The Unwanted Wife Walks Away Free

The ring came off easier than it should have.

Faith Mckenzie stood at the floor-to-ceiling window of the master bedroom, watching bare winter branches claw at the gray Manhattan sky. The Central Park view that had once made her gasp now looked like a painting she'd stared at too long-beautiful, expensive, and utterly lifeless.

She turned the five-carat emerald-cut diamond over in her fingers. The Jarvis family stone. Fourteen years of being polished and displayed like another asset in their portfolio.

It hit the marble vanity with a sound like ice cracking.

"Mrs. Jarvis?"

Holly's voice came through the heavy oak door, tentative and too loud. Faith didn't answer. She watched the ring spin on the cold stone, catching winter light, until it settled against a crystal perfume bottle.

The door pushed open. Holly stepped inside, her sensible flats silent on the carpet, and stopped dead.

Her eyes found the ring. Then Faith's bare left hand. Then the ring again.

"Oh God," Holly whispered. She actually pressed one hand to her chest like women did in movies Faith had stopped watching years ago. "Oh my God, Mrs. Jarvis."

Faith picked up two thick manila envelopes from the bed. The law firm's wax seal caught the light-crimson, official, final. She held them out.

Holly didn't move. "Is this-are you-" Her voice cracked. "The prenup alone took eighteen months to negotiate. The trust structures, the real estate holdings, if you walk away without-"

"Take them."

Holly's fingers closed around the envelopes. Her hands were shaking. Faith could see sweat darkening the paper where her thumb pressed.

"You're really doing this," Holly said. Not a question anymore. "You're really leaving him."

Faith walked past her into the walk-in closet. Row after row of Paris couture hung in perfect color coordination-silks that cost more than most apartments, furs she'd never wanted, gowns for galas where she'd smiled until her face ached.

She reached to the very back. Her fingers found cotton, canvas, something that breathed.

The beige trench coat was six years old, purchased at a Macy's sale before she'd learned that Jarvis women didn't shop at department stores. She'd kept it hidden behind a wall of Chanel like a secret self.

The silk lining whispered as she slid her arms through. The belt cinched at her waist-too loose now, she'd lost weight these past months. She pulled the collar up and zipped it to her throat.

When she turned, Holly's eyes were wet.

"You look-" Holly stopped. Swallowed. "You look like someone else, Mrs. Jarvis."

"Good."

A knock at the bedroom door. Rosa's voice, muffled and proper: "The car is waiting, Mrs. Jarvis. Mr. Gus has the engine running."

Faith didn't check her reflection. She didn't adjust her hair or add the pearl earrings that Branson's mother had insisted completed every outfit. She walked to the door and pulled it open.

Rosa stood in the hallway, gray uniform pressed to military precision. Her eyes swept over Faith's coat, her bare throat, her unpainted face. Something flickered there-surprise, perhaps, or the quick calculation of a servant who'd learned to read power shifts.

"Will you be needing the silver mink, Mrs. Jarvis? The temperature has dropped to-"

"No."

Faith stepped past her. The elevator was already waiting, doors open, the private car that served only the penthouse. She walked inside and pressed the button for the lobby before Rosa could follow.

The doors closed on the older woman's startled face.

The descent hit Faith's stomach like a fist. She gripped the brass handrail as the numbers dropped-40, 35, 20-each floor carrying her further from the life she'd constructed so carefully it had become a cage.

Fourteen years. She'd been seventeen when Eleanor Jarvis had plucked her from that funeral, had looked at her orphan's grief and seen potential. Potential to be molded. To be useful.

The elevator slowed. Faith's ears popped.

Holly's breathing was too loud beside her. The manila envelopes crinkled as she clutched them to her chest.

"Mrs. Jarvis-"

Faith touched her shoulder. Just once, light enough to feel the bone beneath the wool blazer. Holly fell silent.

The doors opened onto the lobby.

Crystal chandeliers exploded with light, hundreds of prisms throwing rainbows across marble floors that had been imported from some Italian quarry Faith had once been expected to memorize. The doorman saw her coming and scrambled for the revolving door.

"Mrs. Jarvis, allow me-"

Cold air hit her face like a slap. December in New York, sharp enough to taste metal. Faith breathed it in and kept walking.

The black Rolls-Royce idled at the curb, exhaust curling white against gray stone. Gus stood by the rear door, his cap in his hands, his weathered face arranged in the careful blankness of a man who'd learned not to see what happened in back seats.

"Mrs. Jarvis." He opened the door. "Where to this morning?"

Faith slid onto the leather seat. The car smelled of Branson's cologne-something French and woody that lingered in the upholstery like a warning. She reached over and rolled down her window an inch, letting city air scrape against the perfume.

Holly climbed in beside her, settling the envelopes on the seat between them like something explosive.

Gus's eyes met hers in the rearview mirror. He'd driven her to hospitals and charity boards and the funeral of a man she'd barely known. He'd never once asked why she was crying in his back seat at three in the morning.

"Mrs. Jarvis?" he asked again.

Faith looked past him, past the chrome and glass of Fifth Avenue, toward the southern tip of Manhattan where the buildings grew teeth.

"Jarvis Group headquarters," she said. "Downtown."

Gus's hand froze on the gear shift. In fourteen years, she'd never once requested that destination. The Jarvis empire was Branson's territory, as clearly marked as any medieval kingdom. Wives did not intrude.

"Of course, Mrs. Jarvis."

The engine purred. The car pulled into traffic, sliding past windows where mannequins wore clothes she'd once been photographed in, past restaurants where she'd picked at food she couldn't taste, past the life she'd assembled piece by piece until it suffocated her.

Faith closed her eyes. Her fingers found the edge of the manila envelope and traced its seam, back and forth, waiting for the storm she'd spent fourteen years learning to weather.