No Longer Yours To Disdain Chapter 1

I was a scholarship case, taken in by the Sinclair family’s charitable trust when I had nothing to my name.

At twenty-two, pregnant and terrified, I married Bennett Sinclair.

Bennett was known for two things: his family’s dynasty and his obsessive, suffocating germaphobia. Meals required separate serving utensils. Bedtime came with strict boundaries—no kissing on the mouth. If I so much as took a sip from his glass, he’d look at it like it had been pulled from a gutter and push it away.

Yet tonight, in a crowded private lounge, I watched him take a lowball glass directly from Camilla’s hands and drink the bourbon she’d already tasted—just to spare her another toast.

In that quiet, humiliating second, I knew our marriage was over.

He was dead weight against my shoulder by the time I hauled him through our front door. He had intercepted drink after drink meant for Camilla, and his composure had completely disintegrated.

Before we left, Camilla had smoothed her manicured hands over the lapels of Bennett’s coat, looking at me with wide, apologetic eyes.

"I’m so sorry, Tessa," she had said, her voice dripping with delicate regret. "It’s entirely my fault he had so much. Years ago, I had a little too much champagne at a gala and almost let some stranger kiss me. Bennett’s been terrified of me drinking in public ever since."

She had kept patting his chest, stroking down his tie, casually reminding me to make him warm honey water before bed.

Any other wife with a shred of self-respect would have slapped her across the face right there on the sidewalk.

I didn't. I simply took Bennett’s arm, hoisted his weight, and said nothing at all.

It wasn't that I was saintly or numb. It was just that I knew my place. I had never possessed the standing to make a scene.

Upstairs, I brought him a glass of plain warm water.

Even through his drunken haze, Bennett’s hand hovered above the rim, his instincts flaring. "Whose glass is this?"

"Yours," I said evenly. "Fresh from the cabinet."

Only then did he lift it to his lips and swallow.

I had known about his aversions from our first week together. Early in our marriage, he had suffered a sudden, agonizing flare-up of gastritis. Panic-stricken, tearing through the medicine cabinet for his pills, I had poured water into the mug I was using and brought it to him.

The moment Bennett realized it was my cup, he shattered it against the tile.

I told you, he had snapped, his jaw clenched in fury, I don’t share things. Never hand me something your mouth has touched.

It was the first time I had ever seen him lose his temper, and I had stood frozen by the counter, trembling.

Seeing my pale face, his tone had immediately softened, though his eyes remained guarded. It’s not personal, Tessa. I can't handle other people’s things. Just remember for next time.

Not personal.

Yet tonight, in that velvet-lined booth, reaching for Camilla’s glass had been as natural to him as breathing.

He didn't hate sharing. He just hated sharing with me.

A sharp, burning ache rose in the bridge of my nose.

It wasn't as if Camilla Ward had been a secret. She was the one who got away, living in London for years, pursuing her career in high-end galleries. Bennett had never spoken her name in our home, treating the world—and me—with the same cold, pristine distance. I had convinced myself that this quiet, polite arrangement was a life I could endure.

But watching him love someone tonight tore down every delusion I had built to survive the last four years. The quiet humiliations I thought I’d buried came rushing back, suffocating me under their weight.

I was exhausted.

Maybe I didn't have to swallow this anymore. Maybe leaving wasn't just an escape—it was mercy for both of us.