I found my husband in our bed with my sister. His divorce papers were already on the nightstand. And the pregnancy test in my purse? Still positive.
“You’re finally home.” Harrison Cole didn’t bother pulling the sheets up. He just lit a cigarette, with my sister Mia draped across his chest like a prize. “Sign the papers. I want this done before the board meeting tomorrow.”
Three years of marriage. Three years of playing the perfect wife to Oasis Group’s CEO. Three years of hiding my real identity. And this was how it ended.
Mia giggled, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. “Don’t look so shocked, Iris. Did you really think a man like Harrison could love someone like you? Our parents only married you off to him because I wasn’t old enough yet.”
She was twenty-two now. Apparently, that meant my expiration date had arrived.
I looked at the divorce papers. Standard terms. I’d get nothing—no alimony, no property, no shares. Just a clean break, like I’d never existed.
“The house, the cars, the cards—I want everything back by Friday,” Harrison said, exhaling smoke. “You can keep your clothes. Consider it severance for three years of… adequate service.”
Adequate. That’s what he called it.
I thought about the eighteen-hour days I’d spent restructuring his failing company. The deals I’d quietly closed. The bankruptcy I’d single-handedly prevented when his father’s gambling debts nearly destroyed everything.
“Adequate service,” I repeated.
“Don’t make this difficult.” Harrison’s jaw tightened. “You were a placeholder, Iris. Surely you knew that. The prenup was clear—if we divorce, you leave with nothing.”
I did know that. What he didn’t know was that I’d never needed his money.
What he didn’t know was that “Iris Webb”—the orphaned nobody his family had supposedly purchased from a rural village—was actually Iris Sinclair, sole heir to Sinclair Industries. The silent investor who owned forty percent of his precious Oasis Group.
The same forty percent that had kept his company alive.
I picked up the pen.
Mia’s smirk widened. “Smart choice. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of him. I’ll even let you come to the wedding—as a server, maybe.”
I signed my name with a flourish.
“Congratulations,” I said, tossing the papers onto the bed. “You just divorced your biggest shareholder.”
Harrison’s cigarette froze halfway to his lips. “What?”
I was already walking out the door.
My phone buzzed before I even reached the elevator.
“Ms. Sinclair, the board meeting has been moved up. They’re voting on the merger in two hours.” My assistant Nina’s voice was crisp. “Also, your brother called. He says, and I quote, ‘It’s about damn time you ditched that waste of oxygen.’”
“Tell Julian I’ll call him after I burn Harrison’s world down.”
“With pleasure.”