Naomi Bennett stood in the middle of her kitchen, marble countertops gleaming under pendant lights, and looked at the man she’d called her husband for eight years.
Donovan leaned against the island, arms crossed, that insufferable smirk playing on his lips. He wore a gray suit that probably cost more than most people’s monthly rent, his watch catching the light. Everything about him screamed money, power, control.
“So you’re really doing this?” he asked, tone dripping with amusement. “You’re really going to walk out?”
Naomi’s hands were steady as she placed her house keys on the counter. The metal clinked against marble—a sound of finality.
“Yes.”
He laughed. Actually laughed.
“Go ahead. Leave. I give you a week, maybe less. Where are you going to go? What are you going to do? You haven’t worked in years. You’ve been living off my money in my house, driving my cars.”
Naomi pulled her phone from her purse and checked the time. 11:47 p.m. In thirteen minutes, it would be a new day.
“You think you can make it out there alone?” Donovan continued, walking toward her. “You think anyone’s going to hire a woman who hasn’t practiced law in eight years?”
Naomi looked at him—really looked at him. She’d once thought he was handsome. Now she saw the cruelty in his eyes, the arrogance in his stance. She saw the man who’d been sleeping with Simone Clark from his accounting department for three years. The man who’d given her jewelry that Naomi had helped pay for through her own family inheritance.
“I’ll manage,” she said quietly.
“You’ll come crawling back. They always do. Women like you—you’re not built for the real world.”
Naomi picked up her suitcase. She’d packed light—one bag with clothes, toiletries, important documents. Everything else she was leaving behind.
“Goodbye, Donovan.”
“You’ll be back by the weekend,” he called after her. “I’m not changing the locks because I know you’ll need to come home soon.”
She paused at the door, hand on the knob, and looked back one last time.
He stood in the hallway, so confident, so sure of himself.
He had no idea what was coming.
“Don’t wait up,” she said, and walked out into the night.
As she drove away in her old Honda Civic—the car she’d kept in storage because it didn’t match their driveway aesthetic—Naomi felt something she hadn’t felt in years.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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