Rich From My Hundredth Divorce

Here we are again. Tim is asking for a divorce.

The excuse this time? His newest little pet is throwing a tantrum for a ring and a title. Shes young, he tells me, his tone practically bleeding with faux sympathy. Too fragile to be kept in the shadows.

He strokes my arm, soothing me with promises that as soon as he gets bored of her, well remarry. I just need to be a good girl and sign the papers. He says it with the casual ease of a man asking me to pick up dry cleaning, completely untroubled, as if dismantling our marriage is just a minor administrative hiccup.

I put on my best performance, my voice trembling just the right amount as I ask if he truly means it this time.

He barely glances at me. "I never lie, Cora."

He follows it up with a smug, self-assured smirk, reminding me that no one else has ever lasted more than six months by his side. Don't worry your pretty little head about it.

I carefully scan the divorce settlement, letting my eyes drop to the very bottom of the page, tracing the delightfully long string of zeros next to my name.

The heavy, suffocating knot in my chest finally unravels.

This is the one-hundredth time my husband has asked me for a divorce.

For the previous ninety-nine times, he put on grand, theatrical shows to appease whatever little sugar baby he was keeping in a gilded cage. And every single time the ink dried on the final decree, the alimony hit my offshore accounts with the precision of a Swiss watch.

What Tim doesnt know is that my greatest, most paralyzing fear is that one day, he might stop being so impulsive.

Tim stepped out of the en-suite, aggressively towel-drying his damp hair.

"Cora, don't forget. We need to file the papers with the city clerk tomorrow morning."

I stood by the doorframe, the freshly signed separation agreement clutched to my chest. He opened his mouth to add something, but his phone buzzed.

"...Relax, babe. I won't even touch her. You know you're the only one I want..." His voice dropped an octave, dripping with a sickening kind of intimacy. "Little brat. I'll deal with you later..."

I thoughtfully pulled the bathroom door shut to give him privacy and wandered out onto the balcony of the Hamptons estate. The night was thick and dark. Out here, the silence of the sprawling, isolated grounds felt almost melancholic.

A few minutes later, Tim emerged, car keys jingling in his hand. He caught sight of my desolate silhouette against the moonlight, and his footsteps faltered.

For a second, I thought he might actually possess the patience to comfort me.

"Can't bear to let me go?" he murmured, coming up behind me. "I know, I know. But this one... shes a headache. Be good for me, Cora. This is the last time. I swear it. The absolute last time."

My eyes went wide in the dark. A cold sweat broke out along my spine.

The last time? What does he mean, the last time? No, no, no. Please, keep your terrible habits.

I quickly molded my face into an expression of pathetic dependency, turning to look up at him. "You're so good to me, Tim." My voice broke perfectly. "I never want you to be unhappy. I'd do anything for you."

He leaned down, his eyes searching mine. "I love you, Cora. We promised each other forever. These girls? They're just playtime. You are the real Mrs. Vanderbilt. You always will be."

He straightened up, his gaze sweeping over the oceanfront property. "Standard protocol. This house is yours now."

My hands began to tremble. Truly tremble.

He paused midway through buttoning his tailored coat, reaching out to pat my cheek. "Do whatever you want with it. Just don't be sad." His thumb brushed my cheekbone. "Be at City Hall on time tomorrow."

The front door clicked shut. He was gone.

I collapsed onto the plush velvet sofa, all the feigned weakness draining from my bones as I looked around the magnificent estate with deep, unadulterated satisfaction.

During our previous ninety-nine divorces, I had liquidated every single property he had ever signed over to me.

The first time he found out I had sold our actual marital home, he was furious. He demanded to know why.

I remember looking at him with trembling lips and eyes swimming in fabricated agony. "Tim, you don't understand. Every time I looked at those walls, I just saw the moment you told me you were leaving me. I... I couldn't breathe in there..."

I had let the sentence hang, choking on an imaginary sob.

He had pulled me into his arms, the guilt in his eyes entirely genuine. "I get it. Shh, don't say another word, Cora. It was too painful."

From that day on, every time we inevitably reconciled and moved into a new place, he made sure the deed was solely in my name. When the divorce cycle repeated, the house was mine to do with as I pleased.

For the first ninety-eight times, I played it safe. I never chose properties that were too obscenely expensive, terrified he might see through my facade and decide not to remarry me.

But this Hamptons estate? He picked this one himself. It was easily worth nine figures.

