Chapter 8: The New Identity

CHLOE

The email from Mrs. Thorne was a lifeline.

She was a wealthy retiree who owned a historic house on the edge of Oakhaven. She wanted a complete redesign of her parlor room before her daughter’s wedding in three weeks. The pay was modest compared to what I used to make at Sterling Enterprises, but she offered a fifty percent deposit upfront.

I replied at 3:15 a.m. with my portfolio. I attached the strongest images from my old college days, carefully removing every reference to my married name. I signed the email: C. Vance Design.

By 9:00 a.m., I was standing on her front porch, panting slightly from the six-block walk. My incision was burning, a sharp, brutal reminder that I was still healing. Sweat beaded on my forehead despite the chill in the air. I forced a sharp, confident smile onto my face.

Mrs. Thorne was a sharp-eyed woman in her sixties. She looked me up and down, clearly noting my pale skin and the cheap fabric of my coat.

"You look like you haven't slept in a week, Miss Vance," she said bluntly.

"I am recovering from a medical procedure," I replied, keeping my voice steady. "But I assure you, my work does not suffer from my personal life. I will deliver exactly what you want, on time. If I don't, you don't pay the second half."

She stared at me for a long moment. Then, she stepped aside and let me in.

By noon, I had secured the contract and the deposit.

I took the bus straight to the Henderson hotel site. The construction crew was surprised to see me. The foreman, a burly man named Rick, tried to tell me that the electrical wiring was already done and that I should go home and rest.

I looked at the blueprints, then at the exposed wiring in the wall. It was completely wrong. The gauge was too thin. It would have ruined the entire lighting design I had planned and posed a fire hazard.

"No," I said, my voice cutting through the noise of the drills. "Tear it out. Do it again."

"Miss Vance, that will set us back three days," Rick argued, crossing his thick arms. "We don't have the budget for delays."

"I don't care," I said, looking him dead in the eye. "If you don't tear it out, I will call Mr. Henderson and tell him you are deliberately sabotaging his investment. Tear it out, or pack your bags."

Rick stared at me, his mouth hanging open. I was half his size, recovering from major surgery, and barely able to stand straight. But the look in my eyes must have been terrifying. I was a woman with nothing left to lose. He nodded slowly, muttering under his breath, and signaled his crew to start ripping out the drywall.

A month ago, I would have apologized for the inconvenience. I would have tried to compromise. But the woman who compromised died on that operating table. The woman standing here had a baby to feed.

Eleven days later, Leo came home.

I carried his car seat down a narrow flight of concrete stairs. I had used the deposit from Mrs. Thorne and the money from the pawned diamond ring to rent a tiny basement apartment on the outskirts of town.

It was dark. The windows were small and high up on the wall. The carpet smelled faintly of dampness. But it was clean, and the landlord didn't ask questions.

I set the car seat on the floor of the living room and looked around. There was a single mattress in the bedroom, a small crib, and a desk I had bought from a thrift store.

It wasn't the Sterling penthouse. But it was ours.

The first few months were a blur of exhaustion. Leo was a fussy baby. He cried constantly, struggling to adjust to life outside the incubator. His lungs were still weak, and he woke up every two hours.

I learned how to function on three hours of sleep. I learned how to draft blueprints with one hand while rocking him with the other. I learned to eat protein bars over the kitchen sink because sitting down for a meal meant losing ten minutes of work.

I stopped crying. I stopped feeling sorry for myself. The woman who cried in the hospital was dead.

By the time Leo was six months old, C. Vance Design was officially a registered business.

I was ruthless with my time. I fired a contractor who tried to overcharge me. I negotiated a massive discount on tiles for Mrs. Thorne’s project by threatening to walk away. I stopped wearing makeup. I stopped caring about what I looked like. I only cared about two things: the quality of my work, and my son.

I was building a fortress, brick by brick.

One night, when Leo was eight months old, I was sitting at the thrift store desk. I had just finished the final invoice for a local boutique. My eyes were burning, and my back ached from leaning over the drafting table.

I reached for my phone to check the time, and a notification popped up. It was a G****e Alert I had forgotten to delete months ago, back when I was still paranoid that Damian might be tracking me.

"Billionaire CEO Damian Sterling and Actress Victoria Blackwood Attend Charity Gala in Paris."

I opened the link. There was a photo of them. Damian was in a perfectly tailored tuxedo. Victoria was draped in a designer gown, her hand resting possessively on his arm. They looked like royalty. They looked perfect.

I stared at his face. The sharp jaw. The cold, empty eyes. The man who had thrown me away like trash. The man who had told me he would divorce me even if I were pregnant.

I waited for the pain to hit. I waited for the tears to come.

But there was nothing. No anger. No heartbreak. Just a mild, detached annoyance, like seeing an old business rival in a magazine. He was a stranger to me now. A ghost from a past life.

I deleted the alert from my phone. I blocked his name from my search history.

Then, I turned off the screen. I walked over to Leo’s crib and looked down at him. He was sleeping peacefully, his tiny fist curled around his blanket. His chest rose and fell with a steady, strong rhythm.

"We don't need him," I whispered, my voice calm and steady. "We are going to be just fine."

I walked back to my desk, opened a new file, and started drafting my next project.

The past was dead. The future was mine. And I was ready to build an empire for me and my son.