Julian pointed at Khloe.
“Bring the boys.”
She recoiled.
“They have already been dragged through enough.”
“They are sleeping upstairs while my wife freezes their inheritance and my doctor tells me I cannot be their father.”
“Your wife?” Khloe repeated.
The bitterness in her voice was almost comical.
For years she had behaved as though the title already belonged to her.
Now, when Julian used it only as a weapon, the word wounded her.
I picked up my folder.
“Sarah will coordinate with the clinic.
Until the results arrive, the transfers remain frozen.”
Julian stepped into my path.
“You are not leaving.”
“I have spent seven years staying where I was not wanted.
Do not confuse that with being unable to leave.”
He lowered his voice.
“What do you want?”
“The truth on paper.”
“And after that?”
“A divorce.”
Eleanor inhaled as if I had threatened the company rather than ended a marriage that had been empty for years.
“You will not destroy this family over a medical misunderstanding.”
I looked at the woman who had placed another woman’s baby in my arms and called it usefulness.
“I did not create the misunderstanding.”
The collections took place the following morning.
Julian went first.
Khloe arrived later with the boys and two nannies.
Liam, the oldest, carried a small wooden airplane.
Leo refused to release Khloe’s hand.
Luke slept through most of it.
I did not attend.
Sarah told me there was no legal reason for me to stand in a clinic and watch children surrender samples to settle an adult war.
Instead, I returned to the townhouse with empty boxes.
My room looked untouched.
Fresh peonies stood on the table.
The Italian sheets had been turned down by staff who knew my marriage was ending before I had said it aloud.
I packed slowly.
Not jewelry.
Most of it had been selected by Eleanor for photographs and charity galas.
I packed the mug Julian used for midnight cereal during the first years of our marriage.
I did not keep it because I wanted him back.
I kept it because those years had happened, and I would not allow the ending to rewrite every beginning.
Julian appeared in the doorway while I wrapped it in tissue paper.
“You took the test?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And the boys?”
“Yes.”
He closed the door behind him.
Without the tailored suit jacket, he looked less like the heir to an empire and more like a tired man who had finally discovered that money could not bribe biology.
“I didn’t know before last week,” he said.
“You knew before the party.”
“For one day.”
“One day was enough to stop your mother.”
“I needed time.”
“You took my time for seven years.”
