Chapter 3

The night I left the Ashford family chat, I submitted my resignation to Callum's company.

I had been one of its first employees. I went to client meetings with him, helped build proposals, and slept beside him on the office floor for months when the company was fighting to survive.

The first time Ashford Group posted a profit, Callum told the entire staff, "Lucia is not only my wife. She is the partner who walked beside me through the worst of it."

What he did not know was that my name had once been Lucia Marcelli, and I was the only heir to the Marcelli family.

Seven years earlier, my family refused to accept my relationship with an unknown man who possessed nothing but ambition. I surrendered my name and inheritance and walked away from them.

Now I had agreed to return.

Callum's response to my resignation contained one sentence.

[Approved. You can come back whenever you've calmed down.]

The seventh day of Sienna's experience coincided with Ashford Group's anniversary gala and my final day of transition.

I went to the office to return my access card and transfer my projects.

The anniversary film was playing in the lobby. Every photograph of me from the company's earliest years had been removed, along with my name.

The footage of me packing orders in the warehouse had disappeared. So had the photographs of me negotiating with clients until a bleeding ulcer sent me to the hospital, or revising proposals through the night.

The closing image had been replaced by a portrait of Callum and Sienna standing side by side.

[With gratitude to Sienna Clarke for standing with us every step of the way.]

Callum knew I had originally been invited to stand beside him at the gala. Instead, he allowed Sienna to wear the custom gown made for me.

With the Ashford crest ring on her hand, she cut the cake with him and joined him as he greeted investors. Whenever someone mistook her for Callum's wife, she smiled and raised her glass.

Callum never corrected them.

"We've already reached the seventh day," he said. "There is no point stopping now."

I never entered the ballroom. I completed my final handover in his office.

When it was finished, I placed the documents requiring Callum's signature on his desk. Beneath the employment separation papers lay the divorce settlement my attorney had prepared.

"Read them before you sign."

Callum was listening while Sienna reviewed the gala schedule. He flipped through only a few pages before signing where I had marked.

"Anywhere else?"

I pointed to the second signature line.

Once he had signed, he pushed the papers back to me and closed his warm hand around mine.

"Stay tonight. We haven't cut the cake yet."

His palm felt exactly as it always had. His voice was gentle and familiar, as though everything between us could return to normal the moment he decided to end the game.

"I have somewhere else to be."

I withdrew my hand, walked past them, and stepped into the elevator.

As the doors began to close, I saw Callum still standing where I had left him. For the first time, some of the ease had vanished from his face.

Not long afterward, he summoned the company's attorney in front of the gala guests.

"Prepare another divorce agreement."

His friends stared at him.

Callum looked toward the closed elevator doors. "If Lucia wants to bring divorce into this game, then tonight she can make her choice in person. I want to hear her tell me whether she truly intends to end our marriage."

He had no idea that he had already signed the real one with his own hand.