Chapter 1. Waking Up with Certainty

That morning, Natalia woke up the way she always did: certain that it was one more day closer to the end of her marriage.

It had been exactly two days since Branko Sitik's first love — her now-husband's — had returned. And she wasn't about to be the third wheel. No, sir. The Santinos didn't compete for men who were already ignoring them while married.

She climbed out of bed with the grace of a lazy cat, stretched her arms, and checked the clock. 6:47 a.m. Branko would already be up, of course. That man didn't need sleep. He'd probably already gone running, eaten breakfast, and answered forty emails before she could even remember her own name.

"Disgusting level of efficiency," she muttered as she stepped into the bathroom.

The hot water ran down her back, and like every morning, her mind began the ritual: the memory. She couldn't stop it. It was like a movie someone forced her to watch every time she closed her eyes.

Two years ago.

The Sitik family, their contract crumbling, had come crawling to the Santinos' feet. And she, Natalia Ricaldi — now Natalia Ricaldi de Sitik, though that last name weighed on her like a tombstone — held the key.

Everyone crawled: her own parents, who treated her like a money-making machine; her sister Lucia, fake as a three-dollar bill and needier than a drowning man, begging her to help the family of the man she was crazy about.

And the Sitiks. The very same people who'd once told her she wasn't worthy of being part of their family. The very same people who'd looked her up and down at a dinner and whispered, "Too young, too improvised."

Now they begged.

"We need a marriage alliance," Mr. Sitik had said, flashing his shark smile. "Your company, ours — it would be mutually beneficial."

Natalia smiled in the shower, a bitter smile the steam couldn't disguise.

She had fallen in love. Since she was a girl. Since she was fifteen, when she saw Branko at a party and her teenage heart went boom, like cheap fireworks. But nobody in that story loved her. They all just saw convenience.

Including Branko.

Especially Branko.

She was the perfect pawn: young, pretty, with a company pulling in millions and a family so dysfunctional that anything else looked like paradise. Branko accepted her the way you accept a corporate merger: with a handshake and a cold stare.

Nobody in that room loved her. Nobody.

She turned off the faucet. Towel-dried her hair, threw on a robe, and walked out of the bathroom with the determination of someone heading into a battle she'd already lost but was going to fight anyway.

She went downstairs — that mansion with its gray walls and enormous windows, more mausoleum than home — and found him there.

Branko Sitik was sitting at the breakfast table in his black silk robe, hair still damp, staring at his phone like it held the secrets of the universe.

Natalia approached with silent steps and, out of the corner of her eye, caught the messages.

Valeria: "Loved the apartment. You're so thoughtful. Coffee today?"

Valeria: "Thanks for picking me up at the airport. You don't know how much that meant to me."

Branko: "4 o'clock at the usual spot."

Natalia looked away quickly.

Her heart — the one she'd declared dead months ago — still twisted. A small spasm of pain she ignored with the same ease you ignore bad news on your phone.

She sat across from him, poured a coffee she had no intention of drinking, and spoke in her most serene voice.

That voice she'd perfected since she was seventeen, when she realized that no matter what she did, she'd never get her parents to love her, her sister to value her, the Sitiks to respect her — and least of all, much less, get Branko to see her as anything more than a contract.

"I'm glad you haven't left," Natalia said. "Saves on paperwork."

Branko glanced up from his phone. One second. No more. His brow slightly furrowed, as if she were an annoying noise.

"What is it?" he asked with genuine disinterest. Like someone asking the time without wanting to know.

Natalia smiled. A small smile, barely perceptible.

"I need you to sign the divorce agreement."

Silence.

The kind of silence you feel in your bones.

Branko set his phone face-down on the table. For the first time in days, he gave her his full attention. His gray eyes — so cold, so calculating, so handsome, and that infuriated her — examined her as if searching for the punchline.

"What?" he said. His voice lower than usual.

"Divorce," Natalia repeated, as if discussing the weather. "Strange weather today, don't you think? Looks like rain. And I need your signature."

"Are you crazy?"

"That remains to be seen. Are you signing?"

Branko leaned back in his chair. Arms crossed. Jaw clenched. Natalia watched him with those sharp eyes few people knew how to appreciate. It wasn't just beauty — though she had it, undeniable, from her dark hair to her high cheekbones — it was that spark.

That way of looking at you that said, I know what you're going to do before you do.

Natalia was twenty-three years old. Just turned. And since she was twenty, she'd been running Santino Corp with an iron fist and a shark's instinct.

She'd staged a coup against her own father, and nobody — nobody — saw it coming. Because what no one knew was the spectacular mind Natalia had.

A machine for making connections, for reading people, for spotting the scandal where others saw normalcy.

"Why do you want the divorce?" Branko asked, irritated. "What are you playing at?"

Natalia tilted her head. Looked at him. And then dropped the bomb with the same ease other people say "pass the salt."

"Valeria's back. I don't want to be cheated on. You can't have us both, and since you haven't chosen, I'm choosing for both of us."

Branko's face went blank.

He didn't blink. He didn't breathe. He just stared at her as if she'd sprouted a second head.

"What does Valeria have to do with us?" he said at last, with a poorly disguised edge of impatience. "We're just friends."

"Oh, are you?" Natalia arched an eyebrow. "Because the minute she showed up, you went to pick her up at the airport. You got her the apartment she's moving into in two days. You run to see her every time she gets scared by a car horn. That's 'just friends,' Branko? Because in my book, that has another name."

Branko opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

Speechless.

Again.

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