniversary and retreated into the crowd on unsteady heels.
The second she was gone, Damon dipped his head to my ear, his voice low and warm with amusement. "I love it when you stake your claim, Mandy. It's very sexy."
I stepped out of his arms and gave him a look sharp enough to draw blood. "Glad I could give you a free show at my own party."
He blinked, then arranged his face into wounded innocence, palms up in surrender.
"That's not fair. You know I can't exactly turn away an enthusiastic client—occupational hazard of being the best divorce attorney in the city."
His voice dropped, softer, more sincere than I wanted it to be.
"But my eyes have never left you tonight. Only you, Mandy. Always you."
It came out flawless. Warm. Not a single seam showing.
That was the problem. Damon had never once fumbled a line in his life.
He'd convinced twelve strangers in a jury box to believe him with nothing but his voice and a well-timed pause.
He turned that same instrument on every woman in every room he walked into, and I could never tell—not really, not down to the bone—where the performance ended and the man began.
And still, looking at the clean line of his jaw, the certainty in his eyes, I felt my anger dissolve anyway. I always did.
Before I could chase the thought any further, a knot of old college friends descended on us, loud with champagne and nostalgia, and the moment scattered.
Jack was among them, grinning, nodding toward the entrance. "Hey, man—my plus-one tonight's an old friend of yours. Practically begged me for an invite the second she heard whose party this was."
Damon's eyebrow lifted, that same easy, social smile still fixed in place. "Yeah? Who's the mystery guest?"
My stomach dropped before I even turned around. Some old, animal instinct in me already knew.
I followed the tilt of Jack's chin toward the entrance, where the light fell soft and golden across a woman gliding through the doors like she'd been born knowing how to make an entrance.
White pearl satin. Not a hair out of place.
Cold, composed, achingly beautiful in the exact way I had never learned how to be.
Caroline.
And across the room, I watched Damon's smile freeze—just for a heartbeat, just long enough for me to see it—before he remembered I was standing right beside him.