Chapter 3

What Julian didn't understand was that my sudden willingness to let things go wasn't weakness. And it certainly wasn't maturity.

I'd simply stopped loving him.

This time, I wasn't going to wait around for Julian to leave me. I was leaving first.

Not long after, Julian took Chloe and Daisy to the restaurant and left me alone at the house.

I went upstairs to take care of my injuries.

The moment I slipped off my heels, I winced. My ankle was badly swollen, and the backs of my feet were covered in blisters from the shoes. Several had already broken open.

I sat on the edge of the bed and started cleaning the scrapes. The antiseptic stung the second it touched my skin, and I sucked in a sharp breath.

God, that hurt.

I'd never even liked high heels. Julian did.

He especially liked seeing me in them, so somewhere along the way, I'd convinced myself that was reason enough to wear them. For years, I forced my feet into shoes I hated simply because my husband thought I looked good in them.

It didn't matter how much they pinched or how often I came home with blisters. Back then, I'd considered the discomfort a small price to pay for making him happy.

Looking back, I couldn't believe how much of myself I'd given up for him.

Once I'd finished tending to my injuries, I slipped my feet into a pair of soft, comfortable slippers. Then I picked up the heels and dropped them straight into the trash.

Slippers were much more my style.

For ten years, I'd shaped my life around Julian's preferences. I was done.

From now on, I wanted to find out what life looked like when I chose myself.

With that decision made, I picked up my phone and opened a message from a company that had been trying to recruit me for years.

I typed a single sentence. "I'm ready to accept your offer."

The reply came almost immediately. "Ms. Aldridge, you have no idea how long I've been waiting to hear that. Name your start date. We'll be ready for you."

The company was one of the biggest names in Ravenport, and its CEO had been trying to bring me on board for years.

He'd always respected my work and believed in my talent as a designer, offering me a salary and benefits generous enough that most people wouldn't have thought twice.

I'd turned him down every single time because Julian needed me.

In the early years, I'd been the one keeping much of his company afloat. I brought in clients, handled major accounts, and designed the collections that built its reputation.

I could have gone somewhere bigger. I could have built a career that belonged entirely to me. Instead, I'd chosen Julian.

I'd put my own future on hold and poured everything I had into making his company successful, never once resenting the sacrifice.

And once he'd gotten everything he needed from me, he pushed me aside as if I'd had nothing to do with getting him there.

Only then did I finally understand something I should have learned years ago.

Loving someone with everything you had didn't mean they would love you the same way in return.

After our daughter died, I'd forgiven Julian because he'd once saved my life. No matter how angry I was, some part of me had always believed I owed him for that.

But not anymore.

Whatever debt I'd once had to Julian had been paid a hundred times over. We were even.

I looked down at my phone and replied to the message. "I can start tomorrow."

Then I booked a seat on the earliest flight out the next morning and began packing.

It didn't take long. In fact, as I went through the bedroom, gathering everything that was actually mine, I realized something almost absurd.

After ten years of marriage, I didn't even own enough in this house to fill a single suitcase.

The closet was packed with Julian's tailored suits, dress shirts, and rows of expensive ties. My side held only a handful of dresses, most of them so old that the fabric had faded from years of washing.

There was only one thing I owned that was worth much at all. A gold bracelet Julian had given me years ago.

The design was dated now, something no one would look twice at in a jewelry store. But I'd always treasured it. He'd bought it for me with the money from his first real business deal.

I could still remember Julian in his 20s, smiling as he fastened the bracelet around my wrist, his eyes warm and impossibly gentle.

"I'll love you for the rest of my life," he'd promised.

Then he'd laughed and told me that once he made it big, he'd buy me so much jewelry I'd need an entire room just to keep it all.

I'd believed every word.

Years later, Julian had more money than the two of us could ever have imagined back then, but he never bought me another piece of jewelry worth keeping.

On our seventh anniversary, I'd finally worked up the nerve to ask Julian for a new jewelry set.

He'd gotten angry. He accused me of wasting money, called me irresponsible, and told me I had no idea how hard he'd worked for everything we had.

After that, he decided I needed to learn how to "control my spending".

He put me on a strict allowance. Anything over 200 dollars had to be submitted to the company's finance department for approval.

At some point, the man I'd fallen in love with had become a stranger. I just couldn't remember exactly when it had happened.

Or maybe I could. Maybe it had started when Chloe came into our lives.

After she appeared, Julian's attention had slowly shifted away from me until, one day, I realized there was almost nothing left.

With me, he scrutinized every purchase down to the last cent.

With Chloe, money was apparently no object.