Five Hundred Million Reasons to Leave You

I agree to the divorce. I gave a single, rigid nod.

Across the table, Victor froze. His hand, which had been gently rubbing his mistress's shoulder, stalled out. He looked up, his eyes dripping with sickening, top-down pity.

I know I wronged you. If you ever need anything moving forward, I'll make sure it's taken care of.

He seemed to have wiped his memory clean of the time he knelt on the concrete in a torrential downpour for twenty-four straight hours, all to force his mother to let him marry me. He also forgot how I dropped everything I had, packing a single suitcase to move down the coast just to be with him. Now, there was no moving forward for us.

I yanked the flawless ten-carat diamond ring off my finger and slammed it onto the divorce papers right in front of him.

I watched with dead eyes as the heavy stone rolled off the edge, then snatched up my buzzing phone.

Two new messages illuminated the screen:

[When are you flying back to New York? I'm picking you up.]

[Maeve, what I promised you when I was seventeen is a lifetime guarantee.]

Chapter 1

Outside the floor-to-ceiling glass, fireworks exploded and faded into the night. Every July 24th at exactly 7:00 PM, for seven straight years, Victor's anniversary fireworks never missed a beat. They burned for exactly fifteen minutes. A minute for every year since we met at fifteen.

Looking down from the penthouse, the massive crowds who anticipated the annual show were already packed along the bay, buzzing with excitement. People kissed and cheered under the colorful lights. It was all put on for me, yet it had nothing to do with me anymore.

Inside, the lights were dim. Across the long marble table, the man in the bespoke suit kept his head down. The glow from his phone carved sharp shadows across his jawline.

I stared at him. My voice came out dead flat.

"I agree to the divorce. The joint petition is signed. I'll see you in court tomorrow morning."

He finally pulled his eyes off his screen. "Not today. Let's not talk about this today."

I slid the wedding band off my finger and dropped it onto the table. "There's no better day. Let it end exactly where it started, Victor."

He fell silent. He pushed his chair back and stood up. "Fine. I'll pick you up in the morning."

The penthouse was massive, but he didn't even make it out the front door before his phone rang. He answered immediately, his voice dropping into that low, coaxing register he reserved for someone else. "Yeah, she agreed. Be good, wait for me at home"

The front door clicked shut. Quiet and controlled, just like him.

I stayed anchored to my chair, keeping my eyes locked on the window until the very last streak of fire died out in the sky. Then, I stood up.

[Miss Bunny, today is the seventh anniversary for you and Victor! You two must be celebrating! What did he get you this year? Let me guess]

I tapped the screen, killing the automated calendar reminder. The cheerful voice cut off instantly. I opened my phone.

Without a single second of hesitation, I texted my broker and listed every single property under my name for sale.

When I first moved out to Los Angeles, Victor was terrified I'd feel insecure. He did everything humanly possible to buy my sense of safety.

Genevieve despised me back then. She didn't even bother showing up to our wedding. But Victor leveraged every asset he had access to and poured it all into my accounts.

He transferred his two largest estates into my name. This penthouse alone was worth ten million dollars. Later, after his father passed, he took over the family empire.

The business exploded, and every few months, another property deed would show up in my name. He even set up an ironclad trust fund.

Back then, he always looked at me with heavy guilt. "Maeve, you left everything behind for me. I want to give you the world, but it never feels like enough."

I used to press my forehead against his. "Victor, I don't care about the money."

After all, when we first met, he was just a boy who got into bloody fistfights over a thirty-dollar pair of sneakers.

I would soothe him. "You've given me plenty. Even if you dumped me tomorrow, I'd never starve in L.A."

It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. The marriage was dead. We were strangers now. At least I had enough cash and dignity to avoid freezing on the streets of Los Angeles this winter.

Chapter 2

Early the next morning, I drove to the courthouse alone, arriving fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. Victor didn't bring his driver today. He pulled up in a black Cullinan. He used to drive the Maybach I bought him, but after I caught him letting Jocelyn ride shotgun, I took a golf club to it and shattered the windshield to pieces.