I didn't even wait for the sun to rise. I called my luxury real estate brokers immediately.

When they arrived, they took one look at me and smiled. We were old friends by now. Regulars.

They weren't just familiar with me; they knew Tim's habits inside out. After all, I used them to sell the properties, and whenever Tim wanted to buy a new one to woo me back, he used them too, purely for convenience.

They moved through the house with practiced efficiency, snapping photos, recording video walkthroughs, and taking inventory of the designer furniture.

I sat curled up on the sofa, clutching my phone to my chest, my eyes rubbed raw and red.

Tim called one of the brokers. "How is she? Is she crying?"

He did this every time. Whenever he initiated a divorce, he obsessively checked in with the people around me, needing to know if I was falling apart. As if it proved the depth of his love.

"Mrs. Vanderbilt is..." The broker caught herself, likely responding to whatever correction he barked on the other end. "Yes, Mr. Vanderbilt. Miss Su looks entirely devastated. Her eyes are so red."

I had been reading a particularly tragic romance novel on my phone for the last hour. The female lead's misery was practically infectious.

The broker hung up and looked at me with genuine pity. "He is such a toxic bastard."

I gave a pathetic little sniffle. "No, you don't understand him. Deep down, he has a good heart."

The team of women looked at me like I was a hopeless, brainwashed relic. But business was business. As they packed up their lighting equipment, the lead broker winked. "Next time you need to buy, you know who to call. Loyalty discount. Twenty percent off the commission."

I didn't say a word.

They didn't know. There wasn't going to be a next time.

Tim and I had barely stepped out of the courthouse in downtown Manhattan when my phone began to ring.

It was Margot, his adopted sister. She had harbored a borderline obsessive crush on him since childhood. The moment I answered, her voice was a sharp, interrogating whip.

"Cora. Did you actually sign the papers? Tell me it's real this time."

Margot had been waiting like a vulture in the wings for ninety-nine divorces, desperate to claim him. But Tim was the kind of man who would flirt with a passing shadow, yet he flat-out refused to look at his adopted sister that way. It drove her absolutely insane.

I held the phone a few inches from my ear to save my eardrums. "We just filed the petition. The cooling-off period is a month. We get the final decree after that. Margot, have I ever lied to you?"

If we were being entirely honest, Margot was essentially my third-biggest financial backer. Every time Tim and I reconciled, she would track me down, slam a terrifyingly large check on the table, and demand I leave him. And every time, I nodded, took the money, and agreed.

"Who is that?" Tim demanded, his eyes narrowing.

Usually, the second the paperwork was filed, Tim was already in his sports car, peeling away to his newest conquest. But today, he seemed oddly reluctant. We were supposed to file yesterday, but he dragged his feet for three days until I finally had to gently nag him into coming.

"It's Margot."

His face instantly relaxed. "She's just a spoiled kid throwing a tantrum. Don't let her get to you, babe."

Whenever Margot crossed a line, Tim always expected me to be the bigger person.

I nodded, offering him a frail, tragic smile. "I know, Tim. I know she's just acting out."

My compliance instantly irritated him. "You do know shes in love with me, right? Does that seriously not make you jealous?"

I let the tears well up in my eyes, letting them hover right on the brim without falling. My chin quivered. "How can you say that to me? It's not that I'm not jealous. It's that... I have no choice."

I looked utterly, profoundly broken.

A flash of genuine pain crossed Tim's features. He reached out, his thumb brushing my jaw. "Shh, babe, I'm sorry. I know. It's the last time. Once I get this out of my system, I'm coming right back to you. No more drama, okay?"

I nodded helplessly. What else could I do?

He opened his mouth to say something more, but his phone rang. He answered it, his expression hardening into annoyance, before walking back over to me.

"The little birds are getting restless. I've got to go. Call an Uber, alright?"

That's right. This time, he didn't just have one sugar baby. He had a pair. Sisters.

He didn't even wait for my response before turning on his heel and striding toward his waiting driver.

I let out a long, shuddering breath. Thank god.

The truth is, the very first time I found out Tim was cheating on methe first time he demanded a divorce so he could marry his mistressI fought it. I fought hard.

Tim was the one who chased me. He didn't care that I was an orphan with nothing to my name. He didn't care that I didn't come from a legacy family. He spent four years of college pursuing me relentlessly.

After graduation, to prove he wanted to marry me, he knelt outside his mother's study in their Upper East Side townhouse for three entire days.

