“So you’re telling me there’s no way out of this?” Tristan looked to his friend, the irony of the situation not lost on either of them.

It had been two months since Claire had left, taking with her Tristan’s fortune—figuratively speaking.

“Basically, yes. There’s no way out. The board will convene today to vote, then the company will belong to Devin.”

“But I don’t understand. I mean, technically we’re still married.”

Ian shook his head. “You’re lucky you got away with this marriage farce for as long as you did. Cut your losses and be grateful.”

“Grateful? Did you say grateful?”

“Tristan—”

“What’s there to be grateful for? I was forced into a sham of a marriage, my make-believe wife walked out on me, and now I’m losing 36.5 billion dollars.”

“Point three,” Ian corrected.

Tristan shot him a scathing look.

“I know you have assets stashed away. Cash them. Take a trip down to Mexico. Let Devin worry about the company for a while.”

“Do you know what you’re saying?”

“I thought I did.”

“I’ve spent the past fifteen years of my life worrying about McFarland Manufacturing, and now you’re telling me to just forget it all and go drink mai tais on the beach?”

Ian pretended to think about it for a second. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

Ian shook his head.

“What about the private investigator? Hasn’t he turned up something? Anything?”

“Nada.”

“I don’t understand it. How could she just up and disappear?”

“Did it ever occur to you that she might not want to be found?”

Tristan rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “Regardless, the woman left me driving a hot pink Mercedes—which belonged to me I might add.”

“According to your pre-nup, the car rightfully belongs to her.”

Tristan ran agitated fingers through his hair. “How hard could it be to track down a fuchsia luxury import?”

“It’s over, Tristan. Let it go.”

“This town isn’t that big. How could he not find her?”

“This chapter of your life is closed,” Ian countered. “The best thing for you to do is get on with something else. Drinking mai tais seems like a pretty good idea to me.”

“And then what? Just wait for Claire to file for a divorce?”

Ian shrugged. “I don’t think you have much choice in the matter.”

Tristan sadly nodded in agreement. “That, my friend, has been the problem all along.”

Claire tied the paint-splattered laces of her walking shoes and headed out the door of her newly rented duplex.

It had been two months since she had left Tristan. Two months, one week, and four days. Not that she was counting. It was just that she had had two months, one week, and four days to discover that she still didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life.

She felt a little better, having struck out on her own. The first two weeks she had stayed with Cherry Holiday. Cherry had been sworn to such secrecy of Claire’s whereabouts that even her husband Jerry didn’t know that Claire was staying at their house. It helped that Congress was in session and Jerry was at the state capitol, but Claire felt bad at having her one and only friend deceive her husband. So, as much as it broke her heart, Claire sold the pink Mercedes that Tristan had given her and used the money to get on her feet.

She inhaled deeply, sucking in the muggy July air. Despite the record-breaking temperatures during the day, Claire found it relaxing to take an evening walk. Every day she headed off in a different direction, every day hoping that something would strike her. Something would speak to her and let her know where she should go from here.

She started off down the street, careful to walk facing the traffic. Not that there were many cars driving around in her neighborhood. So many of the residents in this part of town were college students who either walked or rode their bicycles to class every day.

Claire liked the unpretentious quality of her neighborhood. The houses were old with creaky screen doors and mellowed hardwood floors. The people were friendly and hard working. And if anyone recognized her, they never mentioned it. All in all, her life had settled into a definite pattern of tranquility, except for—of course—what exactly to do with it.

She had gotten a fair price for her car and didn’t have to go to work right away, but she had a yearning deep inside, a part of her that knew that she had more to offer. The frustrating part was that she didn’t know what it was. She tried to be patient where this longing was concerned, but it was hard. It became more difficult every day to distinguish between the yearning to make something of herself and the yearning she had for Tristan.

All right, she admitted to herself, her heart was broken in two solid pieces. She wasn’t sure if it would ever be the same again, but she had to face facts. Tristan never loved her, he never would. Facts were facts, no matter how badly they hurt.

Claire blew out a breath and turned the corner, striding down yet another new street on her never ending search.

If only, she thought to herself, knowing that if onlys were useless. If only she hadn’t married Tristan to start with, if only she had been smarter, not let her heart get involved. If only…

Nanie always said that everything happened for a reason, maybe that was why Claire had to marry Tristan, to show someone else a better way. Maybe someone else was learning from her mistakes right now.

