Chapter 1

1.

I sat on the fifty-thousand-dollar Italian leather sofa in my Upper East Side penthouse, my fingertips ice-cold. The bespoke gift box from a high-end stationer in my hands, meant to hold my ten-year dream, now felt as heavy as a tombstone.

It held our wedding invitations.

I'd spent three months picking the perfect paper texture for this. I remember Spencer glancing at the samples, barely interested. "Just get the most expensive one, Chloe. We need everyone to know the Whitman wedding is flawless."

I took a deep breath, the air thick with the sterile, climate-controlled fragrance of the apartment. With trembling fingers, I lifted the delicate tissue paper.

The first card slipped onto my lap.

The quality was exquisite―heavy cotton paper, hand-painted gold edges, each letter a deep, tactile impression from the letterpress. But when my eyes focused on the words, my heart seized as if squeezed by a vicious hand.

Ms. Ivy Miller & Mr. Spencer Whitman

For a second, I thought I was hallucinating. Or maybe I'd suddenly developed dyslexia.

I blinked. I opened my eyes again.

The two names were still there, the gold foil glinting mockingly under the cold light of the crystal chandelier. Not Chloe. Ivy.

The administrative assistant who had been hired only three months ago. The girl who always wore oversized sweaters and claimed she "couldn't even figure out the copy machine."

A wave of nausea churned in my stomach. Blood rushed to my head, a dull roar filling my ears.

I snatched my phone from the marble coffee table, my fingers shaking so badly with rage that it took me three tries to unlock it. I didn't bother with a call. I went straight to FaceTime. I needed to see her face.

After three rings, her face appeared.

Ivy seemed to be in the office breakroom. Behind her was the expensive espresso machine and the fiddle-leaf fig I had picked out myself. She was holding my mug―the one reserved only for partners.

"Hey, Chloe!" Her voice was light and sweet. "What's up? Are you calling about the floral arrangements for the rehearsal dinner?"

I aimed my camera at the invitation in my lap.

Silence stretched for two long seconds on the other end.

Then, her expression crumbled. Her voice trembled, and her eyes instantly welled up. "Oh my god... what... how is this possible?"

She set the mug down, covering her mouth with her hands. "Chloe, I swear, this has to be a mistake. I was handling the vendor lists and the guest mailing lists at the same time―two different Excel sheets―I must have mixed up the columns when I was copying and pasting... I was working on it all night, I was so exhausted." Her words tumbled out in a rush. "Please, don't tell Spencer yet. I can fix this. I really need this job, I have student loans..."

What a perfect excuse. It provided a technical reason and painted her as a dedicated employee working late into the night.

"What document," I asked, my voice so calm it scared me, "would require you to type your own name into the bride's column?"

Ivy's eyes darted away for a fraction of a second. "I... I was testing the mail merge feature! I used my name as a placeholder... I know it sounds stupid, but I swear..."

Before I could say another word, she ended the call.

A minute later, Spencer's private ringtone blared through the empty apartment.

I stared at his name on the screen before answering.

"Chloe, you need to stop."

No greeting. No explanation. Spencer's voice had that commanding, non-negotiable tone he used when barking orders on Wall Street.

"Me?" I let out a humorless laugh, my fingers digging into the leather of the sofa. "Spencer, did you see the invitation? Is this your idea of a surprise?"

"Ivy already explained it to me," Spencer said, his tone dripping with impatience, as if he were dealing with a trivial nuisance. "She made a clerical error. I've already told my guy at the printer to redo them. Do you really think it's necessary to terrorize a recent grad like that? You made her cry."

"Terrorize?" I stood up and walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows. The glittering Manhattan skyline stretched out before me, but all I felt was a bone-deep chill. "This is fifteen hundred gold-foiled invitations, Spencer. Each one costs a fortune. And it's our wedding. That name on there is a humiliation."

"You're being dramatic. You always blow every little thing out of proportion." He sighed, and the disappointment in his voice was like a dull knife twisting in my gut. "Chloe, you sound like one of those... paranoid, insecure women. What happened to the professional composure you had at the law firm? Honestly, you're suffocating me."

Suffocating.

For ten years, I gave up a partnership track, I gave up my social life, I managed every single goddamn detail of his life, and now he was telling me I was suffocating him.

"If you feel suffocated, maybe we should reconsider this..."

"Don't start with that now," Spencer cut me off, his tone softening slightly―his classic manipulation tactic. "You know I've been under a lot of pressure with the fund's performance lately. I want to have a nice dinner with you tonight, just the two of us. We'll fix this."

He hung up.

I stood before the massive window, staring at the reflection of the woman in the glass―dressed in a cream-colored cashmere lounge set, her long hair falling perfectly behind her, her makeup flawless but her eyes empty. This was Spencer Whitman's fiancée. A perfect, soulless accessory.

Five minutes later, my phone buzzed.

An Instagram notification from a "close friend." It was Ivy.

She had posted a story. No text, just a photo.

The focus was the misprinted invitation, but in the blurred background, a man's hand rested on her shoulder. The hand was long and strong, and on the wrist was a Patek Philippe Nautilus―the same one I gave Spencer for his 30th birthday last year, with our initials engraved on the back.

They were standing so close, their body language screaming an intimacy that I hadn't even shared with Spencer in years.

A small caption was added below the photo: "Boss said he's got my back even if the sky falls. #bestboss #grateful"

If this were the old me, the cutthroat lawyer, what would I have done? I would have screenshotted it, pulled security footage, drafted a flawless legal notice demanding Spencer fire her, maybe even ruin her career in New York.

But now, staring at that photo, I felt an overwhelming numbness.

It wasn't anger. It was the cold, dead ash of despair.

I suddenly realized I didn't care anymore. I didn't care if Ivy was playing games. I didn't care if Spencer was cheating.

I only cared that I couldn't spend one more second in this gilded cage.

I walked over, grabbed the box of invitations, and dumped the entire stack, including the card bearing Ivy's name, straight into the kitchen's recycling bin.