Divorced and Loaded

Even if you're his wife, I'll always be his first choice.

Celeste had me cornered against the conference table.

She was smiling, pleased with herself, and she tossed the freshly signed contract down in front of me.

My husband Adrian Thorne, the investor backing this whole project had just picked her design without a second of hesitation.

We'd been enemies since we were kids.

Back then her mother took my father. Now she'd walked in and taken my husband's heart just as easily.

I looked past her shoulder. Adrian stood a little way off. Cold. Distant. Waiting, quietly, for the one that got away.

Years of holding on, and it all shattered in that single second.

Why was I killing myself over a man who kept betraying me?

I shoved Celeste out of my way.

Just like that, I didn't want to fight anymore.

This time, I was letting him go for good.

The cheating bastard is all yours. I only want my career.

And Adrian? By the time he was on his knees, red-eyed, begging me to come back it was already too late.

Chapter 1

The new investor backing my firm was Adrian Thorne.

My husband.

The second I found out, I knew this silent war between me and Celeste was already lost.

For days he'd had the whole office talking the looks, the pedigree, the money behind him. Not one of them knew the man they were dissecting came home to me.

In the break room, my coworkers were still at it.

"It's Thorne. Adrian Thorne. The heir to the whole Thorne Group."

"That's the golden ticket. If our team's design catches his eye, we're set for years."

"My money's on Celeste's team. Word is, the guy's got an old flame right here in our design department and it's her."

"They dated in college. First loves, the whole thing. He didn't pick this firm for the firm. He picked it for her."

My chest went tight. I drifted back to my desk without really feeling my feet.

By then the news had already spread through the whole floor.

My boss pulled Celeste and me aside.

"Cordelia. Celeste."

"Adrian Thorne is funding our project. I want each of you to lead a team, one design apiece. Final pitch in a month."

He gave Celeste a long look, and he couldn't hide the admiration in it.

He'd heard the rumors too. He understood exactly why Thorne had chosen us.

I hadn't even left the room and I already knew my team's work was dead on arrival.

Going up against Celeste, I was probably just here to fill a chair.

Out in the hall, she stopped walking.

We stood there, face to face.

I met her eyes. She smiled small, smug, all teeth.

"Cordelia. May the best woman win."

She said it like the outcome was already hers.

Because she knew. Between the two of us, Adrian would always choose her.

I watched her walk off, and I turned the other way.

Behind me, the whole department was celebrating.

If my design got shot down, I'd spend the next stretch working under Celeste swallowing every note, every correction, every little piece of guidance she cared to hand me.

I didn't want to spend one day under her.

By the end of the shift, they were all clustered around her.

Praise, praise, and more praise.

"Celeste, you're incredible."

I watched her across the crowd.

She was surrounded, the noise thick around her.

My corner was the quiet one.

I stood there, no one beside me.

She pressed her lips into a smile aimed straight at me.

I looked away, pulled on my coat, and left.

Adrian got home.

His face was doing the usual thing cool, unbothered.

I couldn't stop myself from asking.

"Adrian. You invested in my firm?"

He looked up at the sound of my voice.

He met my eyes, calm, and gave a soft hum.

I kept going.

"Why our firm?"

I said the next part like a joke.

"So are you going to pull some strings for me?"

His brow creased. His face turned serious.

There wasn't a trace of a smile in his eyes.

He was quiet for a moment.

"It was a decision made higher up."

"The pitch isn't mine alone to call."

Which was his way of saying: not even for his own wife.

I hadn't even turned around when his phone lit up on the entryway table.

Calling: Celeste.

Chapter 2

I didn't push it any further.

He was always like this cool, remote, running on his own set of rules, never once willing to bend one for me.

And I was always the fool hoping to be the exception.

He walked off into his study.

The door didn't latch all the way.

I could hear him on the phone.

The voice on the other end was Celeste's.

Every so often he laughed, low and easy, answering something she said.

He hung up and pushed the study door open.

He crossed to the entryway and lifted his coat off the rack.

Coat on. Shoes on.

He straightened up and looked at me.

"I've got a work thing tonight. I'm heading out."

I nodded.

And he was gone through the front door.

He came home very late that night.

Whatever I'd meant to ask him, I swallowed it the moment I saw Celeste's post.

She'd put up a photo.

