Reborn To Ruin My Billionaire Husband

The party planner, a woman with a severe haircut and an air of perpetual stress, was laying out swatches of fabric on the living room coffee table.

"For the sapphire theme, I suggest this deep royal blue velvet for the tablecloths, contrasted with silver..."

Jasmin, who had been hovering nearby, drifted over. She pointed a delicate finger at the velvet. "Oh, no," she whispered, her eyes wide with feigned distress. "That color... it's too dark. It reminds me of the smoke. It might trigger my PTSD."

The planner looked at Kirsten, her expression caught between annoyance and professional deference.

Kirsten didn't even blink. She drew a line through the item on her notepad. "Change it. Use white. Whatever she wants."

Damon walked in at that exact moment, taking in the scene. His face hardened.

"Kirsten, can you show an ounce of compassion?" he boomed, his voice echoing in the large room. "The woman is a trauma survivor."

Kirsten slowly put down her pen and met his furious gaze. "I just agreed to change the color scheme based on her preference. What more do you want from me?"

"It's your tone! Your look!" he said, stalking toward her. "You're looking at her like she's an inconvenience!"

Jasmin immediately began her performance, tugging on Damon's sleeve. "Damon, please don't. Sister has been so kind to me, really..."

The cloying sweetness, the transparent manipulation-it finally broke something inside Kirsten. A laugh, sharp and humorless, escaped her lips.

"You're right, Damon," she said, her voice dangerously calm. "You want compassion? You want me to be kind? I can't. So let's just get a divorce."

The air in the room froze. The planner looked like she wanted the floor to swallow her whole.

Damon stared at her, stunned into silence for a beat. Then, his face contorted with rage. "What did you just say?"

"I said," Kirsten repeated, standing up to face him, her voice clear and steady, "let's get a divorce."

He closed the distance between them in two strides and grabbed her chin, his fingers digging into her jaw, forcing her to look at him. The pressure was immense, bordering on painful. "You don't get to say that. Not over something this petty. You're not going anywhere."

"Petty?" She knocked his hand away, rubbing her aching jaw. "To you, my feelings, my home, my marriage-it's all petty."

He took a deep, steadying breath, the businessman reasserting control over the brute. "I am not getting a divorce. The Cooper name does not get dragged through a public scandal. And believe me, if you try to leave, you will walk away with absolutely nothing."

She almost smiled. He had no idea the papers were already filed. He thought he was still in control.

"I'll see the party through," she said, picking up her purse. "For the Cooper name."

She turned to leave.

"But don't expect me to smile at her." She paused, the stinging imprint of his fingers on her jaw a burning reminder. A cold clarity washed over her. She took a step back, creating distance. "My compassion is a luxury, Damon," she said, her voice low and steady. "And she can't afford it."

She walked out of the house without looking back. In the car, the adrenaline began to fade, and her body started to shake. She touched her jaw where his fingers had been, the skin already tender.

Tears finally fell, hot and fast. Not of sadness, but of release. The weak, pleading woman from her past life, the one who would have begged him to love her, was finally, truly dead and buried.

She pulled out her phone and dialed Eleanor.

"He knows I want out," she said, her voice hard. "He's going to be on his guard. We need to move faster. I want you to start the financial discovery process now. Before he has a chance to hide anything."

"Kirsten, that's aggressive. It will tip him off that this is more than just a threat."

"He won't believe it," Kirsten said with absolute certainty. "His ego is too big. He thinks I'm trapped. He thinks I'd never dare."

She hung up and drove straight to the party planner's office.

"I want to make some changes to the budget," she announced, walking in. "I want to double the order of flowers. And hire the Philharmonic's string quartet. I want this to be the most talked-about party of the season."

It would be a night no one would ever forget. The grand finale of Mr. and Mrs. Damon Cooper. The prelude to his ruin.