Chapter 1Reborn At Thirty-Five

My fifth miscarriage happened in my thirty-fifth year.

Our marriage, worn thin by mutual exhaustion, finally reached its end. We signed the divorce papers quietly, without a fight.

It wasn't long before my ex-husband, William, was with a college girl in her early twenties. She got pregnant almost immediately.

When I moved out of the mansion that was once a symbol of our happiness, only his assistant was there to help. He was a handsome young man, sharp and fit in tailored trousers, hauling heavy boxes back and forth, his brow glistening with a light sweat.

I felt the weight of the bank card in my purse, the one with the nine-figure settlement, and a wild, reckless thought sparked in my mind.

"Lucas," I called out to him. "Have you ever considered working for me instead?"

"I'll pay you fifty thousand a month."

The moment the words left my mouth, I regretted them. He was an educated, respectable young man. Why would he ever agree to something like this?

But to my utter shock, Lucas took a step closer, his expression perfectly serious. "Yes, Audrey," he said without hesitation. "I'd love to."

* * *

A sheen of sweat still clung to Lucas's face, making his fair skin seem almost luminous. A strange pang of guilt hit me. "I'm sorry, Lucas. That was out of line. Please, just forget I said anything."

He was only twenty-six. What in the world was I doing? The divorce from William must have scrambled my brain more than I thought.

I let out a quiet sigh, missing the flicker of disappointment in Lucas's eyes.

After the last box was loaded into the moving truck, I took one final look at the house behind me. I had poured my soul into this place after William and I married. From the interior design to the landscaping, every inch was a testament to my love for him. I truly believed we would spend the rest of our lives here.

I never imagined it would all be over in just fifteen years.

Unlike other wealthy men, it was I who had asked for the divorce.

In fifteen years of marriage, he had been good to me, for the most part. Every three years, like clockwork, I would get pregnant. And every time, around the fourth or fifth month, I would lose the baby.

This last time, we were pathologically careful. He even washed my underwear for me. But despite all the painstaking effort, all it took was a single sneeze, and the baby was gone.

In that moment, something inside me died. My heart was a landscape of ash, incapable of producing even the faintest spark.

I told William we should just get a divorce. He was still under forty; he could find another woman, have all the children he wanted.

That night, his eyes were red-rimmed and sleepless.

The next day, he handed me a prepared divorce agreement.

He gave me a third of his five-billion-dollar fortune. On top of that, two estates upstate and a five-story commercial building downtown were transferred to my name.

To be fair, he didn't cheat me.

We went through the proceedings peacefully. After signing the final document, he pulled me into a hug.

"Audrey," he whispered, "if there's a next life, let's be together again."

His words felt like a thousand tiny needles piercing my heart. I almost broke, almost begged him to take it all back, to forget the divorce, to adopt a child instead.

But the very next day, I brought a thermos of homemade chicken soup to his office, only to see him walking into the building with his arm wrapped protectively around a young woman in her early twenties. She had a small, rounded belly, already further along than I had ever been.

I couldn't name the feeling that washed over me. It was a bitter cocktail of dark humor and sharp pain.

I sat on a bench across the street for the entire morning, lost in a daze, until Lucas found me and gently called my name. I fled, humiliated.

After I moved out, I couldn't resist hiring a private investigator.

I learned the girl's name was Jessica, a new intern at William's company. Her fluent French had landed her a few translation gigs for him. A few business trips together, and one thing had led to another.

But Jessica had standards. Even pregnant, she made it clear she would never be his mistress. William, utterly besotted, set her up in a luxury downtown apartment. The moment our divorce was finalized, he moved her into our old home.

He hired a butler, a chauffeur, two nannies, and two maids, all to ensure she had the most comfortable pregnancy possible.

I sat in my new, empty apartment, staring at the investigator's report and drinking bottle after bottle of wine. I drank until my stomach seized in protest, until I was finally forced to admit the truth.

I had lost. I had lost a game I never even knew I was playing, in a relationship that was rotten to the core.

And I had been completely, utterly blind to it all.