His lawyer leaned in and whispered five words. Just five. And Vincent’s face—smug, self-satisfied, the same face I’d stared at across the breakfast table for fifteen years—went completely white. His hands started trembling. The papers he’d been so eager to sign shook like leaves in a storm.
And me?
For the first time in three years, I smiled.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Let me start from the beginning, because you need to understand how we got here—how a woman everyone thought had lost her mind actually played the longest, most patient game of her life.
My name is Alexis Dunst. I’m thirty-four. Until three months ago, I was married to Vincent Mercer.
Fifteen years.
That’s longer than most celebrity marriages, longer than some tech startups survive, and definitely longer than my patience should’ve lasted. But I’m a stubborn woman. I get it from my grandmother. She was the kind of woman who buttered toast like she was laying bricks—slow, steady, no wasted motion.
I met Vincent when I was seventeen.
I’d graduated high school early. Not because I was some genius—because I was practical, motivated, and really, really wanted out of my parents’ house. I got a job at Henderson & Price Law Firm as a file clerk.
Minimum wage. Maximum paper cuts.
But it was mine.
By eighteen, I was a legal assistant. I was good with details, good with numbers, good with keeping my mouth shut and my eyes open. The kind of person who notices what other people miss because everyone assumes you’re “just the assistant.”
Vincent was twenty-four when we met at a client event.
He was charming and ambitious and talked about the future like it was already his—like success was just waiting for him to show up and claim it. He said he was going to build a real estate empire. I said I’d help him file the paperwork.
Romance, right?
We got married when I was nineteen. Tyler came along when I was twenty. I kept working part-time while raising our son, building my 401(k), saving every spare dollar because my grandmother’s voice lived in my bones.
“A woman should have her own money,” she used to say.
Not secret money, she’d clarify. Just her own. Something nobody could take.
At twenty-three, Vincent’s business finally took off. He asked me to quit the law firm and help him full-time—manage books, handle clients, coordinate contractors. He needed someone he could trust completely.
So I became his unpaid everything.
Bookkeeper. Office manager. Client liaison. Interior decorator for model homes. Marketing coordinator. Event planner. Contractor translator. Crisis manager. Calendar keeper. Dentist appointment scheduler. I did it all while raising Tyler and keeping our household from tipping into chaos.
My official title was wife.
My unofficial title was the reason he looked competent.
For eleven years, I poured myself into building Vincent’s dream.
And for eleven years, he got the credit.
At industry events, I was “Vincent’s wife.” At celebrations, he thanked his team, his mentors, his vision… and somehow never quite got around to thanking me.
Somewhere along the way, he started making decisions without consulting me. Staying “late at work” more often. Criticizing little things—the way I dressed, the meals I cooked, my lack of ambition.
My lack of ambition.
I was running his entire back office for free while raising his son and keeping his life organized, but sure. Not ambitious enough.
Then three months ago, he dropped the bomb like he was placing an order at a restaurant.
It was a Tuesday. I was making dinner—his favorite, because apparently I’m a glutton for unappreciated effort.
Vincent sat me down at the kitchen table with a look on his face that wasn’t sad or apologetic.
It was business-like.
“I want a divorce,” he said.
And then, without taking a breath—
“I want the house, the cars, the business, everything. You can keep Tyler.”
He said keep Tyler like our fifteen-year-old son was leftover pizza. Like he was an inconvenience he was graciously leaving me to deal with.
I stared at him. Fifteen years of marriage and this was how it ended—at our kitchen table between the salt shaker and the butter dish—like I was just another item he was discarding.
What I didn’t know in that moment—what I wouldn’t find out until later—was that Vincent had been planning this for months. He already had a lawyer. Harold Whitfield. Expensive and experienced. Vincent had been building his exit strategy while I was meal-prepping and scheduling his dentist appointments.
I was blindsided by a man I’d trusted with everything.
The next day, his mother showed up.
Lorraine Mercer. A woman who had treated me like hired help for fifteen years arrived with perfectly styled hair and her perfectly practiced sympathy face. She patted my hand like I was a dog that had gotten hit by a car.
“You should’ve tried harder to keep him happy,” she said.
“Men have needs, dear.”
Lorraine’s marriage advice was always fascinating considering her own husband spent seven days a week on the golf course specifically to avoid being in the same room as her.
But sure. I was the problem.
That first week, everything moved fast.
Vincent moved me into the guest room. He started proposing settlement terms. He began taking over accounts. The message was clear: This isn’t your house anymore.
Within two weeks, he started bringing her around.
Brittney Sawyer. Twenty-seven. Worked at his company. Of course she did.
She walked into my kitchen like she owned it. She wore my apron—my grandmother’s apron—while making smoothies in my blender. She had blonde highlights, perfect nails, yoga pants that cost more than my groceries.
Vincent paraded her like a trophy. They sat on my couch, watched my television, ate off my plates. He put his arm around her right in front of me like I was furniture—like I’d already disappeared.
The humiliation escalated daily.
First he canceled my personal credit card. “We need to separate finances,” he said like he was being reasonable.
Then the joint card.
Then he suggested I should “probably find somewhere else to stay” while we “sorted things out.”
My own home. And I was being asked to leave.
Lorraine came over to “help” me pack.
By help, I mean she went through my belongings and decided what I deserved to keep.
Old clothes? Fine.
Family photos? Some.
My grandmother’s recipe box? She hesitated on that one like she was considering claiming it for herself.
What I was not allowed to take:
Any jewelry Vincent had bought me. Any furniture I’d picked out. Anything of value.
“Those are marital assets,” Lorraine explained. “Vincent is entitled to them.”
She packed my things in garbage bags.
Not boxes.
Garbage bags.
Like I was trash being taken out.
Through all of this, I had one person I thought I could trust.
Diane Holloway.
My best friend since high school. Twenty years of friendship through boyfriends, breakups, babies, everything. She was the first person I called after Vincent’s announcement.
She was supportive. Always checking in. Always ready to listen. She came over with wine and let me cry on her shoulder. She told me I deserved better.
But something felt off.
Little things.
Vincent seemed to know my plans before I made them. If I told Diane I was thinking about fighting for the house, Tyler came home the next day saying Dad told him it wouldn’t work.
If I told Diane I was looking at apartments in a certain neighborhood, Vincent made a comment about that exact area being too expensive for me.
Then it clicked.
I should’ve seen it years ago.
The way Diane lit up when Vincent walked into a room. The way she laughed too hard at his jokes. The way she always asked about him first.
“How’s Vincent?”
“How’s the business?”
“Is Vincent happy?”
She’d been carrying a torch for my husband for fifteen years.
And Vincent, because he collected admirers like some people collect stamps, knew exactly how to use it. He made her feel special. Important. Not like other women.
He probably implied they’d get together after the divorce—gave her just enough hope to keep her loyal.
My best friend was his spy.
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