Chapter 1

After we finished signing the divorce agreement, Anya Ellington walked me to the door for the first time.

"Do you want a ride home?" Her tone was polite and formal.

I shook my head at once.

She paused, faint surprise crossing her face. She clearly wasn't used to how cold I had become.

Her gaze lingered on my shoulder for a moment. Then she opened the notepad on the table, wrote down a string of numbers, and handed it to me.

My private number," she said.

A faint, self-assured smile touched her lips. The meaning was clear enough. She was certain I would eventually come back to her.

I froze for only a moment before I took the note and nodded my thanks.

The moment I got into the car, I flicked my lighter and set the note on fire. I watched it burn to ash, inch by inch.

It was the number I could never get before, no matter how much I begged or made a scene. Now, because of the divorce, I finally had it.

How ironic.

I had just started the engine when my phone rang.

Lisa Stacy, the tournament assistant, sounded frantic on the other end. "Mark, the captain has a warm-up match in a few days, and that recipe..."

"Come to my apartment. I'll give it to you."

…

A few hours later, Lisa stared at the stack of recipes, easily half as tall as she was, and let out an awkward laugh.

"Mark, I figured you'd be mad for a while and then get over it," she said. "But you actually... got a divorce?"

Ever since I filed for divorce, Anya, her mother, and her chess teammates had all assumed the same thing. They thought I was playing hard to get, that the divorce was some scheme to force the youngest six-time chess champion to bow her head to me.

The truth was much simpler. Whatever fascination I'd once had with Anya was gone.

"She's allergic to seafood and cilantro. She gets rhinitis easily in winter. She'll only wear pure cotton underwear. Her bathwater has to be exactly 100°F, with rose petals in it." I rattled it all off in one breath.

By then, the smile had vanished from Lisa's face. Something close to pity took its place.

She stammered, "Mark, you're really getting divorced..."

I didn't answer. I simply reached under my pillow and pulled out the wedding vows Anya had written for me seven years ago.

Right in front of Lisa, I tore them to pieces with one sharp rip.

I watched the scraps of paper flutter to the floor. Then I spoke in a low, quiet voice. "My father passed away. And it's over between her and me too."

The tears I had held back for so long spilled down my cheeks the instant I said the words.

Lisa froze for a moment. Her eyes reddened as she apologized and handed me a tissue.

When she spoke again, emotion thickened her voice. "Mark, you two were childhood sweethearts... How did it come to this?"

She was right.

Back then, the youngest and most talented chess champion had married her childhood sweetheart in the wedding of the century. She had also placed her dying mentor in an outrageously expensive recovery pod.

The following year, she was blessed with twins.

Anya worried that I would resent marrying into the Ellington family, so she showered me with gifts. Even the tissues I used every day bore flower patterns she had designed herself.

Whenever she got drunk, she would murmur my name all night long. "Mark... Mark..."

Later, she even carved my name into her palm.

All of it earned her plenty of publicity and fame.

But in just seven short years, I, her childhood sweetheart, had become nothing more than an afterthought.

Meanwhile, behind closed doors, the unnamed, unofficial Harlan Swinton had become the person she cherished most.

So much for childhood sweethearts. Once her heart changed, even the son of the mentor who had saved her life could be discarded like a worn-out shoe.