The moment I stepped into the hotel suite, a large hand caught me around the waist and pinned me against the wall. His body pressed flush against mine, tall and solid, and his mouth sealed over mine before I could breathe.

He was shirtless. His heat poured straight through the thin fabric of my blouse. I couldn't catch a breath.

He caught my hands and pressed them to his chest. Under my palms I could feel his heartbeat, the cut lines of muscle, and whatever was left of my resolve went out from under me.

Ethan Harrington. International supermodel. And, for the last year, the man I'd been sleeping with behind my husband's back.

A long, lean build, a knife-edge V, eight-pack abs, a face that sold magazine covers. He had everything a man could possibly have, and then some. I couldn't really blame myself for losing my head.

We came from the same orphanage. We'd known each other since we were small.

The woman who'd switched me out of the Ashford family hadn't fared well afterward, so she did the simplest thing. She dumped me on the steps of Saint Clare's Home for Children.

Back then I was still a small child who clung instinctively to the idea of a mother, and I used to cry myself to sleep at night.

Ethan, also small, would pat my shoulder with clumsy hands and tell me that if I missed home so much, I could just pretend he was my mother.

We'd even made a promise once: we'd stay with each other forever. We'd never be apart.

And then he was adopted, and not long after, the Ashfords came and took me back, and we lost each other just like that.

Until last year, at a runway show, when he spotted me in the audience. The moment the show ended, he came straight over. His first line to me had been:

"That man doesn't deserve you. Be with me. I'll be your secret. I don't care if no one ever knows."

A rough kiss pulled me out of the memory. In the blur of it, Ethan leaned down to my ear, voice gone husky.

"Baby. When are you divorcing him? When do I get to replace him?"

I thought of what Lucas had said this morning and paused.

"Soon," I said. "Within the week, I think."

It was already the next morning when I got home. I pushed the door open and found Lucas sitting on the couch, clearly waiting for someone.

"Where were you last night?" His voice came at my back, sharp.

I didn't bother to answer. I kicked off my shoes and headed for the stairs.

"Ivy. I'm asking you a question."

Lucas's eyes swept over me, from head to foot, and landed on the side of my neck.

On my pale, clean throat was a mark that hadn't been there yesterday. A kiss mark, dark and unmistakable, still fresh.

Something flickered behind Lucas's eyes. Without a word, he lifted a hand and ran his fingers over the mark.

A sting flared along my neck. I smacked his hand away.

"Christ, Lucas, it's barely seven in the morning. What's your problem?"

"Out all night. And then you walk in here wearing that."

"Ivy. As your husband, I think I'm entitled to an explanation."

I looked at him like I'd heard a joke.

"Husband? Are you serious right now, Lucas?"

"Tell me one thing in this marriage that looks like a marriage."

"And as for being out all night," I shrugged, deliberately casual. "I don't mind telling you. I'm sleeping with someone."

"Sleeping with someone?" He repeated it low, as if he wanted to grind the words between his teeth.

I met his eyes without flinching. "That's right. You get to spend your life pining after Seraphina, and I'm not allowed to go find love of my own? Seraphina's back. Sign the divorce papers. Clear the way."

I pulled the folder out of my bag and tossed it at him. It hit him in the chest.

I'd drafted the papers on the drive home. I was done. I didn't want to spend one more minute inside this ridiculous marriage.

If it hadn't been for Edmund Sterling, we would never have ended up here. Lucas had wanted one Mrs. Sterling, and it was never me.

I'll admit it. I used to be pathetic where he was concerned.

All it had taken was the handkerchief he'd once handed me when I was hurt, and I'd carved the name Lucas Sterling into my head.

Unlike the rest of them, he hadn't mocked me. He'd always been mild with me, polite, and when he happened to cross paths with me he'd ask after how I was doing.

He was the only one who'd remember, on Seraphina's birthday, to have something set aside for me too.

In a house of cold eyes and casual cruelty, those small gestures of his had felt like real kindness. I'd been grateful for them.

So when the Sterling family went bankrupt, I pulled out everything I'd saved.

I sat up with his sick grandfather when Lucas was burned out and stretched thin. I joined that ragtag company of his when they couldn't even afford a decent office, went to the work dinners he couldn't stomach, and drank myself into a bleeding ulcer so he wouldn't have to.

Edmund Sterling's one dying wish was that the two of us would end up together. Lucas honored it.

It was also the day Seraphina left the country.

On our wedding day Lucas got blind drunk. He didn't even finish his vows before he walked out of the ceremony.

That was the day I learned that there was only ever one woman in his heart, and it wasn't me.

He said I'd cashed in his gratitude to trap him. He said I'd been the reason Seraphina's condition had flared up again, that I was the reason she and the man she loved would never be together.

So Lucas made sure I didn't get to be happy either.

Every divorce filing I submitted, he killed. Every job opportunity that came my way somehow fell apart. No freedom. No social life.

He wanted me to sit inside this hollow marriage he'd been cornered into for the rest of my life. He wanted me stuck there. Forever.