Ripping Off the Apron

A sharp pain lanced through my chest.

I stared hard at the man in front of me. "Do you really feel that much for her?"

Finn didn’t answer. Instead, he pressed the back of my head harder, his kiss turning fiercer.

His fingers dug into my hair, like he wanted to crush me into his very bones, to swallow me whole.

His hot breath fanned my face.

The car door behind me was locked.

I had nowhere to go.

I could only close my eyes and endure an intimacy that wasn't meant for me.

When our lips finally parted, he whispered by my ear, still lost in a drunken fog.

"...Don't leave me."

I slowly closed my eyes. After a long silence, I took a document out of my bag and held it in front of him.

"If you really don't want me to leave, then sign this."

Finn looked at me with those blurry, drunken eyes.

I knew he was looking through me, seeing someone else.

But in the end, he signed his name on the paper.

"Once the divorce is finalized in a month, Finn, we’ll both be free."

I gave a sarcastic little laugh, staring at the signed divorce agreement in my hand, my mind a whirl of thoughts.

The moonlight spilled gently into the car, and suddenly I remembered the first time I met Finn.

It was in the Harvard Law library.

I’d just published a pretty controversial article in the Harvard Law Review, and a bunch of academic types were ganging up on me.

One of them even grabbed my wrist, hard.

Just when I felt like I was suffocating, a hand shot out and clamped down on that guy’s wrist, so tight I almost heard a bone crack.

"Starting a fight in the library? You trying to get expelled?"

A low, cold voice, sharp as a razor, cut through the air.

I looked up and met a pair of dark, intense eyes.

My heart gave a little flutter.

Later, I found out the man who’d stepped in was none other than my unseen rival.

Finn Cross.

From then on, I started making frequent "business trips" to New York.

I saw him in court, leaving Wall Street lawyers speechless.

I watched him smoke by the floor-to-ceiling windows of skyscrapers, a king surveying his domain.

I even started showing up at the private clubs he went to, but he never recognized me.

Until that night, I found Finn at a whiskey bar, completely wasted.

He gripped my wrist, his voice hoarse, "Why do you have to leave?"

I didn't understand what he meant, but before I could think, his lips were on mine.

That night, our skin touched, our breaths mingled.

His hands roamed over my body, setting every inch of me on fire.

The next morning, he woke up.

He stared at me, naked beside him, and the clothes scattered everywhere, for a long, silent moment.

"Let's get married. I'll take responsibility."

After a pause, I nodded.

Then I turned around and resigned as a partner at my firm.

I hid my identity as "Vicky," the legal eagle, and married him.

After we got married, he was always cold, rarely came home, and never shared my bed again.

The fire of that night felt like a dream I’d made up.

I thought it was just his nature, and I hoped I could warm his heart with gentleness.

Until one day, I found that photo in his study.

A girl in a red dress, standing by the Charles River in Cambridge, her smile so bright it stung my eyes.

The words on the back stabbed me like a knife:

"Since I can't marry you, it doesn't matter who I marry."

Later, I learned she was his first love, a famous ballet dancer.

Elena Rose.

After graduation, Elena chose to study in Europe and broke up with him.

All these years, he still couldn't forget her.

The reason he’d gotten so drunk that night was because he’d heard Elena had a new European boyfriend.

During our three years of marriage, I saw him toss the scarf I knitted for him into a corner.

I saw him throw the birthday present I’d carefully picked out into the junk room.

And I saw him, after hearing Elena was coming back to the country, dump me on the side of the road during an attack of acute gastroenteritis.

As I was collapsing, he told me to call my own ambulance before peeling out to rush to the airport to pick her up.

In that moment, my heart completely died.

I wasn't so desperate that I had to chase a man who wasn't mine.

Especially when his heart already belonged to someone else.

If that's the case, why not become Vicky again and let him and Elena finally be together?

After putting the divorce agreement in my bag, I drove back to Mount Pleasant.

After getting Finn into the master bedroom, I started packing, working through the night.

The next morning, Finn woke up, sober, and the first thing he saw was luggage everywhere.

He frowned slightly, his voice cool as he asked, "What are you doing?"