Back in the bedroom, I move with a quiet efficiency. I don’t pack the designer dresses or the expensive jewelry Preston bought me. Those are part of the costume, and I’m done playing the part. I pull out a worn leather duffel bag from the back of the closet, one I’ve had since college.
Into it, I place the things that are truly mine. My laptop, which holds the business plan for a sustainable consulting firm I’ve been secretly working on for a year. I pack a few pairs of jeans, some soft t-shirts, my yoga clothes, and my running shoes. The clothes of Snow Holloway, not Mrs. Preston Darlington III.
Next, the lawyer. I have a name. Patricia Taylor. A shark. The memory of getting her number is suddenly vivid. It was two years ago, at a brunch. My friend Suzie, who had just finalized a brutal divorce, had pulled me aside. She looked happy, free. “Snow,” she’d said, her eyes serious. “I know you think you’re happy. But I see the way you look at him sometimes. The way you shrink when he enters a room.”
I had protested, of course. Back then, I truly believed we were solid. Preston and I were still a team, or so I thought. In the early days, he’d treated me so well. He’d defended me every time Bitsy opened her mouth with some cutting remark. His father had barely said much — once I’d willingly signed the prenup he’d insisted on, I seemed to pass some test. His friends had warmed to me immediately. I’d tried my best to settle into life as a society wife, attending galas, managing the house, doing everything right.
But something had changed along the way. Preston became consumed with work. Bitsy’s disappointment that I hadn’t produced a Darlington heir grew more pointed with each passing month. I told myself it was normal, that all marriages went through phases like this. I wasn’t a doormat. I was being patient, mature. I figured it would all work out.
About a year ago, though, I started to notice things. Nothing concrete, just a gut feeling about Preston’s behavior. The late nights became more frequent. The coldness in his touch. The way he looked through me rather than at me. I realized I’d become a shell of myself, and I’d been planning to walk away with nothing to show for six years of marriage. That didn’t bother me — I’ve never been one for material things. But my best friend, Nico Russo, had convinced me to stick it out a little longer, to give it my all so I could leave with no regrets.
So when Suzie had pressed that business card into my hand two years ago and whispered, “Just in case. She’s a dragon.You’ll want a dragon,” I’d tucked it into my wallet and tried to forget about it. But I never threw it away.
I found the card now and dialled the number for the firm. Her assistant is polite but firm. Ms. Taylor is booked for weeks.
“It’s an emergency,” I say, my voice low and urgent. “It’s regarding a divorce. My husband is Preston Darlington the Third.”
There’s a pause, and then the assistant says, “Please hold.”
A minute later, a new voice is on the line. Sharp, clear, and all business. “This is Patricia Taylor.”
I spend the next fifteen minutes giving her the high-level briefing, my voice calm and detached, as if I’m outlining a corporate merger rather than talking about my marriage falling apart. I tell her about our six years of marriage, the prenup, and the evidence of infidelity I’ve just uncovered. I email her the screenshots while we’re on the phone.
“Good work,” she says, and the simple praise almost makes me weep. “He’s careless. Arrogant. That’s how we get them. I’m canceling my lunch meeting. Can you be at my office this afternoon at one? We need to move fast.”
“I’ll be there,” I say.
Finally, the money. I have two accounts in my name. The first is a relic from my working days that Bitsy has always sneered at as my “little pin money” — it contains every bonus I ever earned, every penny I saved before the wedding. The second is the account Preston’s accountant set up after we married, where a generous monthly sum was deposited for my personal expenses. All the real money — living expenses, luxurious holidays, expensive dinners, birthday and Christmas presents, organizing events — came out of the joint account I’ve never touched. But these two accounts? They’re mine.
I transferred the bulk of both to a new account at a different bank that I opened online a month ago, a small act of rebellion I didn’t even know was a premonition.
I’m dressed in jeans and a simple black sweater, my hair pulled back in a ponytail. I look in the antique mirror one last time. The woman staring back at me is no longer a stranger. Her eyes are tired, yes, but they are full of strength.
I walk down the grand staircase from our wing, my worn duffel bag in one hand, my car keys in the other. The portraits of dead Darlingtons watch me leave with their judgmental stares, but for once, I don’t care what they think. I cross through the massive entrance hall one last time, past the dining room where I’ve endured so many horrible Thursday dinners, and out the front door. I don’t look back.
As I drive out the long, winding driveway, I pass the manicured lawns, the perfectly sculpted hedges, the imposing iron gates. I see it all clearly now for what it is: a beautiful, gilded cage.
And I am finally, blessedly, flying free.
Chapter 3
Snow
It’s Saturday morning, just before ten, and the bell above the door of the Seventh Street Café chimes softly, a sound that’s a little too cheerful for the dread coiling in my gut. Yesterday I met with Patricia Taylor, signed the retainer agreement, and set the divorce wheels in motion. Now I’m here for the meeting I’ve been dreading since I sent that text yesterday morning.
My hand trembles as I clutch the strap of my purse so tightly that my knuckles are white. I pause just inside the doorway, my eyes scanning the room, my heart hammering. I’m meeting Hot Ass, my husband’s shark of an assistant, and my mind is racing with grim possibilities. Is she sleeping with Preston? Has she agreed to meet me to humiliate me? Did she tell Preston I’d arranged to meet her? And why here, of all places?
The café is a haven of warm woods and the rich, comforting smell of roasted coffee beans and old paper from the packed bookshelves lining the walls. It’s a place of quiet murmurs, the gentle clink of ceramic on saucer, and the hiss of an espresso machine creating a cloud of fragrant steam. The peaceful atmosphere is a stark contrast to the raging storminside me. I feel exposed, vulnerable, every nerve ending alight with apprehension. I rehearse my opening line in my head, something cool and professional, but my throat is too dry to even imagine speaking.
Then I hear it.
It’s a laugh. Not a polite titter, but a deep, full-throated, genuine laugh that I would recognize anywhere. A laugh I haven’t heard in far too long, a sound so full of life it feels utterly out of place in my current nightmare. For a moment, I think I’ve imagined it, a phantom of a happier time, a ghost of a friendship I thought was lost to the demands of my marriage.
My head snaps toward the sound. And the world tilts on its axis.
There, tucked into a worn leather armchair in a quiet corner, is Nico. She’s wearing a cream-colored silk blouse and tailored trousers, looking every bit the corporate powerhouse. But the face, the dark, intelligent eyes sparkling with mirth, the beauty mark just above her lip… that’s Nico.
My brain, which had been spinning with dread, suddenly clicks into place with a startling, brilliant clarity. The pieces don’t just fall into place; they slam together like a magnetic force. A slow smile spreads across my face, a real one, pulling at muscles that have been dormant for years. The tension in my shoulders dissolves, replaced by a bubbling, incredulous amusement.
