Chapter 2 The Wife Refuses

| •Marin• |

He was still looking at me when he said it. He didn't look away to call me up.

"Marin. Come tell them yourself."

He said it once. Repeating himself wasn't something he did. For four years, I had never contradicted him in public. He had no reason to believe tonight would be different.

I understood exactly what he wanted before my feet agreed to move, for me to walk up there and become the second voice in his lie, to stand beside him and let three hundred people see a wife who'd known all along. I walked anyway. If he wanted my voice, he was going to hear it.

He held out the microphone when I reached him.

I took it.

"I have no idea who that child is," I said into it instead. "I've never seen him before tonight. And I'd like to know who his mother is, since apparently my husband already does."

The room detonated. Camera flashes burst from every direction.

Weston's fingers closed over the base of the microphone as I let it go.

"Security will handle the press," he said in the same calm, commanding tone. "Thank you all for your patience. The dinner will continue."

His hand closed around my elbow with a grip of quiet iron. "Our private suite."

I yanked my arm back, but I followed. Leaving meant cameras, and the evening bag under my arm felt heavier by the second.

The heavy doors shut behind us. The uproar outside became a muffled pulse behind the walls.

"You called another woman's son your heir," I said, turning on him. "And then you handed me a microphone."

Weston faced me without a trace of disorder, as if the scene downstairs had changed nothing.

"The announcement was necessary," he said.

"Without telling me?"

"The decision had already been made." He didn't even raise his voice. "We will manage the rest."

"Manage?" I swallowed the bitterness in my throat. "Everyone believed I was forced into this marriage four years ago. They never knew I was the one who said yes."

His expression stayed dark and unreadable, completely untouched by my confession.

"Your agreement was to support this family's position," he said quietly. "Nothing more. Nothing less."

A soft knock cut through the silence. The door swung open.

Serafina stood there, holding the boy asleep against her shoulder. She walked straight into the room, stepping naturally into his space, right beside him. She looked small, pale, and far too much at home.

"I'm sorry," Serafina whispered, her eyes shifting to Weston before settling on me.

"Marin... Weston promised me you'd be reasonable about this."

The phrase hung in the quiet room.

Weston promised me.

I didn't answer her. I let the silence do it instead.

She waited a second too long for something that wasn't coming, and something in her face gave way—less guilt than the look of a woman realizing the ground she'd been promised wasn't there.

"I didn't ask for any of this," she said, quieter now, mostly to herself.

As she turned, the child's head slipped. Weston stepped forward instinctively, his fingers gently adjusting the boy's collar before steadying his head against her shoulder.

He did it without thinking.

I stood where I had always stood, watching them. Then I looked away.

My grip slipped. The bag struck the edge of the low desk, and the ultrasound photo slid through the half-fastened clasp. The St. Gabriel's letterhead flashed visible on the carpet.

I dropped to my knees and shoved it back inside before he could get close enough to see more than the letterhead.

Weston's eyes followed the movement, not the paper. I'd moved too fast for a woman collecting a routine hospital form.

He didn't say anything. But I watched him file it away.

He stopped an inch short, close enough to make the distance feel deliberate.

"Starting tomorrow, you will stand beside him whenever the press is present, Mrs. Vane."

Mrs. Vane.

Not Marin. A title. A duty.

"No," I said quietly. "I'm done."

I held his gaze, pulling every last piece of my pride together.

"I want a divorce."

The silence between us hardened into ice.

"No," Weston said.

"You don't get to decide that."

Weston stepped into the doorway, his tall frame leaving no path around him. He looked at me for a long moment.

"You never read the legal agreement, did you?" he asked quietly.

I frowned. "What are you talking about?"

He crossed to the briefcase sitting on the low desk, unzipping the leather compartment with a slow, measured movement. When he turned back, there was a thin black folder in his hand.

He set it between us.

"The one my grandfather insisted we sign, alongside the marriage itself. Before the wedding."

"I remember signing several things."

"This was one of them."

Neither party may dissolve the marriage while the succession dispute, family obligations, or corporate stability outlined herein remain unresolved.

I read it twice. The words didn't move, didn't blur, didn't change their meaning.

"You knew."

"Yes."

He shifted slightly.

"This whole time."

I let the folder go.

"Then you should know I intend to spend whatever time this takes making sure everyone remembers what you did to me tonight."

I clutched my bag tighter.

"You can keep me married to you. The paper says you can." I kept my eyes on the door in front of me. "It doesn't say I have to stand in this room while you do it."