Eventually, his mother called me in for a meeting. She didn't mince words.

"The Vanderbilt men," she said, her voice like chilled glass, "are incapable of fidelity. It is a genetic rot. He has his father's exact temperament. I am not refusing this marriage to protect him. I am doing it to protect you."

Her gaze drifted to the antique, centuries-old molding of the study. Her tone grew heavy with the ghosts of the women who came before us. "Girl... I do not want to watch another flower wither away inside the walls of this house."

She was sincere. But I was young, and I was so incredibly stupid. I thought my love was the exception. How could Tim be like them?

This was the boy who would wake up at dawn just to bring me hot coffee in bed. The man who abandoned multi-million-dollar board meetings just to sit with me because I had a mild fever.

Young girls are so easily snared by those fleeting moments of intense, cinematic devotion. We mistake grand gestures for a safe harbor, and by the time we realize we're drowning, we're too far from the shore.

I wasn't lying to the realtors earlier. That first divorce destroyed me. Standing in the middle of the penthouse we had decorated together, my heart felt like it was being ripped through my ribcage.

I knew, even then, that even if it was just a phase, even if we eventually found our way back to each other, the betrayal had carved a canyon in my chest. It was a wound that would never fully close. One touch, and I would bleed out all over again. You can't just tie a severed string back together and pretend the knot isn't there.

But knowing the truth doesn't make leaving any easier. I couldn't let go.

On the night he proposed to his first mistress, I snapped.

I took a blade to my wrists in our marble bathroom.

Watching the crimson pool on the pristine white tiles, a sudden, pathetic wave of desperation hit me. I just wanted a crumb of affection from the man who had discarded me. I reached for my phone with bloody fingers and dialed his number.

It rang and rang and rang before he finally picked up.

"Cora. Didn't I tell you not to contact me until the papers are finalized?" His voice was thick with annoyance. "Stop causing scenes. Just be a good girl. I'll come find you when the novelty wears off."

"Don't make me angry, Cora, or I really will leave you for good."

"Tim... I..."

My voice was a ragged, wet whisper. I wanted to beg him not to leave me behind. I wanted him to come home.

He caught the terrifying weakness in my breath. He paused. Then, his voice dropped to a glacial sneer.

"What now? Faking an illness to guilt-trip me? Stop being so damn pathetic, Cora."

The line went dead.

I lay there, the cold seeping into my bones, and in that agonizing silence, something inside me crystallized. I didn't want to die. I wasn't the one who broke our vows. I wasn't the one who threw away our life. Why the hell should I be the one bleeding out on a bathroom floor?

I managed to dial 911.

When I woke up in the stark, sterile hospital room, the space beside my bed was empty and cold. That was the moment my love for Tim Vanderbilt finally died. I decided, right then and there, that I would leave him and never, ever look back.

But that was also the moment it happened.

As I hovered in that liminal space between life and death, a voicecold, mechanical, and entirely divorced from realityechoed in my skull. It called itself the 100-Divorce Protocol.

It laid out a cosmic, inescapable bargain: Survive, but only if I completed one hundred divorces from Tim. If I failed, if I walked away before the quota was met, the death I had just escaped would reclaim me.

I tried to refuse. I had just accepted death, hadn't I? Why should I be afraid?

Because the death I give you will not be a quiet fading, the voice had whispered in my mind. It will be violent. It will be agonizing. And there will be nothing left of your beauty.

It knew my vanity. I could accept dying. I couldn't accept being butchered.

So, I made the deal.

I stood on the steps of the courthouse, raising a hand to shield my eyes from the glaring afternoon sun.

"Get in."

Margot's perfectly contoured face appeared from the rolled-down window of a sleek black Maybach.

She never trusted me. Every time I came to file the papers, she had to see it with her own eyes.

I didn't argue. I slid into the rich leather interior. "Where am I staying this time?"

She rolled her eyes, her lips pressing into a thin line of disgust. She didn't even want to waste her breath on me. I understood. The pure, unadulterated arrogance of a legacy heiress.

This was the ninety-ninth time. Margot was always paranoid that I would refuse to leave the marital home, so the moment I stepped out of City Hall with her brother, she would have a team of movers pack up my life and dump it into whatever condo she had purchased for me as a parting gift.

"If you really have nowhere to go, I guess you'd just keep clinging to my brother," she scoffed. "Giving you a condo is just charity."

