Chapter 2

Zara Pov

The car ride home passed in silence, the kind that presses against your ears louder than any argument could. Mara slept against my shoulder the whole way, worn out from the party and completely unaware that the ground under her had shifted while she dozed.

Cole carried her inside when we pulled up, her small arms looped loosely around his neck. He didn't say a word. 

The nanny appeared at the door before he'd even crossed the threshold, taking Mara from him with practiced hands, murmuring something soft about bedtime as she disappeared down the hallway with my daughter. 

I trailed a step behind Cole, my heels loud against the marble.

"Cole." My voice cracked as I said his name. "What was that? What did you mean by real mother?"

He didn't stop walking, didn't even slow down.

"Cole, please. Talk to me."

He moved further into the house like my questions were background noise, something to be dealt with later, if at all. 

I followed him past the living room, past the kitchen, my mind spinning through five years of memories, trying to find where any of this started.

He finally stopped at the bar cart in the corner of the living room, pouring himself a drink without even glancing my way.

"Cole," I said again. "I'm still talking to you.”

The front door opened again before Cole could answer me. 

I turned, half-expecting the nanny, but it was Selena, still in the dress from the party, moving through the entryway like she'd crossed that threshold a thousand times before.

She didn't wait to be invited further in. She walked straight past me into the living room, past Cole, and settled into the armchair by the window - the one I always sat in, the one with the worn spot on the left arm from years of my hand resting there.

"You could've at least let me get through the door before disappearing," she said to Cole, kicking off her heels and tucking her feet beneath her like she owned the right to be that comfortable.

Cole didn't answer her either, but he set down his glass and poured a second one, sliding it across the counter toward her without being asked.

My stomach turned watching it happen, the ease of it, the practiced rhythm between two people who'd clearly done this exact scene before, just clearly never with me in the room to see it. 

"Someone wants to explain what's going on?" I asked, my voice thinner than I wanted it to be. "Because I'm still standing here."

Selena glanced at me then, unbothered, taking a slow sip from the glass Cole had just handed her.

"I think you already know, Zara," she said. "You're just not ready to say it out loud.”

"How long?" I asked, my voice steadier than I felt. "I want an actual answer, Cole. Not another riddle."

He didn't get the chance to dodge it this time.

"Since before you," Selena said from the armchair, swirling the drink in her hand like this conversation bored her more than it moved her. "Long before you."

"I wasn't talking to you." I felt my nails dig into my palm. 

"Well, since you're pretending to be clueless, I'll save you the stress of thinking." She uncrossed her legs, leaning forward just enough to make sure I caught every word. "Mara is Cole's daughter. My daughter."

The room tilted slightly, though nothing in it had actually moved.

"That's not possible," I said, but even as it left my mouth, pieces I'd never let myself look at too closely started arranging themselves into a shape I didn't want to see.

Cole said nothing. He didn't deny it, didn't soften it, didn't even have the decency to look uncomfortable. 

"Five years, Cole." My voice cracked. "You let me live a lie for five years."

"I let you build something useful," he said, finally, flatly. "Your name, your connections, your ideas. All of it got us here faster than I could've managed alone."

"So I was a business plan?” A statement and not a question. 

He didn't correct me.

“Look at you Zara, who will stay with a woman like you? You're too fat, and doesn't fit the standard of woman I want.”

“But it's not my fault.” I cried.

Cole said nothing.

Instead, he reached into the drawer beside him and pulled out a folder, sliding it across the counter without ceremony.

Selena clapped once, a smile spreading across her lips. 

“Cole and I are fated mates. He only married you because your skill was useful for the company and not that the company is stable he doesn't need you anymore.”

I felt something drop in my chest as the words on the paper came into view- Divorce petition. 

Before I could open my mouth again, I heard footsteps on the stairs, it was one of the maids, arms already full with bags- bags full of my things. 

I watched the maid carry the bag past me, my things reduced to something that fit in bags and something in my chest cracked open in a way none of Cole's words had managed.

I reached for the pen. 

"I want to say goodbye to Mara," I said. "That's all I'm asking for."

Cole didn't answer. He didn't even look up from the folder he was closing.

"She's asleep," Selena said, answering for him like it was already agreed between them. "You'll wake her."

"I don't care that she's asleep. I raised her since she was two. I've been the one waking up at three in the morning for three years, not you-" I glanced at Selena, unable to finish it.

"Not her mother," Selena finished for me, entirely too pleased with herself. "Yes, we've established that."

"Please." The word came out smaller than I meant it to, stripped of any pride I had left. "Just five minutes. I won't wake her. I just want to see her before I go."

Cole finally looked at me. For one brief second I thought I saw something shift in his face, some flicker of the man I used to believe existed underneath all of this. 

He said nothing.

I was wrong. 

"She doesn't need a goodbye from you," Selena spoke again, standing now and smoothing down her dress like she was preparing to host the rest of the evening. "She has her real mother back. That's all that matters now."

"She's known me since she was two years old," I said. "I taught her to walk, I sat up with her through every fever. That has to count for something!" I heard my voice rising. 

"It doesn't matter," Selena cut in, sharper this time. "None of that matters anymore. Mara has her real mother now."

I turned to Cole, some last desperate part of me hoping he'd override her, hoping three years counted for something even now.

"You heard her," he said.

I got it then and there. Not only was I being divorced from my marriage, I was being erased from an entire life, edited out and reduced to non-existence. 

My legs felt very heavy, but I still managed to move them. I picked what I could as I stumbled out the house without sparing so much as a last glance. 

The night air hit me the second I stepped outside, sharp after the warmth of the house as the door clicked shut behind me.

I stood there a moment, patting down my coat pockets out of habit before I remembered.

For three years, I never once needed a key to that house but tonight, I didn't have one.