He wore a sharp black suit. His striking features still made women on the sidewalk pause and stare. Staring at his face, a flash of memory hit mehim down on one knee, holding a ring, shaking so hard he couldn't even get a word out before breaking down. I had to press my forehead to his, laughing as I said yes, guiding his trembling hands to slide the ring onto my finger.

Victor caught my stare. His hand twitched, instinctively reaching out to grip my wrist. "Maeve, if you're regretting this, we can"

I yanked my arm back. I stood up, smoothing the front of my dress. "Let's go."

He stared at his empty palm, his fingers curling into a tight fist against his side before he followed. Divorcing a billionaire in California usually meant dragging through months of red tape and endless mediations. But there was no drawn-out asset battle here. He offered a flat five hundred million in alimony, and I didn't contest a single cent.

To prevent any sudden changes of heart, I pulled some strings with the judge. No six-month cooling-off period. We signed, and the absolute decree of divorce was stamped instantly. Two hours later, we walked out with the final papers.

He stared at the ink on the page. He didn't move until a clerk cleared his throat, forcing Victor to step aside. "I didn't realize you were in such a rush. You couldn't even wait a few months."

I let out a dry laugh. "Weren't you the one suffocating? You begged me for half a year to cut you loose so you could breathe."

His jaw tightened. "I was drunk"

I didn't have the patience for a trip down memory lane. I turned on my heel.

He chased after me. "What are you going to do now?"

I didn't even look back.

"Work. Date. Travel. Whatever I want."

"Are you staying in L.A.?"

I stopped and met his eyes dead-on. "Victor, sometimes I wish I was just a gold digger. If all I cared about was your money, I would have chained myself to the title of Mrs. Victor and never let another woman near it."

"Maeve, I messed up. But if you ever need anything, I swear I'll take care of you for the rest of your life."

I just smiled, letting the silence hang. Just outside the main doors, Jocelyn was leaning against Victor's Rolls-Royce. She deliberately tugged down her neckline, showing off the limited-edition diamond necklace Victor had won for her at Sotheby's last night. Her eyes burned with the sheer arrogance of a winner.

The second she spotted us, she practically launched herself forward, locking her arm tightly around Victor's.

Victor frowned, his voice cold. "Who told you to come here?"

Jocelyn gauged his reaction, then jutted her chin out defiantly. "I'm picking up my boyfriend. Is there a problem?"

As she spoke, she stared me down, shameless. She never would have dared to pull a stunt like that before.

Chapter 3

The elite circles of L.A. were crawling with mistresses, but Jocelyn wasn't the usual breed. Unlike the girls who got a taste of a billionaire's favor and immediately flaunted it in the wife's face, Jocelyn played the long game. She was the timid, subservient type. If I had given her the opening, she would have dropped to her knees and scrubbed the dirt off my stilettos with a smile.

The voice recording she had "accidentally" leaked to me years ago contained only a single sentence.

"Victor, I don't need you to take responsibility for me, I just need a tiny crumb of your love."

Back then, she was just a nobody paparazzi rat prowling the Hollywood Hills, sneaking into exclusive galas to snap dirty secrets of the one percent. She had managed to slither her way into the massive IPO celebration for Victors company. Security caught her and dragged her out by her collar, her cheap camera still clutched to her chest.

Victor despised the L.A. paparazzi with a visceral hatred. Years ago, when his fathers affair leaked, the tabloids chased Genevieves car down the highway just to get a shot of her crying. They ran her off the road. The crash killed the baby she was carrying.

At the gala, Victor had taken one look at Jocelyn with absolute disgust and instantly ordered his team to bankrupt her agency and blackball her from the industry.

I was the one who pitied her. She looked so young, a fresh college grad with a panicked face, just trying to pay her rent. I rubbed Victors arm and talked him down, telling him not to ruin a night of celebration over a desperate kid.

I had no idea that the "desperate kid" had already marked Victor as her ultimate target. She had maxed out her credit cards buying his private flight logs and daily schedules from insiders. But even if I had known, I probably would have just laughed it off.

Thats how painfully arrogant and naive I was. I genuinely believed our love was bulletproof. I thought the world could end, and Victor still wouldn't look twice at another woman.

