Chapter 3

At the beginning of their marriage, nothing between them had ever come easily.

Adrian was almost never home. Even sleeping together twice a month felt like more than Claire had any right to expect. Ordinary conversation was rarer still.

By the end of their first year, he had already been marked for the oversea branch, where he was meant to build the foundation for one day taking over the family empire.

The night before he left, he came home drunk from a business dinner and, for the first time, forgot to use protection.

He was rough that night. Unrelenting.

It was also the first time Claire understood that when he was too drunk to care who was in his bed, Adrian could be nothing like the controlled, distant man she knew.

Two months after he left, she found out she was pregnant.

She knew her body well enough to recognize the signs. The realization left her reeling.

Back then, she had still been foolish enough to hope. If he truly hated the idea of children, maybe this one unexpected life might soften something in him. Maybe it might bring him back to her.

So she went abroad.

She rushed there with more hope than sense and went straight to his office. She stood outside in the bitter cold for two hours before Adrian finally appeared. He looked surprised to see her, but he did not introduce her to anyone. He only told his assistant to take her back to his apartment.

At the time, she had been too happy to notice what that really meant. How carefully he kept her out of sight. How little place she had in his public life.

That night, after his shower, he did not ask whether she was tired from the flight. He bent to kiss her earlobe, his touch familiar, but his eyes were distant. Detached. As though she had crossed an ocean for nothing more than a night in his bed.

Something inside her turned cold.

She pushed him away and asked, heart hammering, voice tight, “What if I were pregnant? Would we...”

The question killed what little interest he had left.

Adrian drew back at once, rolled onto his side of the bed, and shut his eyes, leaving a gulf between them that felt impossible to bridge.

“If you think a child would save this marriage, don’t.”

His tone was calm. Even. Almost gentle.

That only made it crueler.

Claire did not sleep at all that night.

She wanted to cry, but shame kept swallowing the tears before they could fall. She had asked the question. She had invited the answer.

The next day, Adrian booked her a ticket home.

Everything was arranged efficiently, impersonally, as though he were sending away an inconvenience rather than his wife. The message could not have been clearer. He did not want her there another minute.

She was hurt. Humiliated. But the seven-year divorce agreement had always been hanging over them like a sentence already passed, and that made the decision easier than it should have been.

Whether Adrian truly wanted no children, or whether he believed he could never have any, she would tell him nothing.

The child growing inside her was hers.

Her blood. Her future.

It had nothing to do with him.

She would not let his indifference drive her into hurting herself, or the baby.

Looking back now, keeping the child and letting go of the father had been the bravest thing she had ever done. The maddest, too. And still the only choice she had never regretted.

As for why little Ellie carried the surname Hart...

Her identity hadn't been tucked away under Avery’s name.

It was anchored to a much more powerful Hart.

Avery’s cousin, the heir to the family fortune.

Claire thought of the man who had agreed to help her, who had been willing to give her daughter his name so she could grow up protected. She shook off the memory and lowered her gaze to Ellie’s messages.

No one in the Sterling family knew.

And now, when the divorce finally came, her daughter was the only thing Claire intended to take with her.

Really, what was there to fight over? What argument could there be with a man who, in the end, had served no greater purpose than helping her bring Ellie into the world?

After Claire told Avery she was getting divorced, Avery went silent for several seconds.

No one knew better than Avery how deeply Claire had loved Adrian. From her teens until now, more than ten years of loving the same man. That kind of love did not die quietly. It tore through you on the way out.

And yet Claire’s voice had been eerily calm.

That was what too much pain did. It stopped feeling sharp. It settled in. Became something familiar. Something dull and permanent.

Part of Avery thought Adrian deserved exactly this. Deserved never knowing he already had a daughter in kindergarten. Call it karma.

But she also knew how much Claire had suffered, and there was no hesitation in her voice when she said, “Men are useless. Toss him out with the rest of the trash.”

After the call ended, Claire did not let herself stop moving. She kept packing.

Seven years as the lady of a powerful old-money family, and in the end, everything that truly belonged to her fit into two suitcases.

Her gaze dropped to the diamond ring on her left hand.

She ran her thumb across it lightly. She had worn it long enough that it should have felt familiar. Instead, it bit into her like something sharp.

After a long moment, she slipped it off and tucked it into the document envelope with the divorce papers.

Then, under the cover of night, she carried her luggage downstairs and loaded it into the car.

It was late by the time she came back up.

She fell asleep fully dressed.

The next morning, she was jolted awake by the sound of furniture being dragged around downstairs.

She had slept barely three hours. The noise drilled straight through her skull.

Ignoring the pounding in her head, she washed up, then placed the envelope containing the divorce papers in the middle of the now-empty vanity.

Impossible to miss.

The moment Adrian walked in, he would see the surprise waiting for him.

Then she headed downstairs.

Avery had already found her an apartment the night before. Since Ellie would be moving in with her soon, Avery had made sure it had three bedrooms.

Claire meant to drop off the luggage there first.

But when she reached the staircase, she saw a boy of twelve or thirteen standing in the living room, directing the movers like a little tyrant.

The second he spotted her, he lifted his chin and shouted in his cracking adolescent voice, “Hurry up and get your stuff out. My future sister-in-law is moving in, and don’t leave this place a mess before she does.”

Rude. Spoiled. Insufferable.

Ethan Sterling.

Adrian’s younger brother.

He had been indulged his entire life and had grown into the kind of boy who mistook cruelty for confidence. He had never once called Claire his sister-in-law, yet now he threw the title around for another woman with passionate conviction.

Claire looked down at him from the stairs. “Who?”

“Sienna, obviously.” Ethan planted his hands on his hips, his young face full of contempt. “She’s the only woman good enough for my brother. You’ve been squatting in his place and living in our house for years. Other than playing housekeeper, what use have you ever been?”

Claire’s eyes flicked to the furniture being carried in.

A new vanity. A new sofa. A new floor mirror.

Everything matched Sienna’s taste.

Her face went still. “Who approved this?”

For the briefest instant, Ethan looked thrown by the coldness in her expression. Then embarrassment hardened into anger.

“My brother did. Of course”

“He doesn’t want you anymore. He thinks you’re disgusting. Used up. Like some filthy rag. If you have any pride at all, get out and make room.”

Claire pressed her lips together.

For a few seconds, her mind went utterly blank, as though something heavy had slammed into the center of her chest.

She had not expected Adrian to be this eager to make room for the woman he loved.

Only yesterday, she had caught him in a vile scene with Sienna, all while the woman was carrying his child.

And today he was not even trying to hide it.

So that was the plan.

Refurnish the marital home.

Then bring in its new mistress.