All Chapters of Lawfully Wedded Nanny (BWWM): Chapter 101 - Chapter 110

The café smelled of roasted beans and warm bread, but Monet tasted only iron in her mouth. She’d thought she could slip in quietly, order a tea, and escape the walls of the house that seemed to press tighter each day. But fate, cruel and efficient, had other plans.Vivian Benson spotted her first. She was seated at a corner table, sunglasses perched on her hair, the sort of presence that demanded attention even when she was simply stirring sugar into her cup. Kyle sat opposite her, his arm in a sling from the bar fight that had left him bruised, his face paler than Monet remembered.“Monet,” Vivian said, her voice smooth and bright enough to carry. “What a… coincidence.”Heads turned. Two women at the counter paused mid-conversation, their eyes flicking between Vivian’s smile and Monet’s stiff posture.Monet steadied her voice. “Vivian. Kyle.”Kyle shifted uncomfortably, his eyes darting to Monet’s face, then away. He looked thinner, worn around the edges. “Hey,” he said quietly.

The house slept. Even the tranquil town beyond the windows seemed hushed, as though the world itself had retreated into stillness.Monet padded barefoot into the kitchen, her robe wrapped loosely around her, a cup cradled in her hands. She hadn’t intended to come down. But the walls of her room had pressed too close, the silence too loud.The faint glow of the under-cabinet lights was enough to see him.Richard sat at the far end of the table, his tie discarded, his shirtsleeves rolled. A glass of water sat untouched in front of him, condensation pooling on the polished wood. His head was bent, but he wasn’t reading, wasn’t working. Just… staring.She stopped in the doorway. “Couldn’t sleep either?”His head lifted, surprise flickering across his face before it shuttered again. “Go back upstairs, Monet.”Something in her snapped at that. Always upstairs. Always away. Always dismissed. She stepped inside instead, the tiles cool against her feet.“I’ve had enough of being told where

The courtroom was smaller than Richard expected, almost austere. No chandeliers, no polished mahogany like his boardroom—just pale wood benches, buzzing fluorescent lights, and the quiet scrape of lawyers shuffling papers.He sat at the respondent’s table with his attorney, Mr. Kessler, a lean man with rimless glasses and an unshakable calm. Across the aisle, Juliet and Harvey Pendleton occupied their place with their counsel. Juliet’s chin was high, her pearl earrings catching the light, her gaze sweeping over Richard like he was a stranger she meant to put in his place.Monet was in the second row of the gallery. She’d insisted on coming, even when he told her she didn’t have to. Her hands were folded so tightly in her lap that her knuckles gleamed white. From where she sat, she could see the hard lines of Richard’s shoulders, the rigid set of his jaw.The clerk’s voice rang out, breaking the quiet hum:“Case number 12457-B. Pendleton versus Abbott. Petitioners seek custodial ri

Judge Morales adjusted her glasses again, her gaze flicking from Richard to the gallery where Monet had gone back to. “Mr. Abbott,” she said, her tone steady but probing, “the petitioners claim that the circumstances surrounding your remarriage are destabilizing for the children. I need clarity. Who is this woman you married so quickly, and what role does she play in your children’s lives?”Richard’s jaw tightened. He could feel Monet’s presence behind him, the weight of her silence pressing between his shoulder blades. Every instinct told him to answer carefully, measured. Kessler had warned him. But the question, so clinical, so dismissive, struck something raw.“She cares for them,” Richard said, each word clipped. “She’s in my home, with my children, every day. She has given them stability and affection when their world was falling apart.”The Pendletons’ lawyer rose, his voice smooth as silk. “Affection, perhaps. But no legal rights, no maternal history, no family tie. Mr. Abbot

Juliet shifted in her seat, as if she’d been waiting for this exact opening. “With respect, Your Honor,” she said, her voice pitched just high enough to sound wounded, “I cannot ignore the obvious. A woman who admits she cannot bear children has bound herself to my son-in-law for what? For security? For status? For access to my grandchildren as substitutes for the family she was denied?”A murmur rippled across the courtroom. Richard’s fist clenched under the table, nails biting into his palm.Judge Morales’s expression hardened. “Mrs. Pendleton, you will not disparage the witness with insinuations.”But Juliet was undeterred. She leaned forward, her pearl earring swaying with the sharp tilt of her head. “I speak not out of malice, Judge, but out of truth. These children have already lost their mother. To put them under the care of a woman desperate enough to snatch another woman’s place—”“Enough.”The word ripped from Richard before he realized he’d spoken. It cut through the co