Aria
"I'm filing for divorce."
The words hit me like a physical blow, but I kept my face perfectly still. Three years of playing Damien Ashford's perfect wife had taught me that much—never let them see you break.
"What?" I managed, my voice steady even as my world crumbled.
My husband—cold, beautiful, untouchable Damien Ashford—pulled an envelope from his jacket and placed it on the marble table between us. The expensive paper landed with a soft thud that echoed through our penthouse like a gunshot.
"Our arrangement has run its course. I've met someone more... suitable." His ice-blue eyes met mine without flinching. "Sienna Blackwood. We've been reconnecting over the past few months."
Sienna Blackwood. The name that had haunted the edges of our marriage like a ghost. The woman he'd told me was "ancient history" on our wedding night. The woman whose photos I'd found buried in his desk drawer during our first year of marriage, before I'd learned not to look too closely at things I didn't want to see.
Something snapped inside me.
I stood up, my hands shaking—not with sadness, but with rage. "Let me get this straight. You're divorcing me for Sienna Blackwood? The woman you swore meant nothing? The woman you told me I had nothing to worry about?"
"Aria—"
"How long?" My voice was rising now, three years of swallowed emotions finally breaking free. "How long have you been fucking her while you've been fucking me?"
His jaw tightened. "I haven't touched you in six weeks."
"Oh, well, that makes it so much better!" I laughed, sharp and bitter. "What a gentleman. You waited a whole month and a half before replacing me."
"Don't make this harder than it needs to be." He pushed the envelope closer to me. "I'm offering you five million dollars and the Tesla Apartment downtown. It's more than generous for a three-year contract marriage."
Contract marriage. He said it so casually, like those words didn't feel like knives carving out my heart.
"I was going to ask you for a baby tonight." The words came out flat, emotionless.
For the first time, Damien's perfect composure cracked. His hand froze halfway to his tie. "What?"
"Our third anniversary passed two weeks ago. According to the contract, I could finally ask." I picked up the envelope, feeling the weight of it. "I was going to tell you I was ready to have your child. That I wanted to make this real."
"Aria, I didn't know—"
"But I guess Sienna's already pregnant, isn't she?" I watched his face carefully. "That's why the rush. That's why you can't even wait for me to find my own place before moving her in."
"Jesus Christ, no. There's no baby." He looked genuinely shaken, and I hated that I could still read him well enough to know it was real. "Sienna isn't pregnant."
"Not yet," I said coldly. "But there will be. With her. Because I was never supposed to be permanent enough for that, was I? I was the placeholder. The nobody orphan who'd be grateful for scraps from the billionaire's table."
"That's not—" He stopped himself, and something flickered behind those eyes. Regret, maybe. Or guilt. But it was gone in an instant, buried under that impenetrable control he wore like armor. "Sign the papers, Aria. Don't make this harder than it needs to be."
I looked at him—really looked at him—and saw his hands were shaking slightly as he held out a pen.
So it was hard for him. Just not hard enough to make him stop.
"You're not even going to pretend this is difficult for you?" I asked quietly.
His jaw clenched. A muscle ticked in his cheek. "It's business, Aria. It was always business."
"Right. Business." I opened the envelope and pulled out the papers. Five million dollars. The Tesla Apartment. A non-disclosure agreement that would prevent me from ever telling anyone the truth about our marriage. "How very generous of you to buy my silence along with my compliance."
"I'm protecting both of us."
"You're protecting yourself." I skimmed through the pages, and that's when I saw it. The divorce was dated yesterday. He'd signed it yesterday, the same day he'd taken me to dinner at Mercer's, our "anniversary celebration." The same day he'd held my hand across the table and told me I looked beautiful.
He'd known the entire time he was going to end this, and he'd played his part perfectly.
God, I'd been such a fool.
"You signed this yesterday," I said, my voice hollow. "Before our anniversary dinner."
He had the decency to look away. "I wanted to give you one last nice memory."
"How thoughtful." I set the papers down carefully, precisely, fighting the urge to throw them in his face. "Just one question before I sign. Did you ever actually care about me? Even a little?"
For a long moment, he didn't answer. When he finally looked at me, his expression was unreadable.
"I cared about you as much as I was capable of caring about anyone," he said quietly. "But it wasn't enough. It was never going to be enough."
That, somehow, hurt more than anything else he could have said.
"I need a pen," I said.
He pulled one from his pocket—a Mont Blanc, probably worth more than my first car—and handed it to me.
I signed my name across each page, my handwriting surprisingly steady. When I was done, I stood up and looked him in the eyes one last time.
"I hope she's worth it," I said. "I hope Sienna Blackwood gives you everything you think you deserve."
Then I walked past him, grabbed my purse from the console table, and headed for the elevator.
"Aria," he called after me.
I paused but didn't turn around.
"I am sorry. For what it's worth."
"It's not worth anything," I said. "But thank you for finally being honest about something."
The elevator doors closed between us, and only then did I let the first tear fall.
My phone buzzed before I even reached the lobby. A text from an unknown number.
Saw the news. You okay?
News? What news?
I pulled up social media with shaking hands.
#AshfordDivorce was trending.
Someone had leaked it. Photos of me from this afternoon, leaving Mercer's on Damien's arm, smiling like I didn't know my world was about to end. Headlines screaming: "Billionaire CEO Dumps Nobody Wife for Socialite Ex." "Aria Sterling: From Rags to Riches to Rags Again." "Three-Year Marriage Ends—Ashford Returns to True Love."
The comments were worse.
