The phone rang twice before a sharp, no-nonsense voice answered on the other end.

Three miles across town, inside a cramped, overpriced mid-tier hotel room that smelled faintly of stale carpet and bleach, Daniel slammed his phone down onto the nightstand.

Vanessa jumped, dropping a makeup brush onto the linoleum floor.

"What did she say?" Vanessa asked anxiously, her carefully curated composure starting to crack around the edges. "Can we access the accounts or not?"

"No," Daniel growled, pacing the narrow space between the bed and the television stand. "She locked everything. She hired Rebecca Sloan—the most ruthless family attorney in the state. My corporate cards are frozen, my personal accounts are blocked, and HR just called me to say the managing partner wants a 'discretionary leave of absence' until my personal mess is sorted out!"

Vanessa’s face drained of color. "A leave of absence? Daniel, you're the senior vice president of operations! They can't just bench you over a divorce!"

"They can when our primary institutional investors have strict moral clauses in their contracts!" Daniel snapped, wheeling around to face her. "I told you we should have waited until the property settlement was finalized before blowing up the marriage!"

Vanessa stood up, her voice rising defensively. "Oh, so now it's my fault? You were the one crying on my shoulder in the guest house telling me how miserable you were with Claire! You promised me you had everything under control!"

"I thought I did!" Daniel shouted, running a hand through his hair in sheer desperation.

The illusion of their grand, forbidden romance was evaporating faster than morning mist. Without Claire’s quiet competence managing their household schedule, without the cushion of stable joint finances, and without the social insulation of their suburban life, reality was crashing down around them with terrifying speed.