Broken Heels and Bitter Truths Chapter 1

My husband and I hadn’t spoken a word to each other in a year.

When he finally returned to the States and tried to initiate a truce, he reached out to take my hand right in front of his subordinates. I instinctively flinched, pulling away.

When he tried to slide his arm around my waist, I shoved him off entirely.

Later, a friend asked me why I wouldn't just give him another chance.

I couldn't help but vent.

"Devin and I are basically strangers now," I told her, swirling my drink. "Being in the same room as him gives us absolutely nothing to talk about. The silence is so suffocatingly awkward I want to dig a hole through the floorboards and bury myself."

My friend’s expression suddenly contorted. Her eyes darted frantically to a spot just over my shoulder.

I turned around.

There he was. Devin stood frozen a few feet away, his face completely drained of color.

Well. If it was awkward before, it was a full-blown catastrophe now. I could have dug a trench straight to the earth's core.

* * *

Devin Frost and I had been locked in a bitter stalemate for twelve months.

For the entirety of that year, he had been in Switzerland, accompanying his ex-girlfriend and her parents while her father sought experimental medical treatments. He had played the devoted proxy-son perfectly.

Now that he was back in Chicago, he was the one lowering his head, asking for peace.

Before he left, he hadn’t said a word of goodbye. But a year is a long time. The blinding, white-hot rage I used to feel had mostly burned out, leaving only a cold pile of ash.

When we fell apart, things had gotten incredibly ugly. I had just lost our baby. My hormones were crashing, my heart was shattered, and I was bleeding out my grief in the form of cruel, jagged words.

"I don't care that Ella's father is dying, Devin," I had screamed at him. "She spent years trying to ruin other people's happiness. This is just karma catching up to her."

I remember the way Devin’s features had hardened. The usual calm, detached elegance he carried himself with vanished. He narrowed his eyes, and the look he gave me was absolute ice.

"Joyce," he had growled, his voice dangerously low. "How can you be so vicious?"

That was the last time we saw each other. The very next day, he boarded a private flight to Zurich with Ella and her parents.

Since returning a month ago, Devin had been playing the role of the attentive, perfect husband to a terrifying degree.

My friend leaned in, whispering. "Jo, he’s been back for weeks. Are you really going to keep icing him out? He’s gorgeous, he’s a tech billionaire, and trust me, there is a line of women waiting for you to drop the ball."

She wasn't wrong. Devin came from old money and built his own empire on top of it. The line of women wanting to date him probably stretched all the way to Paris.

But he had been gone for a year. A whole year. So much had happened in the empty spaces he left behind.

During that first month, I used to stare at my phone, desperately hoping for a call, a text, a sign.

It never came.

Over time, I had reflected on my own behavior, too. I knew what I said about her dying father crossed a line.

I forced a stiff smile now, looking at my friend. "But I'm serious. Being around him is just... agonizing. We have nothing to say to each other. It’s so awkward I can’t breathe."

That was when she looked past me, her eyes widening, telegraphing disaster.

"What?" I asked. "Is there something in your eye?"

She just blinked harder.

I turned. Devin’s tall, imposing frame was rigid. His skin was pale under the dim lighting of the venue.

My mouth twitched in a grimace of sheer mortification.

His dark eyes locked onto mine, a storm of turbulent emotions swirling in their depths. Without a word, he closed the distance between us and wrapped his hand around my wrist.

I tried to twist away. I couldn't. His grip was an iron vise.

He marched me straight to the elevator, down to the parking garage, and practically folded me into the passenger seat of his Aston Martin.

I watched him from the corner of my eye. His jaw was clenched so tight I thought it might shatter.

A year ago, our marriage was a well-kept secret. The media didn't know the CEO of NovaTech was a married man. But they certainly knew about his storied, dramatic past with Ella.

The moment the engine purred to life, the Bluetooth synced to a local celebrity gossip podcast.

"...recent sightings of NovaTech’s Devin Frost strolling through a scenic village in the Swiss Alps with his former flame, Ella, and her parents. Frost has spent the better part of the last year abroad, reportedly funding her father's treatments. Sources close to the couple say the old spark is definitely back..."

Devin slammed his hand against the console, killing the audio instantly.

I didn't yell. I didn't demand an explanation the way I would have a year ago.

There was simply no point anymore.