جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 116

Millicent's POVThe envelope arrives early on a Thursday morning, it’s mixed in with other bills and client correspondence.I almost miss it, the plain white, handwritten address, with no return information. But something about the handwriting stops me. Something familiar that I can't quite place.I open it in my studio, in between appointments, expecting nothing. The letter inside is three pages long and carefully written."Dear Millicent,I know you probably don't want to hear from me. I wouldn't want to hear from me either. But I've been watching your life unfold from a distance, through the articles, the interviews, and the photos of you looking happier than I ever saw you when we were friends, and I realized I owe you something I should have given you years ago.An explanation and an apology.Not because I deserve your forgiveness. I know I don't, but because you deserve to know the truth about what happened, and why."I sit down heavily, the paper trembling in my hands.It’s Ria

Millicent's POVIt’s two years already. It's been twenty-four months, seven hundred and thirty days, already since I walked through the mansion's massive front door with nothing but a battered suitcase, a sleeping child heavy in my arms, and a contract tucked into my bag that was supposed to be temporary.Twenty-four months since I stood in Damon's foyer, shivering despite the heating, terrified of the cold billionaire I'd married, and certain in the marrow of my bones that I'd made a terrible mistake.I remember that first night with a clarity that still stings. I remember the way Damon looked at me like I was an inconvenience to be tolerated, a piece of furniture he hadn't ordered but couldn't return. I remember the way the mansion felt like a mausoleum, vast and echoing, stripping away any sense of warmth. I remember the way I lay awake in an unfamiliar bed, staring at a ceiling I didn't recognize, wondering how long I could survive this arrangement before I crumbled completely.N

Millicent's POVThe conversation starts over breakfast, amidst the clinking of silverware and the smell of toasted bagels, and stretches lazily into the afternoon. Mike pours coffee from the French press, the dark liquid swirling, and Damon spreads some documents across the oak table.They aren't the usual business documents, no spreadsheets of profit margins or acquisition targets. These are something else entirely.Printouts about surrogacy agencies, adoption requirements, the legal complexities of multi-parent families in different jurisdictions.The morning light catches the papers as he arranges them, casting shadows across charts and bullet points and photographs of smiling children from agency brochures. It's the kind of research Damon does, thorough, exhaustive, leaving no question unasked. It's how he approaches a merger, and apparently, how he approaches expanding our family."I've been thinking," he says, which is how most of our major conversations begin. My eyes drop to