My family had never wanted me to marry him.

My father had said, to my face, that Spencer loved the access and the credibility of the Sinclair name a great deal more than he loved me.

Back then I had defended him with everything I had.

I pulled away from my parents.

I married him in a quiet civil ceremony with no wedding at all, because he insisted he had to make his own name inside Halstead Global before he could stand beside mine.

And now, years later, he was punishing me — for the crime of speaking to my own mother again.