Part 1Farewell To My Cold Wife

The Kensington family’s monthly Sunday dinners were strictly closed-door affairs. No outsiders. Ever.

Yet, Victoria’s junior assistant had somehow made the guest list, month after month.

In the past, he just sat there, playing the quiet background character. I swallowed my pride and endured it. But tonight, my five-year-old daughter, Mia, bypassed me entirely and handed the private chef’s menu directly to him, asking what hewanted to eat.

In that split second, the illusion shattered. I just felt an overwhelming, bone-deep exhaustion.

The moment we got home, I dropped the divorce papers on the kitchen island in front of Victoria.

She stared at the pristine white pages, a cold, mocking smile twisting her lips. "All this because Spencer picked an appetizer? Are you out of your mind?"

"Yes," I said. "Sign it."

* * *

"Nathaniel, if you’re absolutely determined to throw a tantrum, can we at least schedule it?" Victoria leaned heavily against the back of the leather sofa, her eyes shut, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Can you wait until I get home from the office tomorrow night? I am suffocating under deadlines right now."

Spencer stood near the foyer, clutching a stack of legal folders. His posture was perfectly neutral—neither submissive nor arrogant. Outside, the engine of the Maybach hummed a low, expensive purr in the driveway. The housekeepers huddled in the adjacent dining room, wiping down spotless surfaces, their eyes strictly averted.

Everything in the Kensington estate ran with immaculate, clockwork precision. Everything except me, standing in front of my wife, bristling like a cornered animal.

After a long, suffocating silence, Victoria finally opened her eyes and looked at me.

"Just let me off the hook for tonight. Please, Nathaniel."

The moment the words left her mouth, I heard a faint, barely disguised scoff from the dining room.

I knew the staff looked down on me. I’d given them plenty of ammunition over the years, constantly picking fights with Victoria over trivial details, desperate to prove I still held some weight in her heart. Now, her weary, condescending retreat only made me look like an unreasonable lunatic.

A surge of nameless anger ignited in my chest. I snatched the duplicate copy of the divorce agreement and slammed it back down in front of her.

"No. Sign it right now."

Victoria looked up at me, a storm of complicated emotions rolling in her eyes. She looked genuinely worn down by my aggression.

"Nathaniel. If you’re this humiliated over the menu thing, I give you my word, it won't happen again. Mia hurt your feelings tonight. When she wakes up tomorrow, I will personally march her down here to apologize to you. Will that satisfy you?"

Victoria Kensington never compromised. But just seconds before, I had caught the subtle, pleading glance Spencer shot her. Only then did her tone soften.

I let out a harsh, hollow laugh, a chilling sadness pooling in my gut. My brilliant, high-and-mighty wife, bending so easily to the unspoken cues of a twenty-something assistant.

Victoria and I grew up together. We were supposed to be the perfect match—two old-money families merging. I had loved her for as long as I could remember, but her heart had always belonged to someone else.

Eventually, she caved to the ruthless pressure of the Kensington patriarchs and married me. Her first love, devastated, fled to the States.

But timing is a cruel joke. Barely a month after our wedding, my parents died in a sudden accident, leaving my family’s empire in ruins. I was orphaned and stripped of my leverage. The Kensingtons had wanted a powerful alliance to solidify their absolute control over the East Coast markets. Instead, they got a bankrupt dependent.

They despised me for it.

It took three years of marriage—and the successful conception of our daughter, Mia—before I was even allowed to attend their sacred monthly dinners. And even with my "ticket" in, I was treated like a glorified servant, expected to pour the wine and swallow their veiled insults.

I took it. I took it because I loved Victoria. I chose the humiliation. I chose to endure.

I thought things would change when Mia was born. But as my daughter grew, she absorbed the venom of the Kensington household. She watched how they treated me, and she learned. Today, she had personally handed the menu to another man. A man who was blatantly gunning for my place in this family.

I would never forget the night I drank myself into a bleeding ulcer at a networking gala, desperately trying to secure a contract for Victoria's company. When I got home, clutching my stomach, I just asked her to order me something bland to eat.

Her relatives had been visiting. They laughed in my face. They tore into my deceased parents, calling me a pathetic freeloader with no upbringing.

Victoria had watched the whole thing. She didn't say a word to defend me. She just told me to bear it. But the second I tried to stand up for myself, she joined them, picking apart my tone, my posture, my 'inappropriate' timing.

I had revised this divorce agreement over and over.

Disappointment isn't a sudden explosion. It’s a slow accumulation.

Tonight, the jar was finally full.

I uncapped the fountain pen, signed my name at the bottom of the page, and shoved the heavy brass barrel into Victoria's hand.

"Save the speech. Sign."