He Sent Me Overseas to Marry Her, I'm Staying Overseas to Never See Him Again novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: Seven Years
Laura overhears her fiancé arranging to marry another woman the day after he ships her to London, leaves her ring in his desk, and on the plane finds out the job is to sign away a workshop in her own name.
After seven years together, my fiancé finally gave me the job I'd been asking for.
Head of the international division. London.
He announced it in the boardroom that morning, in front of the whole leadership team.
Everyone clapped.
I thought Pierce Garland had finally decided I was more than the woman who fixed his mistakes.
I was carrying two coffees back from the break room when I heard him in the hall.
He was on the phone with his back to me, laughing.
"Make sure Laura's flight is confirmed. Saturday night, no later."
I stopped behind the corner.
"Tuesday, Madison and I go down to the courthouse. Reception's that night on the roof at the Lark. I need Laura out of the country by then."
The coffee was burning my fingers through the cups.
I didn't move.
His friend's voice came small and tinny through the speaker.
"Pierce, you're hiding this from both of them. What if Laura finds out and makes a scene?"
Pierce let out a low, pleased laugh.
"She won't. I've given her enough work to bury her for a year."
"And if she does?"
"I gave her London. She's wanted her own division forever. She'll understand."
He lowered his voice, still smiling.
"Come on. What successful man has only one woman by his side?"
I stood there long enough for both coffees to go lukewarm.
Then I laughed once, very quietly, at myself.
Fine.
If that was how he wanted it, fine.
I'd go to London.
And I was never coming back.
I poured both coffees down the sink in the break room.
When I walked into my office, Pierce was sitting across from my desk with his ankle on his knee.
He stood up the second he saw me and reached out to tuck a loose piece of hair behind my ear.
He'd done it a thousand times.
I tilted my head away.
His hand hung in the air for two full seconds.
Then he lowered it.
"Did you read the transfer order?"
"I did." I sat down. "I'm very happy with it."
He smiled and slid a black card across my desk.
"My personal account. Anything you want over there, charge it. No limit."
"I don't want anything," I said. "I'm going there to build something, not to shop."
Something awkward crossed his face.
"Right. Of course. You've always loved your work more than you love me."
I looked at him and said nothing at all.
The door flew open.
Zoe Barrett, our intern, stood there with frosting on her thumb and her glasses sliding down her nose.
"Ms. Kendrick, Mr. Garland! It's the seventh anniversary of the company tonight, and of you two! We made a video!"
Pierce threw his arm around my shoulders.
"Wouldn't miss it."
The roof of the Hudson Street building was strung with paper lanterns.
Someone had printed our old photos on foam boards.
Me at twenty-four with a tape measure around my neck.
Pierce and me in our first office, a borrowed desk and one plant.
The video played on a projector against the water tank.
Everyone cheered when the Garland Carry-On came on screen.
"The bag that started it all," the caption said. "Sketched by Pierce on a napkin."
I had drawn that bag in my sketchbook in design school, two years before I met him.
A tall blonde in cream cashmere came over with a white leather weekender on her arm.
I knew that bag.
It was my prototype. It wasn't in stores yet. It had been locked in Pierce's office for a month.
"You must be Laura," she said. "I'm Madison Burke. My dad's Burke Capital."
She shook my hand with two fingers.
"Pierce says you're like a sister to him."
"Does he."
"He says you'll love London." She tilted her head. "Women like you do so much better without distractions."
She patted the white bag.
"Isn't this cute? He gave it to me. One of a kind."
Across the roof, Pierce raised his glass to us and grinned.
I smiled back at him.
Then I went downstairs to the empty office floor.
I called the airline from my desk and changed my ticket from round trip to one way.
I called the inn in the Hudson Valley where we'd booked next June.
"I'd like to cancel the Garland and Kendrick wedding."
The woman sounded sorry. "The deposit isn't refundable, ma'am."
"That's fine," I said. "It was mine."
Then I walked into Pierce's office.
I slid the sapphire off my finger.
Three years, it had been on my hand.
I put it in his top desk drawer, under his reading glasses, where he'd find it eventually.
Upstairs, I could hear the whole company singing happy anniversary.
On Saturday night I boarded the plane with two suitcases and my old sketchbook.
Pierce kissed me goodbye at the curb.
"Call me when you land, babe."
I didn't answer.
Somewhere over the Atlantic, I finally opened the blue folder he'd given me with my transfer order.
There was a second document behind it.
"Haddon & Sons, Bermondsey. Certificate of financial failure and closure. Eleven positions to be terminated."
At the bottom was a signature line.
Laura Kendrick, Head of International Division.
A yellow sticky note was pressed beside it, in Pierce's neat handwriting.
"Sign this first thing. It has to be your name, not mine. x P"
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