Miles away, in my quiet, sunlit hotel suite, I sat nursing Cora. I looked down at my phone as his name flashed across the screen for the twentieth time.
I didn’t answer. I simply swiped left, blocked his number forever, and held my daughter tight—knowing that our future was finally, completely ours.
EPILOGUE
Part I: The View From Above
Six months after the iron gates of the Sterling estate swung shut in Julian’s face, the early morning light over downtown Richmond painted the skyline in brilliant shades of amber and rose.
From the floor-to-ceiling windows of my new penthouse, the city stretched out quiet and still below. There were no ghosts here. No lingering scents of cheap perfume, no echoing footsteps of an entitled mother-in-law, and no suffocating memories of a man who had treated my devotion as his personal bank account.
