The Mastermind's Divorce Game

Come home with me. Or leave in pieces. Pick one.

Glass was still coming down when I said it. The wine bottle had gone to pieces over her head, and the whole room flinched.

I stood in the middle of the private lounge, the broken neck of the bottle still in my hand, and watched my husband decide.

Sinclair Fenwick didn't move.

The trust-fund boys who'd been circling us all night took three slow steps back, out of range, and stayed there.

The woman folded against his side lost every ounce of color. She grabbed his arm, her eyes gone red and glassy, and looked up at him like I wasn't standing right there.

"Sin. I came back," she whispered. "You're not really going home with her. Are you?"

Chapter 1

For a moment the room held nothing but the sound of people breathing.

Sinclair lifted his eyes to me. Just that. Just enough to show me how much I bored him.

The heirs who'd been standing in a loose ring edged backward, out of splashing distance.

I stayed where I was, the bottle steady in my hand, and didn't move an inch.

"Who let the wife in?" he said at last, one corner of his mouth curling.

The color dropped out of the girl beside him like someone had pulled a plug. She looked ready to break.

She caught his arm. Her voice shook.

"Sin. You're going home with her, aren't you?"

I laughed. It came out flat. I dragged a chair over, sat, and put myself at eye level with her.

"Seraphina. While I've still got the patience, walk out on your own."

A single tear slid off her lashes.

"You know who I am. Then you must know"

"I know." I didn't let her finish. "I know you're his first love. He still keeps your photo in his study."

The blush climbed her face right on cue. Her eyes lit, and she tipped her head onto his shoulder.

"Sin, I came back. Divorce her. After all these years, marrying you is still the only thing I've ever wanted." Her voice went soft, and sure of itself. "I know you're not happy. I know how much you've suffered."

Sinclair held his usual flat face, but the vein standing out at his temple gave him away. He raised a hand to stroke her back.

I cut into the tender little moment before it could take root.

"Mr. Fenwick." I smiled at him. "Looks like you'd rather not come home."

"Then you'll have to excuse me."

I brought the bottle down on her head.

The burst of it and the screaming hit the air together.

She stared out white-faced from inside the arms that had thrown themselves around her. Blood and wine ran down Sinclair's forehead in a steady line. He'd taken it for her.

"Sin. Sin, look at me, are you okay?"

She hauled him into a chair, hands scrambling for the napkins on the table, mashing them to his forehead. They soaked through almost faster than she could stack them.

She spun on me, screaming like something had torn loose in her.

"You psycho! Are you trying to kill someone? How did he ever marry a lunatic like you!"

Sinclair steadied himself, wiped the blood out of his eyes, and pulled her back by the wrist.

"Sera. Don't provoke her." Then, gentler: "Are you hurt anywhere?"

Her mouth crumpled. She held out her hand. One glass nick, maybe half an inch, along the side of it.

Sinclair was on his feet at once, careful, cradling her hand in both of his, already steering her toward the door.

"Why didn't you say something? Come on. I'm taking you to the hospital."

He walked her out with the wine and blood still sliding down his own face.

His eyes never once landed on me.

Chapter 2

I looked down at the hand I'd let hang at my side. Blood slipped off my fingertips one drop at a time, sank into the carpet, and vanished.

I'd been at the Group since morning. A major client to host, and lunch had been two bites of a roll I ate on my feet. I'd counted down to the end of the day, seen the message someone sent me, and come straight here.

Sinclair. I'm tired and I'm starving and I'm hurt too.

The boy who once rubbed his hands raw and came out of it soaked in his own blood to drag me out of the kidnappers' grip. When did he turn into this stranger?

My head went light, then lighter. The room tilted. I caught the edge of the table without meaning to and dropped into a chair.

Behind me, a voice went up.

"Bro. Your wife's hurt too, she looks really bad."

Sinclair's answer drifted back from across the room.

"She's tough. She can handle it herself."

I looked up in time to watch him go. There was nothing unfinished in the line of his back.

Good.

When I pull the net in, at least I won't have to feel guilty.

I turned around. The most notorious rich boys in the city were standing there like schoolkids, every one of them watching me with worry in his eyes.

