No Longer Your Pawn. The CEO's Ex-Wife Shines Alone

On the day of her engagement party, Nora is abandoned by Julian, who leaves her before hundreds of guests to comfort his childhood friend Vivian. Instead of crumbling, Nora marries his older brother, Dominic Sterling, heir to the Sterling empire. At a charity gala, Dominic fastens a necklace of his own design around her neck as cameras flash, and Julian's face turns deathly pale. To the city, Nora is the luckiest woman alive, an orphan lifted to Mrs. Sterling.

Then she overhears Dominic and Vivian through the door of his private suite. The happy marriage is an act, staged to unhinge Julian and cost him the CEO position. Once Dominic holds the title, Nora will be of no use. A year of tenderness was calculation, and she was the pawn.

That night she deletes her drafted rejection and accepts a jewelry design offer in New York, then tells Dominic she wants a divorce. He only laughs, certain she has nowhere to go.