Chapter 1
I knew my husband was cheating the second I saw my dead mother’s necklace around another woman’s neck. What I didn’t know was how much worse the truth would get when I ripped it off her.
The company holiday party was packed with people from my husband Daniel’s office in downtown Chicago.
I had barely taken off my coat when I saw her standing beside the bar.
She was laughing with Daniel’s coworkers like she belonged there.
Then she turned around.
My stomach dropped.
Around her neck was the gold necklace my mother had left me before she died.
I had searched our house for that necklace for three months.
Daniel had watched me cry over it and kept telling me, “Sarah, you probably misplaced it.”
But there it was.
On another woman.
I walked toward her before I even realized what I was doing.
Daniel spotted me and suddenly went pale.
“Sarah, wait.”
I ignored him, reached from behind, and grabbed the chain.
The woman screamed as I yanked it hard.
The clasp snapped, and she stumbled backward onto the floor.
The entire ballroom went silent.
I stood there shaking, clutching my mother’s broken necklace in my fist.
“You stole this from me,” I said.
The woman stared at Daniel instead of answering me.
That was when I knew.
Daniel rushed over and slapped me across the face.
The sound echoed through the room.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he shouted.
I touched my burning cheek and looked at the man I had been married to for eleven years.
Then I threw the broken necklace straight into his face.
“You gave her my mother’s necklace?”
Daniel froze.
The woman slowly got to her feet and whispered, “You told me she gave it back to you.”
A few people nearby gasped.
I looked at her. “Gave what back?”
Daniel grabbed her arm.
“Emily, shut up.”
She pulled away from him.
“No, Daniel. You said the marriage was already over.”
My knees almost gave out.
Then she reached into her purse and pulled out a folded envelope.
“I wasn’t supposed to show you this,” she said.
Daniel lunged for it, but I grabbed it first.
May you like
Inside were divorce papers carrying what looked exactly like my signature.
Except I had never signed them.
