I set down my glass, opening the box with deliberate slowness. Inside lay a bold, gold necklace in the shape of a leopard—wild, aggressive and completely not my style. I glanced at it, unimpressed and closed the lid with a snap, pushing the box aside.

Zane shrugged out of his jacket, tossing it over the back of a chair. "What, you don't like it?" he asked, his tone casual, as if he'd brought me a bouquet of daisies and not a gaudy piece of jewelry worth thousands.

I met his gaze, my voice steady. "You know I don't like flashy designs like that. And it looks like a snake. I hate snakes."

Zane raised an eyebrow, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "A snake? It's a leopard. How can you confuse the two?"

I rolled my eyes, pushing the box toward him. "This wasn't even your choice, was it? Maeve picked it out, didn't she?"

Maeve Davenport was my husband's secretary and also his childhood sweetheart. The same woman who gave him a bouquet of bright red roses at the company's banquet.

His smirk faded and he averted his gaze, pretending to yawn. "She helped," he admitted, shrugging. "You know I don't understand these things."

Anger flared in my chest, but I kept my voice controlled. "You wash up and change on your own. I'm going to bed."

Zane's temper snapped, his voice rising. "Amy, seriously? You're giving me attitude over this?"

Without a word, I stood and walked to the bedroom, slamming the door behind me and locking it. Through the door, I could hear him muttering angrily. "Crazy woman!"

I collapsed onto the bed, my mind spinning. How had it come to this? Zane and I hadn't always been like this. Our relationship had started with a whirlwind of drama, but there had been moments of sweetness, moments when I thought I meant something to him.

I remembered the day we first crossed paths, when he was the golden boy of our university and I was just the girl helping her mom sell cotton candy after classes. It was a typical Friday and I watched from behind our little stall as Zane emerged from the campus gates, surrounded by a gaggle of adoring girls. He was handsome, rich and completely out of my league. Yet, despite the attention, he never seemed interested in any of the girls who fawned over him.

That day, one of them, a pretty girl with perfect curls, pointed at our stall and grinned. "Zane, I want the most expensive cotton candy. Buy it for me!"