The Wife He Chose to Lock Out

Imogen Tillinghast Severin carries the oldest name on the coast, yet her husband has spent four years offering another woman the care he withdrew from his wife.

At 2:07 on a November morning, two men break into their beautiful house; the safe room seals ninety seconds after the alarm, and Cormac gets inside with his assistant while Imogen is left to hide in the pantry.

For four hours and seven minutes she holds a latch that does not lock, and five weeks after she goes back to him the security log shows he pressed the door at forty-one seconds, with forty-nine still on the clock.

She uses the deed he signed for her protection to put him out of the house, puts her own name back on her work, and accepts the directorship in Newport as she builds a life that requires no one's permission.

The infuriating man in the Bristol boat shed cannot argue her out of what she has learned, and for the first time since she was thirty-one she takes no one's counsel, especially not Cormac's.

Her husband wants another chance, and winning his wife back will demand more than an apology for the night he chose not to save her.