Chapter 4When I Finally Stopped Loving You

"Sienna is only twenty-three," Harrison explained, leaning against the edge of the table with his arms crossed. "She has her whole life ahead of her. She’s applied for a master’s program in London, and after that, she wants to travel Europe. I won’t have her tied down by an infant before she’s even had a chance to live."

He looked at me, entirely unbothered by the monstrous nature of what he was saying.

"You lost a child three years ago. You’ve spent three years crying about it. Consider this your compensation."

The words floated in the air, light and casual, like an offer to re-home an unwanted puppy.

I stared at the paperwork. The clauses were drafted with surgical precision: I would assume full legal guardianship of Sienna’s child the moment it was born. I would raise the baby in Seattle while Sienna lived her glamorous, untethered life in Europe. And buried in section eight was an explicit clause stating that the child would bear no legal or financial obligation toward me once they reached adulthood.

They hadn't brought me back to the penthouse out of pity.

Harrison hadn't retrieved me because he missed his wife.

He had brought me back to be an unpaid, live-in nanny for his mistress's child, freeing her to play the cosmopolitan socialite while I scrubbed spit-up off the floorboards.

Margaret leaned forward, her voice softening into the tone one uses with a dim-witted employee.

"Think about it rationally, Audrey. Harrison will accompany Sienna to London for the first year to get her settled. You stay here, in the penthouse, with the baby. Wasn't that what you were screaming for in the hospital? A baby to take care of?"

My hand pressed against my flat stomach.

Three years ago, when the doctor told me the placenta had torn away during the crash, something inside my mind fractured. For months afterward, I woke up in the dead of night, hearing phantom cries echoing through the air ducts. I would sit on the edge of the rug, holding the tiny, hand-sewn cotton onesies I had prepared, my fingers trembling so violently I couldn't fold them.

Harrison had held me then. He had wept against my neck, whispering, I'm so sorry, Audrey. I failed you. I failed our baby. I will spend the rest of my life making this up to you.

This was his idea of making it up to me. Handing me the offspring of his infidelity and asking me to play mother.

"No," I said quietly.

Harrison frowned, his patience visibly fraying. "Don't be ridiculous, Audrey. You wanted a child. Now you're getting one. What's the problem?"

Marcus tapped his knuckles on the table, his eyes narrowing in warning. "Don't make this difficult for Sienna, Audrey. You owe this family."

"I said no." I looked up, meeting Harrison’s gaze dead-on. "I will not raise her child."

A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the room.

Harrison’s expression shifted, the cool veneer cracking to reveal the ruthless corporate litigator beneath. He snatched the custody agreement off the table, tossed it aside, and pulled out a second folder.

He slapped it down in front of me.

Petition for Dissolution of Marriage.

Attached was a complete postnuptial property waiver. I would leave the marriage with zero alimony, zero assets, and the clothes on my back.

"Two choices, Audrey," Harrison said coldly. "You sign the guardianship agreement and stay Mrs. Cole, or you sign the divorce papers and walk out into the rain with nothing. Pick one."

I looked at the document. Then I looked at Margaret, whose face was as impassive as granite, and Marcus, whose jaw was set in rigid defiance.

A quiet, bitter laugh escaped my throat.

"Pick one?" I asked, looking between the three of them. "You don't want me to pick one. You want me to sign both. You want me to give up my legal status so Sienna can eventually have it, while I stay in the shadows raising her kid like an obedient servant. Isn't that the plan, Marcus? Margaret?"

Hearing their first names come out of my mouth struck them like a slap. Margaret’s eyes widened slightly; Marcus bristled, taking a step toward me.

"Please, everyone, stop," Sienna piped up, her voice trembling as she buried her face in her hands. "Audrey, do you hate my baby that much? I know... I know things started badly between us. Giving you the baby was supposed to heal you."

She spoke from the moral high ground of a saint, conveniently forgetting that my child was dead because of the betrayal she had orchestrated.

"Audrey," Harrison sighed, reaching out to grasp my wrist, trying to adopt a conciliatory tone. "I'm offering you an olive branch. I know you don't actually want a divorce..."

"Did you forget?" I pulled my wrist from his grasp, my voice shaking with three years of suppressed agony. "Why did my child die, Harrison? Tell me. Why did I lose my baby?"

Sienna flinched, tears instantly welling in her eyes. "Audrey, that’s unfair! I never asked you to drive your car toward me! Besides... if you lost the pregnancy that easily from a minor impact, maybe there was something wrong with the fetus to begin with..."

The words were barely out of her mouth when my right hand swung through the air.

Crack.

The sound of the slap echoed through the high-ceilinged room like a gunshot.

Sienna’s head snapped to the side, her manicured hand flying to her reddening cheek, her eyes wide with shock.

"Shut your mouth," I whispered, my voice vibrating with a fury so cold it terrified even me. "Don't you ever speak about my baby."

"Audrey!"

Harrison’s roar rattled the glassware on the table. He lunged forward, catching Sienna as she stumbled back, his eyes blazing with murder as he locked onto me. "Who the hell gave you permission to touch her?"

I didn't answer him.

Instead, I reached over, picked up the Montblanc pen resting on the table, flipped the divorce petition to the final page, and scrawled my name across the line marked Respondent.

The ink was dark, thick, and permanent.

Harrison stared at the signature, his chest heaving, momentarily stunned into silence. He had used the threat of divorce as a weapon for three years, convinced I would rather die than give up the scraps of his affection.

I dropped the pen on the table. It made a sharp, plastic clatter against the wood.

"We're done, Harrison," I said, meeting his furious, bewildered eyes. "I don't want you. I don't want your money, I don't want your name, and I don't want your life."

Harrison’s eyes narrowed into slits, his pride rushing in to cover the sudden fissure in his composure.

"Fine," he sneered, pulling Sienna tighter against his side. "Get out. And when you realize what the real world feels like without my protection, don't you dare come crawling back to my door like a stray dog."