Chapter 3

Dominic didn't wait long.

Forty-eight hours after I refused Vivienne, his legal team filed an emergency custody motion. The hearing was set for ten days out—just enough time for him to flood the court with character witnesses, financial statements, and a fifty-page brief on why a billionaire's estate was a "more suitable environment" than a woman who once worked coat check.

Solène countered with a motion of her own—a temporary restraining order barring any Ashford representative from removing the twins without judicial authorization. The judge granted it within six hours.

Dominic called that night. He didn't yell. That's how I knew he was furious.

"You hired Solène Marchetti," he said flatly. "Bold move."

"She's my friend."

"She's a pit bull in Louboutins and she's going to lose."

"Then why do you sound nervous?"

Click.

I should've felt triumphant. But I was exhausted. The twins woke every two hours, my stitches still pulled when I moved, and the hospital was already hinting that I needed to discharge soon. I had nowhere to go. The downtown apartment Dominic "offered" in the divorce was still under his name—which meant he could lock me out the moment I stepped inside.

Solène had already thought of that. She moved me into her guest suite in the Upper East Side—three bedrooms, a doorman who'd once been Secret Service, and walls thick enough to keep out billionaires.

"You stay here until we win," she said, carrying one of the car seats up the stairs. "No arguments."

The twins slept between us that first night, and I cried into the pillow so quietly even they didn't stir.

But crying was a luxury I couldn't afford. Not anymore.

The next morning, the tabloids ran the story.

"ASHFORD HEIR DIVORCES WIFE HOURS AFTER BIRTH—MISTRESS SPOTTED IN DELIVERY ROOM"

I didn't leak it. Solène didn't either. But someone at the hospital had a phone and a grudge, and suddenly the whole city knew.

The comments were split. Half called me a gold digger getting what she deserved. The other half called Dominic a monster. The story trended for nineteen hours straight.

And then Vivienne gave an interview.

She sat on a velvet couch in Dominic's penthouse—my penthouse—wearing cream cashmere and a practiced sadness that made my stomach turn.

"I never wanted to come between them," she said softly, touching the sapphire pendant at her throat. "But Dominic was suffering. Margaux was… fragile. Emotionally unavailable. He needed someone who could stand beside him, not behind him."

The interviewer leaned in. "And the children?"

Vivienne smiled. "Those babies deserve stability. A home. A mother who's present, not broken."

I watched it from Solène's couch, fists clenched so hard my nails drew blood.

"She's setting the narrative," Solène said calmly, already drafting a response. "Making herself the savior. You the liability."

"She called herself their mother," I whispered.

"I know."

"She was in my delivery room wearing my necklace and she's calling herself their mother."

Solène put her hand on mine. "We're going to destroy her. But we do it in court, not on camera. Understood?"

I nodded. But inside, something shifted.

Not rage. Not grief.

Calculation.

I picked up my phone and scrolled through three years of texts with Dominic. Every "I love you." Every "you're my world." Every midnight message where he swore the IVF was for us, not for heirs. Every promise that the babies would make everything better.

And then I found it.

A text from eight months ago. One I'd read and dismissed because I was too pregnant and too naive to understand what it meant.

Dominic: "Talked to mother. She agrees—once the twins arrive, we move to Phase 2. V is ready."

Phase 2.

V is ready.

Vivienne.

I screenshot it and sent it to Solène with one message:

"He planned this before they were even born."

Her reply came in four seconds:

"That's not a crack. That's a canyon. Don't sleep tonight—we have work to do."

I didn't sleep.

But for the first time in weeks, it wasn't because of grief.

It was because I was building.