Besides, stacked up against the supermodels throwing themselves at him, Jocelyn was as bland as tap water. She had zero capital to compete. But the Jocelyn standing outside the courthouse wasnt a dirty paparazzi rat anymore. Backed by Victors endless wealth, she had rebranded herself into a prime-time TV anchor.

The public ate up her fabricated rags-to-riches story. The media pumped out exclusive interviews, praising her as the ultimate independent woman who clawed her way up from poverty to pay off her father's debts.

I threw my car into reverse. In the rearview mirror, I watched Jocelyn clinging onto Victor like a parasite. I tore my eyes away from the mirror. A specific, sickening memory clawed its way to the surfacethe first time I realized they were crossing the line.

I never snooped through Victors phone. It was purely an accident. When I scrolled up through the chat logs, ninety percent of her messages to him were ignored. But there was one single text he had actually replied to.

Chapter 4

She had texted: "Wow, a single glass of wine is a thousand dollars! I can't even imagine what it tastes like. Is it made of liquid gold?"

Victor's reply was dripping with casual disdain: "You're a clueless idiot who's never seen the real world."

When I confronted him, slamming the phone face-up on the desk, Victor just chuckled. "Don't you think it's a little funny? Come on, baby, don't be mad at me over this. You know I hate it when we fight."

He swiped the screen. "She's just trash. If you don't like it, I'll block her right now."

I didn't know it then, but the moment a man finds another woman even mildly "funny," the descent has already begun. I let him off the hook so easily, only slapping his wrist for attracting flies.

Until the day she posted a selfie tagging the location of our private Beverly Hills mansion pool. That night, Victor came home unusually late.

He reeked of cheap, overpowering perfume, and smeared right across his neck was a glaring, blood-red lipstick mark.

I stood there gripping his ruined collar. A deafening roar filled my ears. The blood drained entirely from my face.

My hands shook so hard I dropped the fabric, collapsing to my knees as my stomach heaved, dry-heaving until my throat tasted like copper.

Victor dropped to his knees on the hardwood floor, swearing on his life that nothing happened with Jocelyn. I couldn't stop the violent tremors racking my spine, repeatedly gasping out, asking him why, why did he do it?

At fifteen, covered in fresh bruises and split lips, he brutally kicked a stalker down a flight of stairs just to keep me safe. At seventeen, he couldn't even afford a decent t-shirt, but he skipped meals for months just to buy me a silver necklace for my birthday.

At eighteen, I hid under my covers, whispering into the phone, "Are you crying? I said I love you, and you're actually crying?"

His voice choked up through the receiver. "I haven't even bought you flowers yet. I haven't officially asked you to be mine. Why did you have to say it first?"

I told him he'd bought me plenty of flowers.

He stubbornly refused, insisting that the flowers he meant to give me when he confessed were different. They had to mean something. I was too stubborn. I refused to let us go.

Until the morning TMZ leaked the photos of Victor and Jocelyn walking out of a Four Seasons hotel. That day, I was terrifyingly calm. I didn't scream. I didn't demand answers.

Looking back, I realized that was the exact moment I stopped being the girl who loved Victor, and became nothing more than Mrs. Victor.

My very first thought was protecting the company's stock price. I wired millions to kill the story instantly, buying the silence of every tabloid in the state.

For two solid years, Jocelyn haunted my marriage like a ghost. She was a jagged shard of glass stuck in my throat, lodged permanently between Victor and me. We screamed. We tore each other to pieces until there was nothing left but exhaustion.

Sometimes, when I stared at his face, twisted in a vicious rage, a memory would suddenly flashhim, smiling softly, asking, "Maeve, do you want to marry me?" Time had blurred the boy I loved, leaving behind nothing but a monster.

In my rearview mirror, I watched Jocelyn slide into the passenger seat of his Cullinan. She tracked his gaze, realizing his eyes were still dead-locked on my retreating taillights. Even from a distance, I saw her face tighten.

She tugged forcefully at Victor's sleeve, her lips moving in a sharp, demanding question. I didn't need to hear the words to know she was asking when he was finally going to marry her.