I smiled and waved a hand. "I'm starving. Look alive."

"On it, Sis!"

Wes moved first. The club belongs to his family, and he's never once been able to sit still. He had the table cleared and fresh plates coming inside of a minute.

I watched them scramble around me, and it could have been fifteen years ago, back when they trailed after Sinclair and me, calling out big brother, big sister.

When did I stop being big sister and turn into the wife?

Since I was five, maybe. The nanny took me. Sinclair, three years older, worked the few scraps she left behind and found me before the police did.

I came to on his thin back. His teeth were clenched, and he carried me out of that awful abandoned warehouse one unsteady step after another. The picture stayed cut into me for the rest of my life.

The elders used to tease him that for the rest of his days, Sinclair would always be Ria's favorite, her one exception.

But later. Later, he found his first love.

I wasn't like her. I lost my mother to that kidnapping, and after it I was raised to the exact specifications of an heir. Everything I did, I did for the empire and for revenge.

Seraphina never raised her voice at him. She never pushed him to read finance journals or learn an eighth language. She cooked for him, sat through lectures she couldn't follow, just to be near him.

Every one of those things she gave him, I could never give.

What my upbringing taught me was how to weigh a gain against a loss.

Then she fought with him. About his money, about how she'd never belong in his world. And she left for the other side of the earth. He didn't go after her.

What he was reaching for was never a secret. He wanted the Fenwicks. He wanted the Whitmores too.

Until he had both houses in his hand, he was never going to give me up for her.

So when Sinclair proposed, I said yes without a second's pause.

He gave me every kind of romance money can buy. I let myself enjoy all of it.

Because I knew, better than anyone:

The Fenwicks. The Whitmores. In the end, both of them are mine.

Everything beautiful his money built, I was only spending a little early.

Chapter 3

I kept my eyes on my plate and ran the plan again, front to back. Fifteen years in the making. I don't leave room for a single crack.

Maybe I'd stayed quiet too long. Wes cracked first. He slapped the table and shot to his feet.

"Sis. You have never once gone soft on a woman sniffing around my brother." His voice climbed. "So why are you rolling over tonight?"

Trust him to grab the one thread I didn't want pulled.

The table went dead silent.

I smiled. "Because it's Seraphina."

First loves cut clean. One stroke, straight to the bone.

I took out my phone. Clean screen. No calls. No messages.

By now, I figured, that little cut of hers had already closed.

Just as I'd called it, Sinclair didn't come home all night.

I sat up in the living room and watched the city go from midnight to seven, quiet the whole way through.

My time had come. I knew it.

When the hour hand hit eight, I was dressed, the shadows under my eyes buried under a heavy coat of foundation, in the back of the car right on time.

What I didn't plan on was finding Seraphina at the office.

She sat in the outer room off Sinclair's office in a brand-new work suit. She saw me pass and popped straight up, smiling, bright as a new coin.

"Morning, Ms. Whitmore."

That smug little curl at the corner of her mouth, set against that soft, harmless face, was hard to look at.

I let my face go cold, called the HR manager over on the spot, and asked him, loud enough for the whole floor, since when we let any stray cat or dog wander into the building.

Seraphina looked like she wanted to sink through the floor. Her face went red, her eyes brimmed, and under the drumbeat of my questions she couldn't get a single word out.

I was angry, and no one alive dares poke me when I'm angry.

I said a few cutting things. Then, out of nowhere, the whole thing tasted like nothing. I waved a hand at the HR manager.

"Let her go. Whatever severance she's owed, pay Ms. Vaughn every cent of it."

The girl who'd kept her eyes meekly down snapped her head up. The tears came loose like a string of pearls cut at the knot.

"Ms. Whitmore, please. I really need this job. Please, don't fire me."

"Your world sits so high above the rest of us. People like me only get to live on what you throw down. Are you going to take even that little from me too?"

The same watered-down poison. I knew the taste.

I lifted my eyes, past her thin shoulder, to the door behind her.

Right on cue, it opened. Sinclair stood in the frame, his face like frost.

