My husband asked for a divorce during Thanksgiving dinner after I cooked for 12 hours—only to realize 48 hours later that he couldn't survive without me.

I stared at the man I had spent nearly a decade loving.

I looked for the heartbreak, the grief, the desperate urge to fix things that had ruled my life for so long.

There was nothing. Only a profound, liberating emptiness.

Daniel didn't miss me. He didn't love me. He didn't even regret hurting me.

He was terrified because his life had stopped functioning. He was an infant whose caregiver had walked out of the nursery, leaving him to starve in his own mess. He didn't miss his wife; he missed his CFO, his cook, his administrative assistant, and his personal shield against the harsh realities of the world.

"Stand up, Daniel," I said, my voice cutting through his pathetic whimpering. "You’re embarrassing yourself in front of the neighborhood."

He scrambled to his feet, wiping his wet face with the back of his dirty sleeve, looking at me with pathetic, desperate hope. "Does that mean... you’ll fix it? You’ll sign the Chase papers? We can tell Croft that everything was just a temporary IT glitch. You can speak to his wife, make that beef Wellington you do so well, and we can forget Thanksgiving ever happened—"

"Forget it happened?" I interrupted, a razor-sharp smile touching my lips.

I reached inside my coat and pulled out a sleek, black leather portfolio.

"What is that?" Daniel asked, his eyes darting frantically. "The bank guarantee?"

"No, Daniel. This is the purchase-and-sale agreement for Vance Logistics, accompanied by an absolute marital separation and property settlement."

Daniel stared at the folder as if it were a venomous snake. "What are you talking about?"

"The minority equity partners don't want you anymore, Daniel," I explained calmly. "While you were crying in the bathroom after Natalie walked out this morning, Evelyn and I had a Zoom conference with Croft Logistics and our private equity board. Harrison Croft isn't interested in signing an eighty-million-dollar deal with a company headed by an unstable, negligent CEO who defaults on his line of credit over a holiday weekend."

Daniel’s jaw dropped. "Croft... spoke to you?"

"Croft spoke to *me*. Because I’m the only one who has ever managed his accounts. He is willing to sign the five-year master contract on one single condition: Vance Global Logistics must be restructured under new executive leadership."