When the judge struck his gavel, Sugar Wallace released a minuscule, quivering breath. Her eyelids fluttered shut, and overwhelming relief washed over her.

It was over.

It was finally over. After a year of bitter warring in court, Sugar was finally a divorced woman.

A free woman.

Opening her eyes, she cut her focus to her displeased lawyer.

“We could’ve taken him to the cleaners,” Rochelle whispered harshly.

“What we agreed upon is enough,” Sugar said. “He can have all the rest.”

“A lump settlement of eighty-eight thousand dollars is nothing but pocket change for a banking investor,” Rochelle gritted out, gathering up her things. “Eighty-eight thousand dollars for eighteen years of marriage is nothing short of insulting, especially after—”

She stopped speaking as the object of her hatred approached their table. Her face bloomed into a sneer.

Lance Wallace slipped his hands into his sharp navy-blue Armani suit pockets, easing to a halt in front of the table. His smug focus kept solely on Sugar. The charming smile on his lips sparked recognition in her mind. Her brain plucked out distant memories when it meant something to her. Back when it made her knees weak and her obedience absolute.

That smile coaxed her into being his wife to do his every bidding for eighteen years, but now, she was free from its hypnosis. Now, she knew it was nothing more than a handsome weapon.

“I highly suggest you take your happy self somewhere, Lance,” Rochelle hissed, “or you’ll catch these hands.”

He lobbed an amused glance at Rochelle. “Come on, Roc. The battle’s over, and we’ve signed the peace treaty. Let’s put away the animosity and make nice.”

“The battle isn’t over until blood’s shed,” Rochelle replied as she stood and planted her palms on the table, leaning in threateningly, “and I’m not above staining my Louboutins to protect my flesh and blood. You best believe that.”

“Always the protective little sister.” Lance chuckled, wagging his head. “Sugar made a good choice having you in her corner. If she had hired a more competent lawyer, I might’ve had something to actually worry about.”

A flash of angered shock swept across Rochelle’s face at his audacity.

Sugar then said calmly, “Roc, I’ll meet you in the hallway.”

Her younger sister’s defiant gaze refused to waver.

“Please,” Sugar added.

Rochelle sharply bounced her gaze between Sugar and Lance, a muscle twitching in her clenched jaw.

“Fine, I’ll be out in the hallway, but don’t take too long,” she agreed bitterly, retrieving her briefcase. She stormed out of the courtroom, shooting daggers over her shoulder aimed at Lance.

“Out of all your brothers and sisters,” Lance replied, relaxing his frame, “she never liked me much from the very beginning.”

Sugar conceded a sad smile. In the dark of her mind, eighteen years of all the good and all the bad played out. All the moments leading up to this one.

“You gave her plenty of reasons not to, Lance.”

“I’m not the bad guy here, Shug. What we had was never going to last.”

“I would love to know when you figured out our marriage wouldn’t make it. Was it before you cheated on me with some Instagram model that’s fifteen years your junior or after?” Sugar asked, folding her arms over her chest. “I would love to know.”

His amusement crumbled off his face in chunks, revealing a cold meanness. “After you gave me a stillborn son, Shug. That’s when.”

She winced.

“But that’s water under the bridge now. This,” Lance said, gesturing between them, “is water under the bridge now. Everyone can walk away happy. After nearly a year of hashing this out in court, you finally get your money, and I finally get to make an honest woman out of Mariah.”

Mariah, his twenty-three-year-old Instagram model fiancée, was twenty-eight weeks pregnant with their first child: a son.

A journey she proudly documented all over her social media.

A journey Sugar began many times that always ended in tears. Sometimes in pathetic moments, she explored the girl’s social media pages to peek inside the life of the side chick her husband fucked during the final three years of their marriage. Sometimes, she convinced herself of an alternate universe where she lived her youth wild and free.

But the facts always brought her back to reality.

Sugar didn’t have the heart to blame Mariah. She couldn’t issue fault to a woman her husband couldn’t keep away from.

Someone her husband disrespected their marriage over.

The fault was his, yet he would walk out of this courtroom a winner according to societal standards. Lance Wallace would leave with a young, pregnant, beautiful fiancée, a successful career, and every possession gained in an eighteen-year marriage.

Sugar rose, smoothing hands over her dress. “I’m glad she makes you happy, Lance.”

“And it’s possible you’ll find someone to make you happy.”

She chuckled at his dig.

It humored her that he believed being a thirty-seven-year-old woman meant she was living past her prime. Yet, society welcomed him to have his early mid-life crisis without judgment, but if she were to seek love at her age, then she was some sort of pariah. Apparently, older men aged like fine wine, while older women were nothing more than wrinkling spinsters.

Luckily, she didn’t need or want romantic love from anyone.

Sugar had given enough of that love for eighteen years, and nothing good came of it.

She loved hard and suffered from it.

The man who stood before her was once the source of all her suffering, but that was no longer.

“I don’t need anyone to make me happy, Lance. I do that just fine myself. Something I should’ve done when I was married to you, but I was too busy trying to make you happy, which, according to you, I was doing a very poor job of. I denied myself happiness for you,” she said, tapping a finger against her chest. “Chalked it up as a sacrifice I needed to make for our marriage’s sake. I thought that by making that sacrifice, I’d be rewarded with a glimpse of that boy I fell in love with when I was eighteen.”

The same boy she married against her family’s wishes at nineteen. She should’ve listened to her parents back then. Instead, she ran down the aisle, in love with the idea of love.

She shook her head, adding, “But I was an absolute fool to think that.”

“You were a fool,” he agreed. “Still are.”

Sugar moved around the table and encroached into his personal space, tilting her head up at him with a smile. “That’s the pot calling the kettle black, don’t you think?”

“I’d love to hear whatever little theory is rolling around in that head of yours.”

“Curious, Lance?”

“Enlighten me, sweetheart.”

For a moment, she snickered.

“You seriously think a marriage between you and Mariah will work out? What you two have for each other isn’t love, Lance. It’s greed. You’re two greedy people using each other to get a leg up,” she paused, taking measure of him, “but I guess that’s better than marriage with one greedy person. So, maybe you two deserve each other.”

Lance smirked, boldly tucking a strand of hair behind her ear before crooking a finger to stroke along her jawline. “You’ve always had an active imagination, Sugar. Always cooking up fantasies in your head. If that’s what you want to believe to compensate for the fact that Mariah’s everything you’re not—that I love her more than I ever loved you—then go right ahead. Make me the bad guy. I don’t mind at all.”

“The morning after you told me you wanted a divorce.” Sugar snatched his wrist, plucking his hand away from her face. “I went on her social media and looked through it to understand why you left me for her. Then, I came across a post, her response to a question about what she liked in men. Do you want to know what she wrote? Big dicks and big dollars.”

He scoffed at that. “Mariah is a satisfied fiancée, so according to my calculations, she’ll be a satisfied wife. And you know, I damn well know I’m never wrong with numbers.”

After sacrificing years of her youth to get him that accounting degree, he should’ve been a fucking wiz at numbers, but his “calculations” were dead wrong.

She swallowed down the urge to laugh at his denial.

“Oh, I’m sure. All three of us know you meet one of those two standards. You’ve definitely got something big and brown. Mariah has no problem finding it in your pants. It’s the only reason she’s sticking around, Lance,” she said before dropping her voice into a whisper, even though they were the only ones in the courtroom. “It’s your wallet. You know, that thing you whip out so freely to compensate for the fact that you can’t give her the other thing she wants. So, I guess you and I both lack something.” 

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