Five minutes after eleven years of marriage officially ended in the cold, sterile glass-and-steel conference room of a downtown Manhattan law firm, Alexander Whitmore looked at me as if I were nothing more than an erased line item on a corporate balance sheet.
“Take the girls, Madeline,” he said smoothly, sliding his platinum Montblanc pen across the mahogany table into his breast pocket with an airy, practiced nonchalance. “I’ve got a son coming now. A real heir.”
For a full five seconds, the oxygen completely left my lungs.
Not because I was heartbroken—the love I once held for Alexander had died a slow, agonizing death years ago—but because of the sheer, unfiltered cruelty casually dripping from a man who had helped me bring two innocent souls into this world.
Olivia was ten.
She had Alexander’s dark curly hair and a gentle, observant nature.
Grace was seven.
