Chapter 3

3.

I'd lived here for a year and never received a single email from the HOA. Julian always said he'd handle trivial matters like that so I wouldn't have to worry.

"Yes, ma'am. We contact the owners listed on the property deed. This apartment is jointly owned by Mr. Julian Sterling and Ms. Chloe Vance. Are you their tenant, or...?"

The way they were looking at me suddenly shifted.

I felt like the top of my head had been ripped open and filled with cold cement.

I thought I was living in my fiancé's home. I was building our future here!

But the truth was, for the past year, I had been living in a house co-owned by Julian and Chloe?

It was fucking insane.

"I'm sorry, now is not a good time. Please leave!"

I slammed the door shut and slid down against it, my legs giving out.

From the age of 18, I followed Julian from Boston to Silicon Valley and then to London. I'd spent a decade of my life in his shadow.

And today I learned that on the very day I was ecstatically telling the world I was getting married, he and Chloe weren't just getting a marriage license. They were buying our "marital home" together, putting both their names on the deed.

They were the legitimate, legally-bound couple. A partnership.

So what the hell was I, the woman he'd dated for eleven years? A free maid? The unknowing other woman?

I tore through the office, finally finding what I was looking for in a drawer Julian never bothered to lock: a copy of the deed and a draft of a prenuptial agreement. It stated that Chloe was entitled to 50% of Julian's post-marital assets.

My phone started buzzing, again and again, a frantic, insistent rhythm.

After what felt like an eternity, my numb fingers finally answered the call.

"Why are you just now picking up? I told you to come to the bar in Seaport. Where are you?"

Another voice, sickly sweet and triumphant, chirped on the line. "Summer, I've landed! I missed you so much, you have to come! You have to!"

The two names on the deed merged with the cloying voice in my ear.

A double assault on my senses.

It felt like a needle had been stabbed into my eye, blurring my vision.

After I hung up, Julian bombarded me with a dozen more texts.

Mechanically, I put everything back in its place, changed into a sleek black dress, and applied my makeup with precision.

If they wanted to see me that badly, then I would go.