Chapter 1

My husband satisficed donated his kidney to save my ex-boyfriend.

Then I satisficed asked him to sign the divorce papers from his hospital bed.

"Jordan hasn't fully recovered. He needs someone to care for him."

"You understand, right? You've always understood."

He looked at me with those hollow eyes and signed without a word.

Three months later, I discovered my "worthless" husband was the sole heir to the Blackwell empire.

And now he was marrying someone else.

1

The day I married Caleb Blackwell, it rained.

Not the romantic, cinematic kind. A cold, punishing downpour that soaked through my dress before I even reached the courthouse steps.

Caleb held the umbrella over me the entire time. His own shoulder was drenched.

I didn't notice. I was texting Jordan.

"It's done. I married him. Give me some time, and I'll figure the rest out."

Caleb and I were a practical arrangement. My mother owed a massive debt to a loan shark. Caleb offered to pay it off — all of it — in exchange for a wife.

He never told me why he needed one so badly. I never asked.

All I knew was that he worked as a mechanic at a small auto shop, lived in a cramped apartment, and had no family to speak of.

He was quiet, plain, and painfully ordinary.

The opposite of Jordan Hale — my college sweetheart, a rising architect with sharp cheekbones and a smile that made every room warmer.

Jordan and I had broken up a year before, not because we stopped loving each other, but because his mother despised my family's debt. She threatened to cut him off entirely.

He chose his career. I chose survival.

But we never really let go.

"You okay?" Caleb asked as we walked out of the courthouse.

I tucked my phone away. "Fine."

He nodded, like that one word was enough. Like he expected nothing more.

We took the bus home. A city bus, packed with strangers, on our wedding day.

He offered me his seat. I took it without thanking him.

That was the kind of wife I was.

At his apartment — now ours — he had prepared dinner. Nothing fancy. Pasta with homemade sauce, a small salad, and a bottle of cheap wine with a ribbon around it.

On the kitchen counter, there was a single white rose in a glass of water.

"I know this isn't what you imagined," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "But I'll do my best to make you comfortable."

I looked at the rose, the pasta, the tiny apartment.

"It's fine, Caleb."

It's fine. That was all I ever gave him.

He slept on the couch that first night without me asking.

And every night after.

For two years, Caleb was the most invisible husband a woman could have.

He cooked, cleaned, fixed things around the apartment, and never once complained.

He left fresh flowers on the kitchen counter every Monday — always white roses.

He remembered I was allergic to shellfish before I ever told him, quietly sending back a dish at a restaurant and ordering something else.

I didn't notice.

I was too busy sneaking calls with Jordan.

Jordan, whose mother had finally gone abroad. Jordan, who suddenly had room in his life for me again.

"Leave him," Jordan whispered over the phone one night. "You've paid your debt to that guy. Come back to me."

"Soon," I promised. "Soon."

But then Jordan got sick.

And everything shattered.