LOGINShe looked at me like I’d just offered her an indentured servitude contract. “What kind of fruit?”“Strawberries, melon, grapes. Salma cut them earlier.”“What shape?”I stared at her. “Fruit shape, Poppy.”“No. Yesterday the melon was cut into squares. Too geometric.”Sebastian looked down at her. “Too geometric?”“Yes. I don’t like food that has math.”“It’s melon,” Luca said, unable to help himself.Poppy slowly turned her head toward him. Her bangs were still covering her eyes. Somehow, the look was sharp anyway. “Then you eat it if you like geometry.”Luca raised both hands. “I withdraw.”I sighed and headed back into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and found the bowl of fruit, which had indeed been cut far too neatly. Salma, bless her practical soul, had cut the melon like an architect. I opened a drawer, took out a small knife, and started recutting a few pieces into shapes that made no sense. Half oval, half disaster. If a chef saw them, they’d cry. If Poppy saw them, she’d pr
“Full lockdown.”The words left Sebastian’s mouth without any raised volume, without drama, without a single theatrical gesture I could accuse him of enjoying. Somehow, the fact that he was so calm made the entire room move faster.Luca was already typing before the echo of the sentence had even died. Two fingers moved across the tablet, quick and cold. From the main room came a soft beep from the panel near the elevator, followed by the low sound of something locking deep inside the penthouse walls.Not a prison sound.Not an iron gate.More like a five-star hotel deciding the outside world was no longer elegant enough to come in.Poppy, still in Sebastian’s arms, lifted her head, hair stuck to her cheek and one green eye only half open. “Full what?”“Full nothing,” I answered quickly, walking closer before my brain had time to start screening its own horror movie. “The grown-ups are using boring words because they don’t have hobbies.”Poppy narrowed her eyes at me, unconvinced. Even
“I know.” Sebastian chuckled.“Bunny’s sad too.” She lifted Bunny a little. “He says too many people in this house talk serious.”I glanced at Luca. “Bunny has a point.”Luca looked down at his tablet, probably to save himself from laughing in front of his boss, who was currently turning into a walking fortress.Sebastian held out a hand. Poppy immediately took one step forward, then stopped, remembering something.“Daddy bring snack?”“I’ve failed as a father.”Poppy sighed with a heaviness no body that small should’ve been capable of. “Again.”I closed my eyes for a second. “Poppy.”“I’m just honest, Mommy.”“Your honesty tends to carry a knife.”“That’s because I’m a little Russian.”“Unfortunately true.”Sebastian picked her up.The second Poppy settled into his arms, half of her post-short-nap outrage melted away. She pressed her face into Sebastian’s shoulder, Bunny wedged between them, her hair spilling across his white shirt, which probably cost more than a semester of tuition
Sebastian looked at me for a long moment.He wasn’t angry.Well, if he was angry, I could fight back. If he raised his voice, I could burn down the entire kitchen with words. But he just stood there looking at me with that face, his expensive, cold face, dark blue eyes like elevator doors leading to a floor that wasn’t listed.“I asked,” he said quietly, “if you went into my office.”“I heard you. Your diction was very clear.”“Jasmine.”“I went in,” I said finally, turning the glass between my fingers. “Your office doesn’t bite. A little arrogant, maybe, but that could just be the owner rubbing off on it.”Something shifted in his jaw. Barely. “You opened the safe.”I raised an eyebrow. “The safe hidden behind a bookshelf like you’re a villain in a nineties movie?”“I need to know what you saw.”“And I need a private yacht that doesn’t come with a family crisis, but life likes to keep things interesting.”“This isn’t a game.”“No,” I said, my smile fading slightly. “Games usually hav
“I still don’t have registry confirmation,” she said finally. “The Italian counsel server is slow. Or they’re deliberately making everything slow because the entire European legal system was built by men who hated women getting quick answers.”I tilted my head toward the bed. “Is that a legal opinion?”“That’s the opinion of a human being with bad Wi-Fi.”“Good. I prefer that one. Your legal opinion makes me want to throw up on an expensive envelope.”“Do not throw up on evidence.”I looked at the black envelope on the floor. From down here, the Romano Belsky embossing didn’t look elegant.It looked like something waiting underwater.“I’m not going to throw up,” I said. “I’m too pretty to throw up today.”“You’re sitting on the bedroom floor of your ex-husband’s penthouse, except he may not actually be your ex, while holding marriage records he hid in a secret safe.”“I said pretty. Not psychologically healthy.”Hazel let out a short breath.I could picture her face now. Hair tied nea
I stared at one spot on the wall.No further instructions.No authorization.Sebastian never finished it.My mind didn’t explode. That was the strange part. I’d always imagined news like this would arrive loudly, with my chest tightening, with tears, with enough drama to justify a chandelier crashing to the floor.Instead, there was silence.Nothing.Like someone had opened a door inside my head and all the furniture had already been hauled away.“Jasmine?”I could hear Hazel, but her voice sounded like it was coming from another room.Five years.Poppy was born.I filled out school forms.I wrote single mother in so many places the words started to feel like part of my name.I accepted Adrian’s proposal.I wore another ring.I looked at Sebastian and called him my ex-husband in my head because it was the only kind of distance I could still put between us without bleeding.And all that time...I slowly sat down on the edge of the bed.The sheets shifted beneath me. One of the document