She was such a gold digger
He finally woke up and found someone on his level
Poor thing thought she could keep a man like that
5 million dollars? I'd take the money and run too
She must be devastated. Or laughing all the way to the bank
I stared at my phone as the elevator descended, watching my life get torn apart in real-time by strangers who didn't know me, didn't care about me, just wanted to consume my pain like entertainment.
The elevator doors opened to the lobby, and I saw them—photographers. At least six of them, cameras ready, waiting like vultures for the money shot of the discarded wife.
"Mrs. Ashford! How do you feel about the divorce?"
"Did you know about Sienna Blackwood?"
"Is it true you're getting five million dollars?"
"Are you heartbroken?"
I could have run. Could have called building security, hidden in the bathroom until they left.
Instead, I walked straight through them, head high, not bothering to wipe away the tears on my face.
Let them take their pictures. Let them write their stories.
They thought they were documenting my humiliation.
They had no idea they were capturing the last moments of the woman I used to be.
Because the Aria Sterling who'd played the perfect wife, who'd swallowed her pride and her dreams and her voice for three years—she died in that elevator.
And the woman walking out of this building was someone else entirely.
Someone who was done being nice.
Someone who was done playing by rules designed to keep her powerless.
Someone who was about to remind Damien Ashford and Sienna Blackwood and everyone else in Silvercrest City that you should never underestimate the quiet ones.
Because we're not quiet because we're weak.
We're quiet because we're watching. Learning. Waiting.
And when we finally speak, the whole world listens.
I got into a taxi and pulled up my contacts, scrolling to a name I hadn't seen in three years but had never quite deleted.
Lucas Pierce.
My old mentor. My old friend. The man I'd walked away from when Damien had offered me everything.
The man who'd sent me a text just last week that I'd deleted without reading: *Saw you at the tech conference. You looked good. Coffee sometime?*
I'd ignored it, like I'd ignored all the others over the years. Damien didn't like me having friends he didn't approve of.
But Damien didn't get a vote anymore.
I pressed call before I could talk myself out of it.
He answered on the second ring. "Aria Sterling. I'll be damned."
His voice sent a wave of something through me—nostalgia, regret, relief.
"Hi, Lucas."
"Three years of radio silence and now you call at eleven PM on a Wednesday. This should be interesting." But his tone was warm, teasing, familiar. "What's wrong?"
"I got divorced today."
Silence. Then: "You got married?"
"It's complicated."
"It always is with you." I heard him moving, keys jingling. "Where are you?"
"In a taxi. Heading to..." I realized I had no idea where I was going. The Tesla Apartment wouldn't be mine for another six weeks. I had no family, and every friend I'd had before Damien had slowly faded away during my marriage. "I don't actually know."
"Stay where you are. Send me your location. I'm coming to get you." His voice was firm, decisive. "Twenty minutes, Aria. Don't move."
"Lucas, you don't have to—"
"Twenty minutes." He hung up.
I sent him my location and told the taxi driver to pull over at the corner of Fifth and Main.
While I waited, something on my phone caught my attention. An email notification from an address I didn't recognize.
The subject line read: *You deserve to know the truth.*
My finger hovered over it.
I shouldn't open emails from strangers. It could be a virus, spam, someone trying to exploit my very public divorce.
But something made me click it anyway.
Inside was a single line of text:
Check the attachment. Your marriage was a lie from the very beginning. - A Friend
And below it, a PDF file.
I downloaded it with shaking hands.
It was a contract. Between Sienna Blackwood and Richard Ashford, Damien's grandfather.
Dated three years and two months ago.
Two months before Damien had proposed our arrangement.
PAYMENT : Two million dollars
SERVICES : "Removal of unsuitable romantic attachment and facilitation of appropriate marriage for Damien Ashford to a temporary, easily discarded spouse. Subject will be selected for lack of family connections, social standing, and potential complications. Timeline: Immediate separation followed by contract marriage to approved candidate. Return to relationship with Sienna Blackwood to commence no earlier than 36 months post-marriage to avoid suspicion of fraud."
I read it three times before the full horror sank in.
Damien's grandfather had paid Sienna to break them up.
And then he'd forced Damien into a contract marriage with me—the orphan nobody with no family, no connections, no power to fight back.
I was specifically selected to be disposable.
A black Range Rover pulled up beside the taxi. Lucas stepped out, tall and broad-shouldered, his dark hair catching the streetlight. Three years hadn't changed him much—still dressed in dark jeans and a fitted henley, still moving with that easy confidence.
I got out of the taxi, and the look on my face must have said everything because Lucas immediately pulled me into his arms.
"Whatever happened," he said quietly, "we're going to fix it."
I pulled back and looked up at him, showing him the email on my phone. "I don't think this can be fixed."
Lucas read the contract, his expression darkening with every line.
When he finished, his jaw was tight with anger. "Jesus Christ, Aria."
"My entire marriage was orchestrated. I was chosen to be thrown away." My voice was surprisingly steady. "And Damien had no idea."
"Or he did and he's pretending he didn't."
"No." I shook my head. "I know Damien. He would never agree to this. His grandfather must have manipulated him too."
"Does it matter?" Lucas asked. "He still threw you away."
"It matters because Sienna Blackwood manipulated all of us. And I'm going to make her pay for it." I looked at Lucas. "But I can't do it alone."
He studied me for a long moment. "What do you need?"
"I need to find out everything. Every lie Sienna told. Every person she manipulated. Every crime she committed." I met his eyes. "And then I need to destroy her."
A slow smile spread across Lucas's face. "There's the Aria I remember. The one who doesn't take shit from anyone."
"That Aria took a three-year vacation." I felt something cold and determined settling in my chest. "But she's back now. And she's pissed."
"Good." Lucas opened the car door. "Get in. We have work to do."