HER BILLIONAIRE'S SECOND CHANCE.

"You need to sign these."

I looked up from my laptop to find my husband standing in the doorway of what used to be our shared study. Julian Ashford, tech mogul, perpetual absence, the man I'd married six years ago in a cathedral filled with strangers. He held a manila folder like it contained quarterly reports instead of the end of our marriage.

"Now?" I asked, hating how small my voice sounded.

"I have a flight to Singapore in two hours." He didn't step inside, just stood there in his perfectly tailored suit, checking his Rolex. Always checking that damn watch, as if every second with me was time stolen from something more important.

I stood, my hands trembling as I reached for the folder. Divorce papers. I'd asked for them three weeks ago, sitting across from him at the dining table we'd used maybe five times in six years. I'd rehearsed a speech about incompatibility and wanting different things, but he'd cut me off.

"Fine," he'd said. "I'll have my lawyers draw something up."

That was it. No questions about what went wrong. No attempt to fix what had been broken from the start. Just fine, like I'd asked him to approve a grocery list.

Now here they were, processed with the same efficiency he applied to every business transaction. Because that's all we'd ever been a transaction. My father needed capital to save his manufacturing patents from bankruptcy. Julian needed those patents to dominate the tech hardware market. I was just the signing bonus that came with the deal.

I flipped through the pages without reading them. Dissolution of marriage. Division of assets. My lawyer had called twice about the settlement Julian was offering, enough money to live comfortably for the rest of my life. Blood money, I thought. Payment for six years of being invisible.

"I don't want the settlement," I said.

Julian's jaw tightened. It was the most emotion I'd seen from him in months. "Don't be ridiculous, Nadia. You're entitled."

"I don't want your money." I grabbed a pen from the desk, my father's old fountain pen that I'd kept even after he died last year. Even after I realized the patents Julian had saved were now worth billions. "I just want out."

I signed every page that needed my signature, each stroke of the pen feeling like freedom. Let him have the penthouse with its floor-to-ceiling windows and million-dollar view. Let him have the Hampton house we'd visited twice. Let him have everything except me.

"There." I shoved the folder back at him. "We're done."

He took it, still standing in the doorway like my presence might contaminate him if he came any closer. "Where will you go?"

The question surprised me. In six years of marriage, Julian had never asked where I was going or when I'd be back. I'd planned trips to Paris, to Bali, to anywhere that might make me feel less alone, and he'd never noticed when I cancelled them