Chapter 1: Barren

"You're barren, Amy. Just say it out loud. Everyone already knows."

Callan didn't even button his shirt when he said it. He stood in the middle of his office with his tie on the floor and red lipstick on his collar.

I was still holding the cake box. It was his birthday. I had waited at home until my dinner went cold, then I drove to his office to bring him a slice of his favorite lemon cake.

Ten minutes earlier, I had opened that door with a smile.

"Three years," Brielle said. She sat on his desk, tugging her skirt down. She wasn't even embarrassed. She looked at her nails, like I was a bill she'd pay later. "Three years of marriage and nothing. Poor Callan. What is a man supposed to do?"

"Sleep with his secretary, apparently," I said. My voice shook. I hated that it shook.

Callan laughed. It was the laugh he used on waiters who got his order wrong. "Don't make this about me. My mother says it every Sunday. A wife who can't give her husband a child is not much of a wife."

I could see every one of those Sunday dinners. His mother passing me the salt with a sigh. Some women just aren't built for it, dear. Callan staring at his plate and saying nothing. Every single time.

"I took every test the doctors asked for," I said. "Every one. You wouldn't take a single one."

For half a second, something flickered across his face. Then it was gone.

"I don't need a test. A man knows."

"I gave you everything," I said. "I built your first budget at our kitchen table. I worked nights when you had no clients. I loved you."

"And now you're loud," he said. "Go home. Cry a little. Tomorrow you'll say sorry and make me breakfast."

Brielle giggled. "She will, too. Where else would she go?"

The worst part was, she was right. My parents were gone. My friends were really his friends. Even the apartment was in his name.

Something inside me went quiet. I wasn't broken. It was more like a room after the music stops.

I put the cake box on the corner of his desk, very carefully, like it mattered. Then I took off my wedding ring and set it on top.

"Happy birthday, Callan. I'm filing for divorce. I hope she can give you what I couldn't."

His smile slipped. Just a little.

"You're bluffing."

"Watch me."

I walked out. Behind me, Brielle said, "Barren and dramatic." They both laughed.

I made it to the elevator before my knees gave out. I held the wall until the doors opened. In the mirror inside, a woman stared back at me with mascara down her face. Twenty-five years old, and she looked like she'd already lost a whole life.

I drove home with both hands on the wheel, like the car might run away from me.

The apartment was dark and too quiet. His shoes were by the door. His coat hung on the hook. I sat at the kitchen table, the same one where I'd built his first budget, and I didn't turn on the light.

My phone buzzed. Callan. Don't wait up. Also, you forgot the candles.

I read it twice. A man who had just told me I was worthless wanted to complain about candles. I put the phone face down.

After a while, I went to the bedroom and opened the bottom drawer. Under my winter sweaters was a pair of tiny yellow socks. I'd bought them in the second year, on a day I felt hopeful. I told myself they were just in case. I had never told anyone about them, not even Callan.

They fit in half my palm. Three years of hoping, and that was all I had to show for it. I put them back and shut the drawer.

I used to think love meant staying. Staying when it was hard. Staying when he forgot my birthday. I stayed three years. I was very good at it.

I opened my laptop and filled out the divorce form. Name. Address. Date of marriage. Reason. I typed irreconcilable differences, then deleted it and typed what was true. Adultery. I pressed submit.

A green box popped up. Your application has been received. Three years of my life, and it took four minutes.

I waited to feel something big. Relief. Rage. Anything. I felt nothing, and the nothing was loud.

I couldn't stay in that house. I couldn't stay in my own skin. So I put on the only red dress I owned, grabbed my purse, and told the taxi driver, "Take me somewhere I won't see anyone I know."

He took me to the Velvet Room.

The club was loud and dark and full of people who looked happy. I took a stool at the bar and stared at the pale line on my ring finger where my ring used to be.

"Rough night?" the bartender asked.

"The worst of my life."

"Then this one's on the house." He slid a glass toward me.

I took a sip and coughed. Strong. Good. Two women next to me were whispering over their glasses.

"The one at the end," one of them said. "Black shirt. They say he's the best man they have. And the most expensive."

"Is he worth it?"

"Look at him and tell me."

I looked. He sat alone at the end of the bar with his sleeves pushed to his elbows, one hand wrapped around a glass he wasn't drinking. Dark hair. Sharp jaw. Eyes that looked tired of the whole room. His phone kept lighting up on the bar, and he kept turning it face down.

I'm not a reckless person. I pay bills early. I return shopping carts. But the woman who did those things had just been laughed out of a room, and I didn't want to be her tonight.

I heard Callan's voice in my head. Where else would she go?

I picked up my drink and walked over before I could get scared.

"How much for tonight?" I asked.

He looked at me for a long moment. Long enough for my face to burn.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. I'll pay. I don't want your name and I don't want a story. I just want one night where nobody calls me a failure."

"Did someone put you up to this?" His eyes had gone sharp and careful, like I might be a trap.

"Who would put me up to this?" I almost laughed. "I don't have anyone."

He studied me for a long second. Whatever he saw, it made his shoulders drop.

"You don't know anything about me," he said.

"That's the point."

His phone lit up again. I saw a name, Julian, and a number that said fourteen missed calls. He held the button down until the screen went black.

Across the room, a man in a gray suit was searching faces near the door. G angled his body away from him, slowly, like it was something he'd done a hundred times. I figured he owed somebody money. It was none of my business.

"Call me G," he said.

"Fine. G."

"One rule." He leaned closer. His voice was low and steady. "If you change your mind, at any point, you tell me. Okay?"

Odd thing for a hired man to say. But then, I had no idea what hired men said.

"Okay," I whispered.

"Why me?" he asked.

"Because you look like the one person in here who doesn't want to be here either."

"Most people say I look scary."

"You look lonely," I said. "That's different."

"Lonely." He said it like he was testing the word. For the first time, he almost smiled. "That's fair."

"No names," I said. "No story."

"Just tonight," he agreed.

I should have found it strange how easily he said yes. Most men I knew needed to be the main character.

He stood, and for a second he just looked at me, like he was making a decision. Then he nodded toward the back of the club.

"I have a room upstairs."

My heart was pounding. Nobody in this room knew me. Nobody here knew what I'd lost. That was the point.

He held out his hand, and I took it.