เข้าสู่ระบบ“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
My phone rang.A call.Hazel’s name filled the screen, and for a second I just stared at it like the thing had suddenly turned into a living animal in my hand.Hazel didn’t call if she could still ruin someone’s life over text. Hazel was a lawyer, which meant she believed in written evidence, digital trails, and sentences that could be reused in court. If she was calling, something had crossed the line past comfortable.I answered. “Haze?”There was the sound of a car on the other end. Faint. Tires on wet pavement, or maybe just New York asphalt at night, which always sounded like tired people dragging suitcases behind them. Then Hazel’s breath, very short.“Jas,” she said.I immediately stood up from the edge of the bed.The black envelope slipped from my lap and landed softly on the floor, far too polite for something that had just tried to dismantle five years of my life. Several pages were still spread across the sheets, old notary stamps facing the bedroom light like ancient eyes
I started with the desk.First drawer: pens, business cards, a spare watch, chargers, meeting documents that were useless to me because they were full of company numbers and the language of people who enjoyed spreadsheets.The second drawer was locked.I stared at it.“Too bad,” I said, then left it alone. I wasn’t trying to become an amateur thief. I had standards. Low ones, but they existed.I checked the stack of files on the credenza. There were Fondation contracts, security notes, a folder marked Monaco Gala, several files with lawyers’ names on them. No Kelsey. No second marriage. No letter with the header, Congratulations, you’re still tied to a problematic man.The next bookshelf held books on international law, finance, a few old Italian novels that looked like they’d never been opened, and rows of leather archives with labels far too neat to be innocent.I moved slowly, not because I was afraid of getting caught.Fine. A little because I was afraid of getting caught.But mos