Four people in it.

Celeste. Adrian. Two of their old college friends.

Looking at that picture, I decided I didn't need to ask after all.

I'd wanted to ask whether he'd take her side. I already knew he would.

I used to leave a lamp on for him, back when his work nights ran late.

Tonight I reached over and switched it off.

I slept better than I had in a long time.

When I woke, Adrian and I didn't cross paths. We left for our separate offices.

At the firm, the whole design department revolved around Celeste, everyone circling her like she was the sun.

They all understood the math. Without her, Thorne never would have picked us.

Whatever was between her and me that was my problem.

They just needed their year-end bonus and their targets hit on time.

Adrian came by that day, there as the investor.

The boss called Celeste over.

When she came back, every eye in the room followed her.

"Celeste, is he scary? What's he like?"

Her mouth curved. She kept her answer soft and vague.

"He and I go way back. He's not scary."

"You can all relax."

A few of them traded looks and smiled, like they were in on something.

I'd already read through the whole saga of Celeste and Adrian.

If I weren't his wife, I might've sighed over it too young love, how sweet.

Instead, reading the story their college friends had lovingly pieced together, all I could taste was the bitterness of it.

Celeste had an old account from her college days that she'd never deleted.

It was all there every diary entry of their romance.

I read through every last one, the way you press on a bruise.

The more I read, the clearer it got. He'd really loved her.

He read every single thing she posted. Every one. Then he'd like it, comment on it.

And he was the one who'd chased her.

Chasing him had cost me a solid year.

When I first learned Celeste was his ex, something in me lit up a small, vicious thrill, like I'd finally taken something from her.

That didn't last.

Because I saw, fast, exactly how completely I'd lost.

He still carried his ex in his chest, and that made me the joke. Every part of it.

One more thing she got to have over me.

Late at night, awake, staring at the ceiling, I asked myself the question I couldn't put down.

Am I really the lesser one?

Chapter 3

Celeste and I had been rivals since we were twelve.

Oil and water. Two people who could not stand to share a room.

Her mother moved into our house and took over. Mine sank into a depression and took her own life.

I almost lost my mom for good.

By high school, we'd landed at the same school again.

She'd missed the cutoff for the top school in the city by a single point so my father, Nolan Sinclair, pulled some strings and got her in anyway.

That same year, my mother left the country.

I stayed behind in the Sinclair house.

Back then I thought if I made things unpleasant enough, the two of them would take the hint and back off.

My methods were clumsy I once tipped ink into their cups just to rattle them, the dark visible kind, too scared they'd actually drink it. All I wanted was to stand my ground in front of Celeste, once.

Instead she ran to my father. His face went dark, and he lectured me with his brows pulled tight.

I hated them both, and I never had the nerve to do anything that actually crossed a line.

Everything I did just convinced my father he'd been unfair to those two.

We graduated. Different schools, finally.

The thing that killed the last of my hope in him came the first winter break of college. He brought Celeste to a formal dinner.

He didn't deny she was his daughter. He didn't correct anyone.

He even wanted her to take the Sinclair name.

I told him: the day you make her a Sinclair, I go by my mother's name. I become a Maddox.

His jaw locked. His arm went up, half-raised, about to come down on me.

A tall figure caught it before it landed.

That was Adrian.

After graduation, I ran into him again.

I chased him for a solid year.

Right when I was about to give up, he finally let me in.

For a while I let myself believe I'd won something. That the man everyone wanted had chosen me.

It wasn't until after the wedding that I learned Celeste was his ex.

That he'd once gone to the Sinclair house to meet my father as her boyfriend.

So when my father heard I'd married Adrian, his face went gray. He clutched his chest like he couldn't get air.

"You did this on purpose?"

"You knew he was Celeste's ex, and you married him anyway?"

I just stared at him for a long time.

At New Year's, I didn't want to go back to that house. Adrian insisted on taking me anyway.

We got there, and Celeste and I were at each other's throats within the hour.

Out in the courtyard, we both went down.

Adrian moved fast long strides, straight past me, and caught Celeste where she stood.

I hit the stone flat. My knee split open on it.

He didn't look back.

At the hospital, eyes red, stubborn, I asked him why he hadn't caught me.

He was peeling fruit, his face empty.

"I didn't see it."

