Instead, my fingers brushed against a dark red leather envelope hidden behind a thick stack of documents. Inside was a thick sheet of fine art paper, written in sharp, Gothic ink
The dust in the Manhattan penthouse always danced beautifully in the twilight, even when it had just landed on a lie.
I sat slumped on the oak floor of the dressing room, the built-in safe wide open. I was supposed to be looking for my old passport for an upcoming business trip. Instead, my fingers brushed against a dark red leather envelope hidden behind a thick stack of documents. Inside was a thick sheet of fine art paper, written in sharp, Gothic ink.
It was a list. Or rather, a dowry agreement—a lavish financial engagement prepared eight years prior.
Recipient: Chloe, his ex-girlfriend.
The numbers and items on the paper were like blades cutting into my eyes. $18.88 million in cash transferred directly into a private trust. Ten limited-edition Harry Winston diamond jewelry sets. Two luxurious penthouses overlooking Central Park.
It was opulent, glamorous, and reeked of unconditional love. A kind of love that I, in seven years of being his wife, had never tasted even a drop of.
When I married Julian, what I received wasn’t a gift list, but a thick stack of documents from his law office: a Prenuptial Agreement.
There was no dowry or wedding gift for me. No expensive jewelry, no shares, no promises. Even the luxury apartment we had shared for seven years—where I personally chose every curtain and tended every flower—was clearly designated under his family company’s name. It had absolutely nothing to do with me. If he told me to leave tomorrow, I would have to leave empty-handed.
“Do you have any sense of personal boundaries, or has rummaging through other people’s belongings become second nature?”
A low, cold voice came from the doorway. I didn’t need to turn to know Julian was there. He had just returned from a board meeting, his suit jacket still draped over his arm, his tie slightly loosened, exuding the air of a man always in control.
I didn’t cry, I didn’t scream, I didn’t question him. The silence within me was like a frozen lake in a winter American—terrifyingly cold and still.
I stood up, turned around, and looked directly into the emotionless gray eyes of the man I once loved more than life itself.
“Julian, let’s get a divorce.”
Julian’s delicate eyebrows furrowed slightly. That was the only expression that showed he was surprised, or perhaps annoyed. He strode into the room, decisively snatching the red paper from my hand. Without a moment’s hesitation, he forcefully tore it in half, then into four, turning those millions of dollars into worthless shreds.
“That’s a pile of crumpled papers from eight years ago. How old are you to be acting like a childish jealous brat?”
He tossed the pieces of paper into the trash can next to the dressing table, brushing his hands as if he’d just touched some dirt. Then, without looking at me again, he turned and walked straight out. The sound of the door closing was dry and harsh, just like how he had locked his heart away from me for the past seven years.
I looked at the pieces of paper in the trash can and chuckled softly. An empty laugh echoed in the large room. I pulled out my phone and found a contact I hadn’t called in a long time.
“Hello, Attorney Vance. I need you to prepare a divorce agreement. Yes, right now.”
Vance worked with the incredible efficiency of a top Wall Street lawyer.
Before six o’clock in the evening, an electronic copy of the divorce agreement was sent directly to my personal mailbox. Perhaps because the service fee I paid was so generous, or perhaps because drafting such a unilateral agreement relinquishing all rights was so easy, Vance proactively called me.
“Ms. Lin, are you really sure you want to leave empty-handed?” Vance’s voice on the phone was full of concern and inquiry. “As your lawyer, I must remind you that based on Mr. Julian’s enormous wealth, if we go to court, I can absolutely help you secure an extremely lucrative alimony or property division. Seven years of your youth are not something to be given up so easily.”
Hearing Vance’s words, the corners of my lips curled into a bitter smile.
“Rights?” I whispered, my eyes staring blankly at the city lights beginning to come on through the floor-to-ceiling windows. “Vance, you know perfectly well we don’t stand a chance.”
For years, Julian had been a shrewd businessman. His salary from the corporation was symbolic—one dollar a year. The rest—all dividends, stock returns, and venture capital investments—were strictly kept secret under the guise of prenuptial assets. When we married, he told me straight to my face that those things belonged to his family empire, and no outsider was allowed to touch them.
On the day other women were enjoying a wedding…
Instead of a romantic getaway in a French castle or a lavish honeymoon in the Maldives, I was sitting in a suffocating office, signing a thick stack of property division papers under the watchful eyes of five lawyers on his side.
Before, I hadn’t really thought much about it. I deceived myself into thinking Julian was a shrewd businessman, that he was calculating, cautious, and fair in all his relationships—it was his survival instinct. I loved him, so I accepted lowering my self-respect to prove that I was with him for love, not for his nine-figure net worth.
But it wasn’t until this afternoon, when I saw the dowry list for Chloe, that I was shocked to realize how ridiculously pathetic I had been living.
Because the items, the real estate addresses, even the jewelry listed in the lavish dowry for his ex… cruelly matched the list of assets in my prenuptial agreement. Those were stamped: “Lin is strictly forbidden from touching.”
It turned out that the diamond wedding ring I was wearing, the one I cherished like a treasure, had never belonged to me. It was left behind after Chloe rejected his proposal.
The ten limited-edition jewelry sets that I meticulously cleaned every month, kept in a glass case like works of art, were also prepared for her.
And this penthouse apartment, where I had dedicated seven years of my youth, was also the falcon’s nest he built specifically for the woman he deeply loved.
She didn’t need it; she cast it aside to pursue freedom in Europe.
As for me, even though I legally married him, and spent seven years of my youth warming his heart, in the end, I had no right to touch even a fragment of his world. He took everything she had rejected, turned it into a cage to imprison me, and erected a solid legal wall to guard against me like a thief.
My heart constricted, the pain so intense it was suffocating. A shiver ran down my spine, but my voice remained calm and cold as I answered the phone:
“No need, Vance. Sign it like that. Set him free, and free me too. That’s enough.”
I hung up, took off my wedding ring, and placed it neatly on the dressing table, next to the trash can containing the fragments of the past. Manhattan is beautiful tonight, but it has nothing to do with me anymore.
