The crystal chandelier above me costs more than my first car, and everyone in this ballroom knows it. I take a slow sip of champagne, letting the bubbles burn against the back of my throat. One year since the divorce. One year since I walked away from Julian Cross and everything that came with his name. And here I am at the Metropolitan Arts Foundation gala, wearing last season's Valentino and a smile that doesn't quite reach my eyes. "Cassandra Hartley." The voice comes from behind me, sharp and familiar. "I heard you were back in circulation." I turn to find Margaret Ashford—silver-haired, diamond-dripping Margaret, who's been the queen of Manhattan society since before I was born. Two other women flank her, their faces arranged in expressions I can't quite read. "Mrs. Ashford." I keep my voice light. "Lovely to see you." "Is it?" She tilts her head, studying me like I'm a painting she's considering for purchase. "We were just talking about you. About your... situation." The other women exchange glances. One of them—Victoria something, a brunette with a face sharp enough to cut glass—steps closer. "It's fascinating, really," Victoria says. "The way you left Julian." I feel my spine straighten. "I don't think my marriage is appropriate dinner conversation." "Oh, but that's just it." Margaret's smile is all teeth. "We're not talking about your marriage. We're talking about his devotion." The word lands wrong. Devotion. "I'm sorry?" My fingers tighten around the champagne flute. "Julian Cross." The third woman speaks now—Elena, I think her name is, with auburn hair and eyes that miss nothing. "He was utterly devoted to you. Everyone knew it." I laugh. I can't help it. The sound comes out bitter and sharp. "You must be thinking of someone else. Julian was devoted to his career. And to Ivy Monroe." "Ivy?" Margaret's eyebrows rise. "Dear, Ivy was nothing. A colleague. A friend, perhaps. But you—" "I was the wife he ignored." The words taste like ash. "The wife he chose work over, every single time. Even when my mother—" I stop myself. They don't need to know about that night. About how I begged Julian to help me find justice for my mother's murder, and how he told me he couldn't compromise his professional ethics for a case that personal. Victoria pulls out her phone. "Have you read Professor Hamilton's new book? Legal Ethics in Modern Practice?" "I don't see what that has to do with—" "There's a section on the psychological cost of legal objectivity." She's scrolling now, her manicured nail sliding across the screen. "He includes anonymous journal entries from prominent attorneys. Including your ex-husband." The room tilts slightly. "They're not anonymous if you know the cases he references," Elena adds softly. "The timeline. The details." Margaret takes Victoria's phone and holds it out to me. "Read it." I don't want to. Every instinct tells me to walk away, to leave this conversation and these women and whatever trap they're laying. But my hand reaches out anyway. The text on the screen is formatted like a journal entry, dated three years ago. Right in the middle of our marriage. *I came home to find her asleep on the couch, still in her gallery opening dress. She'd waited up for me again, even though I told her the deposition would run late. I covered her with a blanket and just... watched her breathe. How do I tell her that every case I take, every hour I bill, every victory in court—it's all for her? That I'm building something worthy of the woman who chose me? She deserves everything. I'm terrified I'll never be enough.* My throat closes. "There are dozens of entries," Victoria says quietly. "Three years' worth. Every one of them about you." "That's not—" I can't finish the sentence. Can't breathe around the sudden pressure in my chest. "He loved you, Cassandra." Margaret's voice has lost its edge. "Whatever else happened, whatever you think you saw with Ivy Monroe—that man was obsessed with you." I thrust the phone back at her. "You're wrong. You didn't see—" "We saw enough." Elena touches my arm. "The question is, what did you see?" I open my mouth to answer, to defend myself, to explain that they don't understand— And then I see him. Across the ballroom, near the silent auction tables. Julian Cross in a black tuxedo that fits him like it was painted on, his dark hair slightly longer than he wore it during our marriage. He's laughing at something, his head tilted down toward— Ivy Monroe. She's radiant in emerald silk, her blonde hair swept up, her hand possessive on Julian's arm. And at her throat, catching the light from a thousand candles— My grandmother's sapphire necklace. The one Julian told me was stolen six months before our divorce. The one I cried over for weeks because it was the last piece of my mother I had left. "Cassandra?" Margaret's voice sounds far away. "Are you alright?" I'm not alright. I'm watching the man who supposedly loved me—who wrote passionate journal entries about me while I slept—smile at another woman wearing my stolen inheritance. And I'm realizing I don't know anything at all.