Chapter 1 — One Dollar

At 2:17 on a Thursday morning, Daniel Mercer learned that the wife he had valued at one dollar had just become one of the most expensive living artists in America.

He was alone in the glass-walled living room of his downtown Manhattan apartment when the headline appeared on his phone.

UNKNOWN AMERICAN PAINTER SHATTERS RECORD WITH $48 MILLION SALE

Daniel almost scrolled past it. Art had always bored him unless someone important was watching him buy it. He understood price, reputation, and the strategic value of hanging the correct name behind his desk.

He did not understand why anyone would stand in front of a canvas and cry.

Then the artist’s name appeared beneath the photograph.

Evelyn Cross.

His wife.

For the next several seconds, Daniel forgot how to breathe. He refreshed the page once. Then twice. Then six times. The number stayed the same. $48,000,000.

Three days earlier, Daniel had joked to his fiancée, Lauren Beck, that Evelyn’s entire collection might fetch enough to pay for a taxi out of the courthouse.

Three days from now, he and Evelyn were scheduled to appear before a judge for the final hearing that would end their seventeen-year marriage. And buried on page forty-two of the settlement agreement was a line Daniel himself had demanded.

All original artworks created by Evelyn Cross during the marriage shall be transferred solely to Evelyn Cross at an agreed total valuation of $1.