If only he had shipped her out to Paris like he had planned to do. She could still be on the Riviera right now drinking pink daiquiris and soaking up the sun.

Claire lifted her face to the overcast sky. An early-season tropical depression had chased away the sun. That’s what she needed. Sunshine. Maybe she should go down to the coast. Or Florida.

She should. There was nothing keeping her here. No reason why she shouldn’t pack up all her things and head out toward tropical weather.

Devin leaned back in the big leather chair that had belonged to his uncle Dick and bit the end off his cigar. He didn’t light the foul thing, only chewed on it a bit the way his uncle had. Somehow the rolled tobacco leaves gave Devin a sense of power and prestige, a sense of having “made it.”

Never in his wildest dreams had he ever imagined that he would be running McFarland Manufacturing. Truthfully, when he was growing up, they barely let him in the doors. Now it was his—all his.

Sure, he had to get married to a woman he didn’t know and had to strong arm his brother for control, but the end justifies the means and all’s fair and a dozen other sayings that ruthless businessmen had invented to help them sleep at night.

A flash at the door caught Devin’s attention, and he looked up as his brother passed by in the hallway.

“Tristan,” he called.

Tristan stopped, seemed to hesitate, then entered carrying a cardboard box filled with miscellaneous office supplies. “Yeah?”

“You leaving?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

Devin felt a stab of sympathy for his brother. Never in all their years together had he felt sorry for Tristan. Tristan had always gotten everything, or at least that’s how it seemed to Devin. It was Tristan who won all the baseball and track trophies, Tristan who took first place at the science fair, and Tristan who Aunt Patricia always favored.

In his entire life, the words that Devin recalled being said the most were, “Why can’t you be more like your brother Tristan?”

“You don’t have to, you know.”

Tristan just stared at him.

“Leave, I mean. You don’t. Have to leave. You can stay and—”

“No. Ian seems to think I need to be drinking mai tais.”

“Is that what you want to do?”

Tristan shrugged. “I had one last night. It wasn’t bad.”

“If you change your mind—”

Tristan shook his head. “I won’t.” He started toward the door but paused before exiting. Slowly, he turned back to face Devin. “She’s all yours now. Enjoy.”

Devin sat for a long time and stared at the spot where his brother had been, for some reason feeling lonelier than he ever had in his life.

“This is your office.”

Esperanza winced at her husband’s over-loud tone. For some reason he insisted on yelling every single syllable at her as if volume alone would better help her understand. As it was, she could comprehend most of what he was saying, thanks to Javier and Claire.

Espie bit back a sigh. She missed Claire. She hoped that her newfound friend was doing fine and wished that she would call, even though she knew it wasn’t going to happen. If Claire called, then Tristan would find out where she was and force her to come back to the McFarland mansion. Claire wasn’t going to call.

“This is where you’ll do all of your work,” Devin continued. “You know, designing.” He made a motion like he was writing on an invisible sheet of paper.

Esperanza just nodded. She couldn’t believe that they wanted her—her—to design clothing for a world famous label such as McFarland. The very thought made her nervous. What if she couldn’t do it? What if she actually drew some designs of her own instead of sprucing up the work of others and they hated them?

What if…?

“Esperanza.”

She jerked out of her almost trance-like state and stared wide-eyed at her husband.

“Will you be comfortable here?”

“Com-fort-ta-ble?” She supposed so. “Y-yes,” she stammered.

Devin nodded. “Good,” he said. Then added under his breath in a voice that was almost unintelligible, “because I really don’t need any more problems.”

Esperanza watched her husband leave what was now her office. She felt sorry for him. He was under a lot of pressure, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell him the truth. Not that she didn’t have the English words to do so, but Tristan hadn’t left the country as everyone had speculated. She knew because she saw the lonely yellow glow of a lamp seeping from under his bedroom door each night.

Tristan hadn’t gone to Cancun like he claimed was his plan. He had gone into mourning for his lost love. Espie knew that Tristan would never admit to his love for Claire. He had too much pride, but she could see it as plain as the nose on his face. She had a talent for such things. She only wished that one day soon, she could make her husband look at her the same way. Then she would be comfortable. No, that wasn’t the word. Happy. Yes, that was it. Then and only then would she be happy.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.    

A MILLION TO ONE

Copyright 2023 by Amy Lillard 

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.    

They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.  

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

previously published as All You Need Is Love copyright 2013 by Amy Lillard

significant changes have been made to the original manuscript resulting in new copyright status