He threw money on the bed after our one-night stand.
I threw it back in his face at his own inauguration.
By sundown, we were engaged. By the week's end — married.
Franklin Flemington needed a wife to secure his empire. I needed a miracle to save my family. For two years, we played our parts flawlessly — the golden couple the whole city envied.
Behind closed doors, I was invisible to him.
When the two years were up, I handed him divorce papers without blinking.
He stared at me like I'd lost my mind. "I've given you everything a husband should. What more do you want from me, Octavia?"
I smiled, signed my name, and walked out.
I thought that was the end. I thought I'd finally won.
I forgot one thing — Franklin Flemington has never lost anything in his life. And he has no intention of starting with me.
Game on.

I'd been with him long enough to know the difference between his focused work mode and whatever this was. Focused Franklin was present, engaged, intense but connected. This Franklin was a ghost in our own home.


It started three days after we got back from Greece. He'd been fine on the honeymoon, attentive and loving that even made me almost forget about what happened. But the moment we returned to Manhattan, something shifted. He'd become secretive. His laptop screen would flip closed the moment I walked into his office. His phone calls happened behind locked doors. He'd ask me how my day was with this distracted expression, like his mind was somewhere else entirely.


Chapter 222 - ~ 222