Chloe, meanwhile, was gradually warming up to Stella under her calculated charm offensive.
Stella kept buying all the snacks and toys I'd refused to give Chloe, cooing over her in that sugary voice, a stark contrast to my discipline. One evening I came home from work and heard laughter spilling from the nursery the moment I stepped into the living room.
I pushed open the door. Chloe was curled up in Stella's arms, clutching a brand-new Barbie doll, her eyes crinkled with delight.
She saw me. She didn't run over the way she always did.
Stella looked up, a saccharine smile fixed on her lips. "Martha's home. Chloe just loves this doll."
I recognized it instantly. The exact model Chloe had begged for on her birthday, the one I'd decided was too expensive. And Stella had used it to buy her way in.
I reached out to stroke Chloe's hair. She flinched and burrowed deeper into Stella's arms, her small voice barely above a whisper. "Mommy, Aunt Stella is nicer than you. She buys me lots of toys. You never let me have snacks or anything fun."
The words sliced through me like a blade of ice.
Seven years. Seven years of sitting up through fevers until dawn, holding her hands while she learned to walk, waking early every morning to make her breakfast, teaching her to read, teaching her right from wrong. I'd believed that seven years of devotion would earn me at least a sliver of her heart. One bag of candy from Stella, and it all crumbled to nothing.
I looked at Chloe's small, innocent face, and the last trace of warmth in my chest went out like a snuffed flame.
I withdrew my hand. My voice came out flat and still. "Is that so? Then you should stay with Aunt Stella from now on."
Chloe blinked, bewildered.
Stella's lips curled with triumph. She tightened her arms around the girl.
I turned and walked out of the nursery. The instant the door clicked shut behind me, the last flicker of light in my eyes died completely.
Miles. Stella. Chloe.
You stole my child. You hijacked my life. You trampled seven years of everything I gave.
Fine.
I walked into the study, locked the door, and opened my laptop. The cold glow of the screen reflected off eyes that held nothing but ice. Spread across the desktop were the files: every piece of evidence that Miles had been secretly siphoning off assets.
My fingers flew across the keyboard, backing up every last document.
Two days later, Miles appeared at my door holding a stack of papers, his expression arranged into something meant to look serious. "Martha, I need your cooperation on something."
The harsh light of the study fell across the header: Pruitt Group Supplementary Investment Agreement. The words practically burned.
I gripped the papers. My fingertips went white. Inside, I laughed, cold and bitter.
This agreement was a trap he'd dug well in advance. It demanded that the Pruitt Group inject three hundred million dollars into his shell company within seven days. Miss the deadline, and he'd seize control of the family's core holdings. Worse still, he'd listed me as a joint guarantor. One default, and the Pruitts and I would lose everything.
Miles had always been after the Pruitt fortune. He wasn't even bothering to hide it anymore.
"Dad finally agreed?" I arranged my face into eager delight, though behind my eyes there was nothing but frost. "You've been saying for months that cash flow was tight. What a relief."
Miles looked supremely pleased with himself, his tone dripping with condescension.
"Well, it helps having the Pruitt heiress on my side. Your father does have conditions, though. He wants both of us to sign, and there's a residential commitment addendum. Stella's pregnant. The master bedroom faces south, better for the baby. You'll need to move into the guest room."
I feigned shock. "That's our bedroom. We've slept there for seven years..."
He let out a cold laugh, his voice stripped of all pretense.
"My car just broke down, by the way. From now on, you can walk to pick up Chloe from school."
He watched the color shift in my face, then added with lazy menace, every syllable laced with ice:
"That stretch of road is crowded. Lots of traffic. She's still so small. If something were to happen to her, well, that would be unfortunate."
He shoved the papers toward me, impatient. "Sign, and the funds transfer immediately. You don't want Chloe to suffer, do you?"
He was using Chloe as leverage. He had no idea I already knew the truth: Chloe was never my biological daughter.
I lowered my eyes, arranging my features into a picture of reluctant anguish. "Fine. I'll sign. But I need to read through this carefully first."
"What's there to read? It's all been agreed on."
Miles kept checking his watch, visibly agitated. "Stella's waiting upstairs. I need to take her to her prenatal appointment after I sign."
I stood there, a dull blade sawing back and forth across my chest.
When I was pregnant, I had asked him once, carefully, timidly, to come with me to just one appointment. He'd frowned like I'd asked him to swallow glass, his face twisted with irritation, his voice thick with disgust.
"Prenatal checkups are a woman's thing. What would a grown man look like sitting in that waiting room? People would laugh."
All those freezing memories of sitting alone in examination rooms, clutching my own hands in my lap, crystallized now into the calm behind my eyes.
