Chapter 4

Two months passed.

I moved out of the apartment and into a small place of my own with Lily. I found a job at a small architectural firm, a career I had put on hold for nine years to support Ethan's. It felt good to be independent, to be building something for myself again.

Ethan, however, did not make it easy.

He called. He texted. He sent flowers to my office. I blocked his number. I returned the flowers. I refused to engage.

Then, his lawyer called mine. They wanted to arrange a meeting to discuss the divorce settlement and custody arrangements. My lawyer, a sharp woman named Sarah, warned me it might be an ambush. She was right.

I walked into the private room at the restaurant his lawyer had booked, and it wasn't a meeting. It was a family gathering.

Ethan was there, along with his mother, his father, and his sister.

And Chloe.

And Lily. My sweet Lily, sitting next to Ethan, looking small and lost. My heart ached just looking at her. She saw me and her face lit up for a second, but then she seemed to shrink, her shoulders hunching. Something was wrong.

Chloe, sitting on Ethan's other side, acted as if she were the lady of the house.

"Lily, honey, sit up straight," she said, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. She reached over and adjusted Lily's collar, a gesture of ownership that made my blood boil.

Ethan's mother, a woman who had never approved of me, beamed at Chloe. "You're so good with her, Chloe. It's wonderful to see Ethan with a woman who knows how to take care of a family."

The insult was so direct, so blatant, it left me momentarily speechless.

Chloe then turned her attention to Ethan, pulling a small, gift-wrapped box from her purse. "I got you something, sweetie. I know you've been stressed lately."

Ethan opened it. It was a digital blood pressure monitor. "To help you keep track," she said, caressing his arm. "We can't have you getting sick."

Ethan looked at the gift, but his expression was distant. His eyes weren't on Chloe. They were on me. He looked lost, confused, as if he were just now realizing the immensity of what was happening.

That's when I saw it.

Lily, sitting quietly at the table, had her hands in her lap. She was clenching her left fist so tightly that her knuckles were white. With her right hand, she was methodically, almost unconsciously, scratching the back of her left arm. A small, repetitive, anxious gesture.

A wave of cold dread washed over me.

"I want full custody of Lily," I said, my voice cutting through the family's cheerful chatter.

The room fell silent.

Ethan's mother was the first to speak. "You have no right! After abandoning your family, you want to take his child away? What kind of monster are you?"

"Ava, don't overreact," Ethan said, his voice pleading. "Lily is fine. She's happy."

"Is she?" I shot back, my gaze locking with his. "Are you so blind that you can't see how miserable she is? Or do you just not care?"

I stood up, my chair scraping against the floor. "This meeting is over. Sarah will be in touch about custody."

"You're making a scene," Ethan hissed, his face flushing with embarrassment.

"A scene?" I laughed, a raw, angry sound. "You want to see a scene, Ethan? You cheated on me while I was pregnant with your child. You let me go through a miscarriage alone because your girlfriend had car trouble. You let this woman play mother to my daughter. You know nothing about making a scene."

As I spoke, Ethan's hand, which was resting on the table, clenched around the blood pressure monitor Chloe had given him. He squeezed it, his knuckles turning white. There was a sudden, sharp crack.

He had crushed the plastic casing.

He stared down at the broken device in his hand, then looked up at me, his eyes wide with a dawning horror. It was the first time I had seen genuine remorse on his face.

But it was far, far too late.