Chapter 5

Inside the Cullinan, Victor draped his hands casually over the steering wheel. Hearing her question, he turned his head, a mocking smirk curling the corner of his mouth. "Marry you?"

He reached out and grabbed Jocelyn's jaw, tilting her face back and forth as if inspecting a cheap piece of merchandise.

"You're a mistress. Did you forget? We aren't in the same league. If I put a ring on you today, I'd be the laughingstock of the city tomorrow."

Jocelyns chest heaved with indignation. "Maeve didn't come from money either when you married her!"

Victor shifted the car into gear. His voice was dead flat. "What makes you think you can even compare to her?"

Jocelyn bit her lip hard, her knuckles turning white as she gripped her designer bag. She refused to accept it. In her eyes, she had already conquered the L.A. media scene.

She had fame, a career, and statusfar more than the penniless girl Maeve used to be. She believed that if Victor could once kneel in the rain to marry a nobody, he could certainly fight for her dignity now.

Victor stared blankly at the road ahead, ignoring her twisted expression. To him, a woman was just a woman, even one who had occupied twelve years of his life.

He sat there, blind to the fact that his reckless arrogance would one day send him crawling on his knees, desperately trying to scrape back the twelve years he had just thrown away.

Before leaving Los Angeles, I went to see Victor's mother, Genevievethe ruthless, iron-fisted matriarch of the family. Back then, she genuinely despised me. She refused to even be in the same room with me. When Victor recklessly defied her to marry me, he practically severed his ties with the family.

It took years for the ice to thaw. Eventually, she began to occasionally summon Victor to bring me over for dinner. It wasn't until our third year of marriage that I discovered the sheer amount of blood, sweat, and tears Victor had secretly poured into fixing my relationship with her.

He had spent countless days begging his grandmotherthe only person Genevieve truly respectedto put in a good word for him. He recounted how brutal his early days in New York had been, and how a kindhearted girl from the neighborhood had repeatedly bailed him out. He rigorously studied his mother's preferences, sending her extravagant gifts under my name, and constantly bragged about my capabilities.

He told her how I managed to stay at the absolute top of my class at an Ivy League university, how I was running a startup with a dozen employees before I even graduated, claiming I possessed her exact ruthless drive from when she was young. He boasted about how I turned down a prestigious fellowship abroad just to stand by his side and help him take over the family empire.

I couldn't stand seeing him exhaust himself for my sake. Knowing I lacked the elite pedigree to naturally satisfy the family, I worked myself to the bone, forcing my own rapid growth.

Genevieve didn't need a court jester to entertain her. I had no interest in playing the subservient plebeian. I needed to become a daughter-in-law strictly worthy of the empire.

So, for years, even though she always greeted me with a stone-cold face, she personally mentored me. From high-society fashion and the art of conversation to brutal corporate maneuvering, I shadowed her every step. Inch by inch, I morphed into the impenetrable, fiercely independent Maeve I am today.

She never officially gave me her blessing, but she stopped denying my position. This was a woman who, when Victor was only seven, ruthlessly shipped him off to New York to protect him from a vicious succession war, cutting all contact for over a decade. It wasn't until she had secured absolute victory in Los Angelescrushing his father's mistresses and their illegitimate children under her heel, cementing her absolute powerthat she finally brought her only son home.

Chapter 6

Genevieve turned around to face me. Time hadn't left a single mark on her, but her eyes held the heavy weight of someone who had seen every dirty trick in the book. "You're not being smart about this. If you wanted it, as long as I have breath in my lungs, no one could touch your position as Mrs. Victor."

I offered a small smile. "Genevieve, I'm just not that generous. I can't swallow this kind of bitterness for the rest of my life."

I had honestly tried to convince myself to just play the role of the untouchable billionaire's wife for the rest of my life and laugh at the desperate lapdogs. But then, I stumbled across an old Polaroid. It was back in New York, the sidewalks covered in yellow autumn leaves. In the picture, Victor and I were separated by another kid, looking like we didn't even know each other.

But I remember exactly what was happening off-camerawe were reaching behind our friend's back, our fingers locked together so tightly, smiling like we had just won the lottery. Looking at that, I realized I couldn't do it. I couldn't fake it.

