Chapter 3 - The Woman He Never Knew
By eight the next morning, Luke had summoned his attorney.
By eight fifteen, he had dismissed him.
“You want me to challenge the filing?” attorney Charles Beck asked.
“No.”
Charles stared.
Luke Morgan had contested parking tickets on principle.
“You're agreeing to the divorce?”
“I said I'm not challenging the filing.”
“That isn't the same thing.”
“No.”
Luke stood at his office window.
Chicago stretched below him beneath gray September clouds.
“Find out what she wants.”
“Her attorney already sent preliminary terms.”
“And?”
Charles opened his folder.
Then paused.
“This is unusual.”
Luke turned.
“What?”
“She wants almost nothing.”
Sophia wanted ownership of her company, her personal savings, several paintings inherited from her grandmother, and the restored townhouse she had purchased before their marriage.
Nothing from Luke's businesses.
Nothing from the estate.
Nothing from the investment accounts established after their wedding.
Nothing from the Morgan family holdings.
Charles lowered the papers.
“She could make substantial claims.”
“I know.”
“She isn't.”
“I can read.”
Charles hesitated.
“Luke, this doesn't look like leverage.”
Luke's jaw tightened.
“No.”
It looked like an exit.
That was worse.
Meanwhile, Sophia walked into Bennett & Rowe Design at nine sharp.
Her employees stared.
Not because she had returned.
Because she had returned without the wedding ring everyone had seen on her hand for three years.
Her business partner, Jonah Reed, intercepted her before she reached her office.
“Tell me you didn't come here to work.”
“I came here to work.”
“You filed for divorce yesterday.”
Sophia stopped.
“How do you know?”
“Maya called.”
“Traitor.”
“She thought someone should make sure you eat.”
Sophia managed a smile.
Jonah handed her a breakfast sandwich.
“You hired him?”
“I married him.”
“Same problem. Bad background check.”
That made her laugh.
For three minutes, Sophia felt like herself again.
Not Mrs. Luke Morgan.
Sophia Bennett.
Designer.
Business owner.
Woman who once survived on instant noodles while pitching hotel renovations from a secondhand laptop.
At noon, the receptionist called.
“There is someone here to see you.”
“If it's Luke—”
“It isn't.”
Sophia stepped into reception.
Vanessa Russell stood there.
Sophia's stomach tightened.
Vanessa wore cream trousers and a camel coat, looking effortlessly polished.
“I won't stay long.”
“You shouldn't stay at all.”
“I came because Luke won't listen to me.”
Sophia almost smiled.
“How terrible for you.”
Vanessa absorbed the insult.
“He threw me out last night.”
That surprised Sophia.
“He what?”
“He told me staying at his house was inappropriate.”
Something uncomfortable shifted inside Sophia.
Vanessa continued.
“You've misunderstood us.”
“Have I?”
“Luke and I have history. But history isn't a relationship.”
“He lights up around you.”
Vanessa's expression changed.
“Do you know why?”
Sophia remained silent.
“Because I'm easy.”
Sophia blinked.
Vanessa gave a humorless laugh.
“I don't mean sexually. I mean emotionally. I remind him of being seventeen, before his father died, before everything became his responsibility.”
She stepped closer.
“You make him think about the future.”
Sophia instinctively touched her stomach before catching herself.
Vanessa noticed.
Her eyes dropped.
The silence changed.
Sophia's hand fell.
Vanessa looked back at her face.
“Oh.”
“Don't.”
“You're pregnant.”
“Vanessa.”
“I won't tell him.”
Sophia stared.
“Why would I trust you?”
“You shouldn't.”
Vanessa's voice softened.
“But I'm still not going to tell him.”
For the first time, Sophia saw something other than the elegant rival everyone had constructed in her mind.
A tired woman.
Vanessa looked toward the office windows.
“My mother and Isabella planned our lives before we were old enough to understand what marriage was. Luke and I tried dating when we were twenty-one.”
Sophia's chest tightened.
“He ended it.”
“Why?”
“He said he loved me like family.”
Vanessa smiled faintly.
“I hated him for about six months.”
“Then why does Isabella still want you together?”
“Because Isabella believes familiarity is safety.”
Vanessa looked at Sophia.
“Luke didn't marry me, Sophia. He married you.”
“Marriage isn't the same as love.”
“No.”
Vanessa's eyes became unexpectedly sad.
“But I think your husband loves you so much that he became terrified of needing you.”
Sophia laughed bitterly.
“That's convenient.”
“It isn't an excuse.”
Vanessa headed toward the door.
Then stopped.
“One more thing.”
Sophia waited.
“Last night Luke asked his sister if you were sick.”
Sophia's face drained.
“Elena didn't tell him anything.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Luke came home afterward looking like a man waiting for someone to tell him whether his wife was dying.”
Vanessa opened the door.
“For whatever it's worth, Sophia, I've never seen him look at me the way he looks at you when you aren't watching.”
Then she left.
Sophia stood motionless.
At four that afternoon, another surprise arrived.
A courier delivered a box.
Inside was Sophia's old sketchbook.
She recognized it instantly.
Luke had found it during their first year of marriage after she thought she had lost it.
Beneath it lay a note.
You forgot this.
Nothing else.
No demand.
No threat.
No “come home.”
Sophia opened the sketchbook.
A photograph slipped out.
Their wedding day.
Luke wasn't looking at the camera.
He was looking at her.
She sat down hard.
Her phone rang.
Maya.
“We have a development.”
“What?”
“Luke signed the temporary separation agreement.”
Sophia blinked.
“Already?”
“He didn't negotiate a single condition.”
That made no sense.
Luke negotiated everything.
“There's more,” Maya said.
“He has requested one meeting.”
“No.”
“He anticipated that.”
Sophia almost smiled despite herself.
“Of course he did.”
“So he gave me a message.”
Sophia waited.
Maya read it.
“Tell Sophia I won't ask where she went or why she left. I want twenty minutes to apologize. If she still wants the divorce after that, I will sign whatever she needs.”
Sophia's throat tightened.
“What did you tell him?”
“That it was your decision.”
Silence.
Then Sophia's baby moved again.
Stronger this time.
She pressed her palm against the movement.
Twenty minutes.
Three years of marriage deserved at least twenty minutes.
“Set it up.”
That evening, Luke received confirmation.
Friday.
Two p.m.
Maya Collins's office.
Twenty minutes.
He stared at the message.
Then his security chief entered.
“Boss.”
Luke looked up.
“What?”
“We found something you need to see.”
A tablet was placed on his desk.
Security footage from the Morgan estate.
Timestamped three weeks earlier.
Sophia was descending the staircase when she suddenly grabbed the railing.
She doubled over.
A housekeeper rushed toward her.
Sophia shook her head, straightened slowly, and continued walking.
Luke watched again.
Then again.
His gaze dropped to the date.
Three weeks.
He remembered that night.
Sophia had asked him to come home early.
He had told her he was busy.
Luke's hand tightened around the tablet.
“What happened afterward?”
“The housekeeper said Mrs. Morgan claimed she was fine.”
Luke looked at the frozen image of his wife clutching the railing.
Something had been wrong long before she left.
And he had never noticed.
Then his security chief said quietly:
“There's another recording.”
May you like
Luke looked up.
“This one involves your mother.”