"Aurelia. You were born well. That doesn't buy you a license to lean on people."

"This is my assistant. Not yours."

One sentence, and every person in that room knew exactly who ranked where.

He crossed the floor, took Seraphina's hand, swept the room with a look, and said it low and flat.

"As of today, Ms. Vaughn is my executive assistant. Whatever she says, whatever she does, I answer for all of it."

So this was what favorite and exception looked like.

I didn't say a word. I stepped back, twice, turned, and went into my own office.

Near the end of the day, my assistant reminded me: I had a gala with Sinclair that night. Whether the deal I'd chased for half a year closed at all came down to the next few hours.

Chapter 4

I breathed in, and again, and a third time, and talked myself all the way up to steady. I changed into a gown, redid my face, and went to find Sinclair.

I raised my hand to knock. The door opened from the inside.

Seraphina came out in an evening gown, her arm looped through his, the two of them laughing about something.

I went still where I stood.

Early autumn now. A draft came through the window and slid over my bare shoulder. Cold.

Sinclair stopped and gave me one flat, indifferent look.

"Assistant Vaughn can handle events like this with me from now on."

"No need to trouble yourself, Ms. Whitmore."

They stepped around me and walked toward the elevators.

"Sinclair. This is the deal I've worked half a year for."

His voice was already trailing off.

"As of today, it's Assistant Vaughn's."

He did it himself. Signed the deal over to her in person.

The project hadn't even launched before the commission slip in Seraphina's name landed on my desk. I didn't sign it. I sent it back exactly as it came.

She never touched that commission, and it still didn't stop her from becoming the name the whole Group was saying overnight.

Word of her even reached our partners.

That was when Chairman Langford called.

"Ria. What's been keeping you? It's been an age since you came by to see your Uncle Langford."

I smiled. "Uncle Langford, you're the busy one. How'd you find a minute for me?"

He weighed it a long moment before he said it.

"Sinclair took a house off me. A standalone place. The owner on the paperwork is one Seraphina Vaughn." A pause. "She's likely moved in by now."

The teacup in my hand tipped. Tea spread across the desk.

Counting from the first night he didn't come home, Sinclair hadn't been back in twenty-nine days.

The plan had settled. I slept through the nights now.

I carry two family empires on my back. A love story was never going to be the main thread of my life.

Wes and the rest of them came to me more than once, wanting to go to war on my behalf. I held every one of them back.

It was all in hand. I didn't feel wronged, not for one second.

Those kids don't understand yet. Evenly matched is how you last a lifetime, and it's also how you tear each other to pieces. Let time undo the knot that time tied.

Soon it was the Fenwick matriarch's birthday.

I pulled a lot of strings and got hold of something the old woman had wanted for years, a rare piece out of a collection she treasured. I had it wrapped with care, the inscription reading Sinclair and Aurelia Fenwick, husband and wife.

Whatever was rotting underneath, the dignity between old houses stays intact.

I sat in my office a long while before I placed the first call I'd made to Sinclair in a month.

It rang until I'd nearly hung up on myself. Then someone answered.

Seraphina's voice came through, all delicate, with a thread of swagger running under it.

"Ms. Whitmore, just go on your own. Sin already said he's taking me to meet the family elders."

I pulled the phone from my ear and checked the screen. I hadn't misdialed. It was Sinclair's number.

"Put Sinclair on."

She giggled, light and pleased with herself.

"Sorry, Ms. Whitmore. We only just got up. Sin's in the kitchen making my lunch."

I hung up. A message slid onto the screen.

Wes: [Sis. Plan A.]

I looked at it a long time. Then I told my assistant to book me a stylist.

One person. I had a banquet to walk into too.

Chapter 5

Six o'clock sharp, I walked into the Fenwick estate. The elders were all there, and every one of them asked why I'd come home alone.

I brushed it off. Then I turned, saw the Fenwick matriarch, and my eyes went hot.

She'd watched me grow up. Watched me marry into this house. Watched me carve out my own ground here, inch by inch.

I'd lost battles. I had never once let anyone see me flinch.

She'd run boardrooms for forty years. She understood. Not asking was the dignity she left me.

