"Otherwise, nights like tonight? They're going to keep happening."
"You're threatening me?"
Warren's gaze narrowed, cold and calculating.
He snatched the papers from my hand.
Then, slowly and deliberately, he tore them to shreds.
"Let me make something clear, Jade." His voice dropped to something low and venomous. "Don't even think about it."
"The day you married me, I told you—till death do us part. Widowhood, not divorce."
"You want to leave me and live some carefree little life on your own?" He laughed, the sound hollow. "Keep dreaming."
On his way out, he grabbed my bank card from the nightstand.
The door slammed shut.
I collapsed onto the bed, tears streaming down my face before I could stop them.
I couldn't even remember anymore—what had I seen in him five years ago?
Yet five years ago, Warren Gilbert had been so different.
So good.
He'd stood in line for two hours in the dead of winter just to buy me those famous pan-fried buns from Old Town Market.
His nose had turned bright red from the cold, but he never complained. Not once.
When I was sick with a fever, he'd stayed up all night at my bedside.
He'd even cried when I was too delirious to wake—actually shed tears because he couldn't bear to see me suffer.
Then he'd doused himself with cold water in the middle of winter until he caught a fever too.
"I can't stand watching my Jade hurt like this," he'd said. "Let me hurt with you."
But that was five years ago.
Now, Warren Gilbert was rotten to the core.
He was out there cheating, flirting with other women, chasing after young girls.
He'd lost all shame.
The only reason he kept dragging his feet on the divorce was because I earned more than he did.
We'd had screaming matches. We'd threatened to end it a hundred times.
But his cold silence always won. Every fight died without resolution.
I'd spent years wondering: Do people's hearts really change that fast? Or had Warren Gilbert been wearing a mask from the very beginning?
Five years, and I still couldn't tell.
I waited until he'd completely disappeared from view downstairs before pulling out my phone and dialing a number I hadn't called in a long time.
It connected instantly.
"Miss Henson?" The butler's voice was cautious, curious.
I let out a bitter laugh. "Burton Chavez, tell my father I've changed my mind."
"Three months at most. I'll be divorced and home."