"Drop the starving-artist act. I know exactly what kind of parasite you are," she sneered, looking out the window. "All that 'I don't care about the money' nonsense. You're just playing the long game. Reeling him in for the big payout. Too bad my idiot brother is entirely blind to it."

Honestly? Margot was incredibly perceptive.

I wasn't playing the starving artist. Every time Tim and I got back together, I quietly listed the condo she had "gifted" me, sold it to the highest bidder, and wired the cash straight to my offshore accounts.

But today, Margot didn't take me straight to the new apartment. She directed her driver to Fifth Avenue.

"This one. That one. And this entire rack. Wrap it all up."

She stood half a head taller than me, her eyes raking over my outfit with unfiltered disdain.

To play the perfect, devoted "trad-wife," my wardrobe consisted entirely of soft pastels, modest hemlines, and sensible flats. Low-profile. Submissive. Economical.

Under the envious, wide-eyed stares of the luxury boutique staff, I watched a mountain of garment bags pile up.

Next, she dragged me to an ultra-exclusive med-spa and salon, ordering a top-to-bottom overhaul.

When it was over, I found myself staring at a stranger in the full-length mirror. I was entirely captivated by my own reflection.

A champagne silk slip dress draped perfectly over my curves, the asymmetrical neckline highlighting my collarbones. A heavy collar of pink and blue sapphires rested against my skin, paired with a matching, brilliantly cut sapphire bracelet on my wrist.

I looked lethal. Radiant and breathtakingly expensive.

I swallowed hard, pushing down the intoxicating surge of vanity, and gently touched the cold stones. I looked at Margot nervously. "You aren't going to make me give these back after I wear them, are you?"

Margot inhaled deeply, looking at me like I was a peasant who had just crawled out of a sewer. "Who the hell would want to wear jewelry you've sweated on? If I put it on you, it's yours. Shut up and stop being so embarrassing."

...Her temper really was atrocious.

But god, I loved her.

Margot dragged me to an invite-only jewelry auction.

I quickly pieced together the situation: This was the premier social event of the season. Tim had originally promised to be Margots escort, but those two little birds of his had kept him tied up in bed, forcing him to cancel on his sister.

Margot was furious. She wanted blood. She wanted to force his new toys into a room with his "devastated" ex-wife and watch the fireworks.

We arrived fashionably late. The moment we stepped into the gilded ballroom, the air shifted. A hundred pairs of eyes locked onto me. Shock. Pity. Predatory intrigue.

In the past, whenever news leaked that Tim had initiated a divorce, I vanished. I became a ghost, refusing to be seen in the same zip code as him.

The socialites in the room couldn't hide their ravenous excitement. The quiet, long-suffering Mrs. Vanderbilt is finally going to bare her teeth.

Tim heard the murmurs. He was seated in the VIP front row. He turned his head, and his eyes landed on me.

His broad shoulders went rigid. A dark, stormy shadow crossed his face, his brows knitting together in a heavy scowl. The sheer weight of his stare was suffocating.

I played my part perfectly. I shrank under his gaze, lowering my eyes, looking utterly miserable and out of place as I meekly followed Margot to our seats.

"Um, Margot... I don't have the kind of money for"

She didn't even look at me. Her eyes were laser-focused on Tim, who was currently whispering sweet nothings to his two little accessories in the front row.

"Shut up."

I clamped my mouth shut. Hey, don't blame me when the bill comes due.

I knew exactly what I was doing. She was using me as a human shield to humiliate the new girls.

Right on cue, the older of the two sisters gasped at a pair of flawless emerald drop earrings displayed on the stage.

Tim raised his paddle.

Margot glanced sideways at me. "You want them?"

Before I could even open my mouth, she nodded to herself. "You want them."

She raised her paddle.

The room erupted into hushed, electrified whispers. "Oh, this is going to be good."

"Tim has been so brazen lately. Didn't they say his wife was a doormat who never fought back?"

"What is going on? And why did he bring Margot?"

"You idiot, Margot brought her to use her as a weapon against the mistresses."

"I mean, Tim really crossed the line this time. Buying them penthouses is one thing, but didn't he basically propose in public? That's a slap in the face to his actual wife."

"No woman could tolerate that."

"Please. What can she do? She'll throw a little fit, and then she'll go right back to wagging her tail for him. She's pathetic."

"Quiet, the bidding is starting."