Chapter 1 - Get Out
“Get out, Olivia.”
My husband said it with his arm around another woman and divorce papers beside my dinner plate.
“Adrian, I’m carrying your child.”
Camille glanced at my stomach.
“That didn’t stop him from choosing me.”
The baby moved beneath my gray dress.
I held my belly and stared at the champagne in my mother’s crystal glass.
Mom had been dead for eight years.
Somehow, seeing Camille’s lipstick on that rim made everything worse.
Three hours earlier, Adrian had asked me to come home early.
I thought he wanted to apologize for missing another prenatal appointment.
I had even stopped for the lemon cake he liked.
It sat in its white box beside the papers that were supposed to end my marriage.
“The house, the cars, the company,” he said.
“All mine.”
“You can’t just throw me out.”
“You haven’t worked in four years.”
He tapped the signature line.
“Take what I’m offering before I change my mind.”
He was offering ten thousand dollars and a promise that I would never ask for anything else.
I had managed construction schedules, reviewed contracts, and kept his first office running without a paycheck.
Apparently, none of that counted as work.
Something inside me went quiet.
I picked up my phone.
Camille smiled.
“Calling a taxi?”
I dialed the number I had avoided for six years.
“Olivia?”
“Dad, come get me.”
My voice cracked.
“Bring the legal team.”
“Stay exactly where you are.”
Nine minutes later, two black SUVs came through the gates.
My father had been at his downtown office, closer than I had let myself remember.
Lawyers and security officers stepped out.
Arthur Monroe emerged last.
The man who had built one of the country’s largest private investment firms looked at my face before he looked at anyone else.
He put his coat around my shoulders.
“You threw my pregnant daughter out?”
Adrian lifted his chin.
“This is my property.”
My father’s attorney opened a sealed folder.
“No, Mr. Vale.”
She raised the original deed.
“This mansion has always belonged to Olivia.”
For the first time that night, Adrian let go of Camille.
May you like
But he wasn’t looking at the deed.
He was looking at the locked drawer beneath it.