I handed her the gift with both hands. Her eyes dropped to the inscription, to my name set beside Sinclair's, and she let out a slow breath.

Then a stir went through the front hall.

I turned. Sinclair was walking Seraphina in by the hand, shielding her with a care I hadn't seen him spend on anything in years, one careful step at a time.

The faces around the room shifted. The matriarch's went to stone.

The two of them crossed the floor and stopped in front of her.

"Grandmother. This is Seraphina. I brought her to wish you a happy birthday."

The old woman didn't spare her so much as a flick of her eyes. She called, low and cold, for the butler to see the guest out.

Bramwell came over, courteous and remote, and asked Seraphina to leave.

Tears stood in Seraphina's eyes. She looked to Sinclair.

"Sin. I'm sorry. I tried, I really did. But I'll never be able to reach your world." Her voice broke right on cue. "You and Ms. Whitmore should build a good life together. Forget me."

Then she turned and ran for the door, sobbing.

I couldn't help the eye-roll.

The little grifter was really committing to the role now.

Sinclair, though, came apart. He went after her in three quick strides, caught her, and dropped his voice to soothe her.

The matriarch rose.

"You." Her voice cracked across the hall like a whip. "Disgrace."

The room went dead silent.

She crossed to him with her cane and brought it down across his back. Once. Hard.

Sinclair straightened his spine and took it without a sound.

Nobody breathed. Nobody dared.

But someone in that room had no sense at all.

Seraphina threw herself over his back, wrapped her arms around him, and screamed up at the matriarch through her tears.

"What's so wrong with wanting real love? He's your own grandson! One day this whole family is his! What could possibly matter more than him?"

The old woman gave a cold laugh and raised the cane again.

Sinclair threw an arm back, pulled Seraphina in behind the shield of it, and the words tore out of him.

"Grandmother! Seraphina's pregnant!"

Every searching eye in the room swung to my face.

I didn't give them a thing.

Sinclair, though, looked almost relieved. He got to his feet and came to stand in front of me.

"Ria. Let's get a divorce." His voice was reasonable, and gentle, and obscene. "I owe Seraphina. She deserves a name. I have to do right by her."

My father let out a cold snort.

My father-in-law, Chairman Fenwick, came striding over, his hand already lifting to strike his own son.

"Dad."

I stopped him.

I walked to Sinclair, slow, looked him dead in the eyes, and said it one word at a time.

"Sinclair. Say that again."

"I said. We're getting a divorce."

I nodded. And before a single person in that hall could move, my hand was already up.

Crack.

The slap landed across Sinclair's face with everything I had in it.

Chapter 6

"Sinclair. Hear me clearly. The moment we divorce, every asset under the Fenwick and Whitmore names decouples. Immediately."

I turned to my father.

He nodded. "The Whitmore side is yours to run. All of it."

I smiled.

"So, Sinclair. Are you sure you want that divorce?"

Sinclair came apart at the seams, the lock-solid certainty in his eyes gone in a blink. He looked to my father.

"Dad, we can't decouple. The second we do, both houses bleed."

"Every cent I ever made was so Ria could live well. My girl's unhappy? Then the profit can go to hell."

I asked him one more time.

"Are you sure you want the divorce?"

Sinclair looked at Chairman Fenwick, looked at my father, looked at me, and stood there not daring to say a word.

My father snorted, crossed over, and took my hand.

"Fenwick. My child comes home with me."

Then he walked me out, firm, his arm around me. Behind us Chairman Fenwick called after him, over and over. My father didn't turn his head.

We reached the door, and the matriarch's voice carried across the hall.

"Chairman Whitmore. A moment."

"My blood has proven unworthy. Let me give Ria what she is owed."

"The Fenwicks will never recognize the child in that woman's belly."

"Five percent of the shares under my name, I give to Ria. No conditions. Whether she stays in this family or divorces him, it stands."

A dull thud. Seraphina dropped to the floor.

Sinclair didn't reach out to catch her.

She'd burned her whole life down for him. He didn't even look down.

In the back of the car, my father held me, his eyes rimmed red with the hurt of it