Tricked the Billionaire into Divorcing Me

Caitlin bypassed the kitchen entirely and walked straight into the formal living room.

The room was vast and quiet, dominated by a massive stone fireplace. In the corner closet sat a heavy wooden chest that had carried her few personal belongings when she first married into the Owen family six years ago.

She pulled the chest into the center of the room and lifted the latch.

On top lay their leather-bound wedding album. She opened the cover to the full-page portrait of their ceremony at St. Bartholomew's. In the picture, she was twenty-two, looking at Greyson with absolute trust.

Caitlin took the edge of the heavy glossy page and ripped it straight down the spine.

She tossed the torn photograph into the cold grate of the fireplace.

Page by page, she systematically tore the entire album apart. Next came the handwritten notes from their first year of courtship, the stub from their first symphony concert at Carnegie Hall, and the dried boutonniere from their first charity gala. She dropped them all into the hearth.

Martha appeared in the doorway, her eyes widening in horror as she saw the pile accumulating in the fireplace.

"Mrs. Owen... what are you doing?"

Caitlin did not answer. She reached to the very bottom of the chest and pulled out her wedding gown—a custom Italian silk creation encrusted with thousands of hand-stitched seed pearls.

She held the heavy silk in her arms. Six years ago, she had believed this dress was the start of a shared life. Now, the heavy fabric only weighed her down.

Caitlin struck a long wooden match against the stone mantle. She touched the flame to the corner of an old anniversary card and dropped it onto the pile of torn paper.

The fire caught instantly, licking up through the glossy sheets.

Caitlin bundled the yards of expensive silk and shoved the wedding gown directly into the flames. The delicate fabric crackled, blackening and curling under the intense heat as the pearls clicked against the cast-iron grate.

Martha gasped and stepped backward, but when she saw the unyielding expression on Caitlin's pale face, the older woman lowered her head. Without a word, Martha pulled the heavy pocket doors shut, sealing the living room off from the rest of the house.

Caitlin watched the dress burn until the bodice collapsed into gray ash.

She stood up and walked down the hall into Greyson's private study.

On his mahogany desk lay a towering stack of urgent cross-border acquisition documents. Greyson had an international video conference scheduled with his European partners in two hours; he had to sign and wire the entire package before the Frankfurt markets opened.

Caitlin walked around the desk. She pulled out the finalized, legally binding divorce settlement Chloe had emailed her that morning, freshly printed on identical legal-weight bond paper.

She flipped to page forty-eight of the massive acquisition packet, right behind a dense fifty-page financial disclosure annex, and slipped the five-page divorce decree into the middle of the stack.

The signature block aligned perfectly with the standard corporate authorization lines.

She stepped out of the study and returned to her private guest quarters down the hall.

Her single carry-on suitcase was already packed. It contained three changes of simple clothing, her legal identification, and the only item left from her late mother—a vintage steel tuning fork.

Caitlin slid the four-carat diamond eternity band off her left ring finger.

She walked back to the living room, where the fireplace was now glowing with dying embers. She set the heavy platinum ring on the charred remains of the wedding album's leather cover.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket.

Chloe: I'm at the front gate.

From the top of the stairs, Greyson's voice boomed down through the foyer, thick with irritation.

"Caitlin! Where the hell is that tea? Did you drop dead down there?"

Caitlin didn't flinch. She picked up her suitcase, walked to the front door, and pulled it open.

A bright red Porsche 911 was idling at the bottom of the front steps. Chloe stepped out of the driver's side in an impeccably tailored camel coat, opening her arms.

"There's my girl," Chloe said as Caitlin reached the driveway. "Welcome back to the real world."

Caitlin slid into the passenger seat, setting her small suitcase in the back. Chloe hit the accelerator, and the sports car surged past the iron gates, leaving the Owen estate behind in a blur of autumn leaves.

"Where are we heading first?" Caitlin asked, leaning her head against the cool leather headrest.

"My place in Tribeca," Chloe said, keeping her eyes on the road. "You rest today. Tomorrow, we start dismantling his empire. Did you get the papers into his workflow?"

"Yes," Caitlin said, looking out at the Manhattan skyline rising in the distance. "He's too arrogant to read anything he considers routine. He'll sign it."

Chloe grinned sharply.

"Good. But you know you're entitled to half his personal assets under New York law. We can take him for at least fifty million."

"I'll take what is mine," Caitlin replied quietly. "This is just the beginning."