Chapter 2
I kissed Iris's forehead. Her skin was warm, and her hair still smelled like strawberry shampoo under the hospital soap. My hands were cold, but they did not shake. I looked at Grant and said, "You should be careful what you ask for in a room with cameras."
His jaw tightened. Madison's smile flickered. Eleanor's fingers moved to her pearls. For the first time that night, none of them looked as sure as they had a minute before.
The guard came closer and asked me to step into the hall. I nodded. Grant's face relaxed like he had won. That almost made me laugh. He had confused obedience with defeat.
I stepped away from my daughter's bed slowly. I did not want Iris waking up to a fight. I did not want my little girl opening her eyes and seeing her father's mistress standing there like a replacement mother. So I gave them exactly what they thought they wanted. Silence.
My phone buzzed in my coat pocket. I did not look at it right away. I already knew who it was. Naomi Bell was not just my attorney. She was the only person who knew I had spent eleven months preparing for this exact night, ever since the afternoon I found a hotel charge on our joint card that Grant had tried to disguise as a client dinner.
I had records. I had transfers, four of them, each one routed through a shell account Grant thought I'd never find, each one landing in Madison's checking account two days before rent was due on an apartment I hadn't known existed until August. I had messages Grant had never bothered to delete from a work laptop he assumed I'd never touch. I had proof that Grant had been paying his mistress with company money while quietly building a story that painted me as the unstable one. But I still needed him to say it out loud, in a room full of people, where it would matter.
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"See?" Grant told the guard, crossing his arms, his voice pitched just loud enough for the nurses' station to catch it. "This is what I've been dealing with for months. She won't even let me see my own daughter without making a scene."
I hadn't made a single sound.