When he left the room, Celeste came in.

She looked me over on that hospital bed, smiling, and started telling me everything her and Adrian, all of college.

The version of him in her mouth was a man I'd never met.

Something in my chest pulled tight.

After I was discharged, our paths kept crossing.

We even ended up at the same firm.

Neck and neck, the two of us, neither one giving an inch.

She had the Sinclair name behind her, and it made the higher-ups treat her like glass.

Now she had a second card too the heir's ex.

They all fell over themselves for her.

I knew how the pitch would probably end. I knew the result was as good as written.

But I was going to make my design flawless anyway and in a month, at that pitch, I was going to stand up and deliver it to Adrian's face.

Let them win. I'd make sure they won knowing they'd cheated to do it.

Chapter 4

A month later, I walked into the conference room with my design.

Everyone was there. We were only waiting on Celeste.

She came in with Adrian.

The light fell across the two of them, even and clean.

Now and then he bent his head down, adjusting for how much shorter she was, listening to her talk.

His profile under the light hard lines, sharp edges.

Black eyes. The faintest ghost of a smile.

I caught his gaze by accident and went looking in it for something different.

There wasn't anything.

Same cold, same distance as always.

We drew lots for the order. I went before her.

I walked up calm, opened my slides.

I laid out every idea, every instinct behind the work.

While I spoke, nothing else in the room existed.

I stepped down. The applause was thin.

The one clapping hardest was Piper the girl who'd interned under me straight out of school.

Adrian's face gave away nothing. No one could read what he was thinking.

The boss kept stealing sideways glances at him, trying to.

Then it was Celeste's turn.

She looked to Adrian like it was the most natural thing in the world.

They smiled at each other.

The coworkers below traded looks, gossip already curling on their faces.

Piper leaned in close and whispered.

"Cordelia. We're losing this, aren't we."

I tugged the corner of my mouth into something like a smile.

Celeste finished. Her applause dwarfed mine.

Even the boss clapped for her, moved by it.

Adrian's mouth curved, just slightly.

Half an hour break.

Lately the rumors about the two of them had wrapped around my throat until I could barely breathe.

The way he looked at me was so cold it made my chest clench.

Between the gossip, I picked up more of their history.

He'd chased her. Him.

Walked her back to her dorm without fail. Brought her breakfast.

Every classmate in their year at the capital's top university knew how much he'd loved her.

I sat in my chair, not moving.

I watched the two of them walk out side by side, and the back of my nose went sour.

The man I'd fought so hard to have was carrying around the one person I hated most.

The room emptied until it was just me and Piper.

She held my hand.

The half hour ended.

The result came back.

Adrian and the Thorne Group people had already cleared out.

It was my boss who read it out.

Three votes.

All three for Celeste.

As he said it, my eyes stung, blurred over.

I forced the tears back down.

The boss and Celeste traded a look his little nod of approval.

A few coworkers closed in around her.

"Celeste, you're unreal."

I made my exit, small and quiet.

But Celeste came after me.

"Cordelia."

I stopped.

Her eyes curved sweet.

"Even if you're his wife with him, I'll always come first."

"Everything you break yourself apart to get, I get without lifting a finger."

She was right. At fourteen, she'd taken my father's love off me without effort.

Now she'd done the same with Adrian's heart.

Across the floor, the boss was ushering Adrian into the elevator, the man loose-limbed and unhurried.

Something in me just went tired.

I didn't want to fight her anymore.

And Adrian I didn't want him either.

The elevator sat there, doors open, going nowhere.

Chapter 5

The boss could read a room. He herded Celeste and me into the elevator with everyone else.

The car started down.

He got to work brown-nosing.

"Mr. Thorne, you and Miss Ward what a pair."

"Perfectly matched."

The others chimed in.

"Right? I heard the two of you are already married. Now that's a devoted husband picked our firm just for her."

I listened to it all, numb, and not one ripple moved in me.

Something hot and half-hidden landed on the side of my face. I turned toward it.

Adrian's expression locked up.

The boss poked my arm, hinting I should say something too.

"Cordelia, back me up don't they make a gorgeous couple?"

The doors slid open.

I held Adrian's eyes, calm, for one steady beat.

"They do."

Something scrambled behind his cool eyes. His thin lips parted like he meant to speak