It was rare for her to dwell on the past. "Victor is exactly like his father. I don't particularly like him, but he is my blood, and I can't bring myself to destroy him."

She smoothed down the immaculate fabric of her skirt. "He told me that when he was fifteen in New York, he couldn't pay his grandmother's medical bills. He begged everyone he knew. You were the one who emptied out years of your saved allowance just to pull him back from the edge.

"When I heard you two were signing the papers, I immediately thought of the year he brought you to L.A. He begged me to let him marry you. I said no, so he knelt on the pavement for a full day and night.

"When I still said no, he actually grew a spine. He cut ties with the family, ready to build an empire from absolute scratch just to be with you. When I asked him the other day if he remembered kneeling on that exact spot, he couldn't even look me in the eye."

I stayed quiet, occasionally offering a faint smile.

Who would have thought? We clawed our way over the impossible class divide. Even his ruthless mother was slowly accepting me. Just when we thought we had finally hit a smooth stretch of highway, we lost each other.

I stood up, wrapped my arms around her shoulders, and pressed a light kiss to her cheek to say goodbye.

She smiled faintly, looking right through me as if staring at a ghost from her own past. "As Victor's mother, I think you're making a terrible, irrational mistake. But as a woman? I envy you. I encourage you."

She patted the back of my hand. "Maeve, your life is hitting the reset button. I wish you nothing but open roads."

The very next day, the L.A. tabloids plastered massive headlines across every gossip site

[Billionaire Power Couple Splits: Did The Prime-Time Anchor Finally Sink Her Claws In?]

That night, Victor's driver, Chester, hauled a completely wasted Victor up to my front door. Chester met my eyes with an awkward, apologetic grimace. Given Victor's massive status, I hadn't seen him this sloppy drunk in years.

A second later, the sharp clacking of frantic heels echoed down the hallway.

Jocelyn stormed up, immediately ripping into the driver. "How the hell do you still have a job? Who told you to drag him here?"

Chester flinched, stepping back.

"It wasn't me! It was the boss. Whenever he gets this drunk, he always demands to go home to his wife. It's been like this for years"

Right on cue, Victor mumbled blindly into Chester's shoulder, his words heavily slurred. "Maeve I need some water"

Jocelyn's face twisted into an ugly, humiliated scowl. She barked at Chester to drag Victor back down to the elevator. Before stepping in, she spun back around, jutting her chest out in a pathetic display of dominance.

"You and Victor are divorced now. Do us both a favor and stop trying to insert yourself into our lives."

Chapter 7

I gave her a dead-eyed stare. "Why don't you take a look around and see exactly who is bothering who here?"

Jocelyn's face flushed ugly colors. "This won't happen again. And don't flatter yourself thinking he still has feelings for you. Men get drunk and forget who they're talking to"

I slammed the door right in her face, cutting her off mid-sentence.

Looking down at my phone, I swiped through my messages. I had cleared out dozens of texts since this morning. There was only one left that I hadn't figured out how to answer.

[When are you flying back to New York? I'm picking you up.]

Strictly speaking, Weston and I went further back than Victor, though he had left years ago without a word. When we bumped into each other again later, I was the one who reintroduced him to Victor.

For years, he only texted on holidays with brief, generic greetings. Never a word more. Today was the first time in years he had sent a message that had nothing to do with a holiday.

After my mother passed away in L.A. when I was twenty-five, I flew her ashes back home to rest. Since then, I only went back to New York once a year to visit her grave. I didn't keep in touch with many people on the East Coast, but Weston was one of the few.

I typed out a quick reply, locked my screen, and went back to packing my bags for New York.

It took a full week for Victor to realize I had actually left. He was incredibly arrogant, certain that my massive real estate portfolio in L.A. would keep me anchored.

He thought I was too deeply rooted to just pack up and walk away. He clearly forgot that I once left my entire life behind with nothing but a single suitcase to follow him to California. What stopped me from doing it again?

When Victor heard the news, his face didn't even twitch. "Ask her when she's flying back to L.A