Chapter 1

At my daughter's seventh birthday party, I called her father over to cut the cake.

Instead, my husband shoved me away in front of everyone — hard.

"Don't call me that. I'm not her father!"

He slammed a paternity test down on the table. The results said Wren wasn't his.

I froze where I stood. A second later, my parents slapped me across the face in front of the whole room.

Vivian — the one they'd just welcomed back into the family — curled into my husband's arms, eyes rimmed red, wearing that carefully rehearsed look of innocence.

"I'm so sorry, Claire. I just made an offhand comment that Wren didn't really look like Marcus. I had no idea he'd actually go get her tested…"

From that day on, I became the whore of the Upper East Side, and my daughter became the little bastard everyone whispered about.

Until, one day, I overheard him talking to a friend in that same careless tone:

"The paternity test was faked. Her parents know too."

"She stole so many years of Vivian's life. Once Vivian feels better about it, I'll just remarry Claire. Easy."

"Claire can't live without me. She won't dare leave."

My fists clenched so tight my nails cut into my palms.

The next morning, I calmly signed the divorce papers with him.

But the moment I stepped out of the law firm's doors —

I turned around and picked up another marriage certificate.

…

Outside the study door, listening to Marcus's casual, throwaway words, I could barely stay on my feet.

His friend started to say something else, but Marcus cut him off with a soft laugh.

"Relax. When it happens, I'll just pretend I had no idea."

"I'll say the hospital mixed things up. She'll come crawling back on her own."

I braced myself against the wall, a sharp ache stabbing through my chest.

Only hours earlier, Wren had come home from school in tears, her beloved uniform caked in mud, her knees scraped raw.

When I called Ashcroft Academy, the teacher's voice on the other end was ice-cold. She wanted us to transfer schools.

"Mrs. Whitmore, do you really need me to spell it out for you?"

"When a parent behaves indecently and drags her name through the mud all over town, of course every child in the class knows Wren is a bastard of unknown parentage."

"The other parents have made their feelings very clear. It's put the school in an impossible position."

I hung up and held my trembling daughter tight, my heart shredded.

Then she lifted her tear-streaked little face and asked me:

"Mommy, if I really were Daddy's kid… would he like me again?"

For that one question from my daughter, I swallowed every last shred of my pride and went back to Marcus.

To beg him for one more paternity test.

I never imagined I'd end up here, listening to this poison instead.

To him, staging a fake paternity test in front of a room full of people, dragging my name through the dirt — none of it mattered. It was nothing.

Every insult, every cruel word Wren and I had endured, was just theater — a performance he'd staged to keep another woman happy.

Even my adoptive parents, who never stopped telling me how much they loved me, were part of the act.

I shut my eyes against the pain.

Inside the room, the laughter and easy conversation went on.

The friend seemed to hesitate.

"But that kid, Wren… I just saw her running home from school in tears, a bunch of classmates calling her a bastard. You're really okay letting her go through that?"

"What if she finds out the truth? What if she doesn't want anything to do with you?"

Marcus's voice was thick with the arrogance of a man who thought he had it all under control.

"Kids forget. She'll get over a little pain. It's nothing."

"Besides, she's my flesh and blood. Blood is blood. You think she can really walk away from her own father?"

I clenched my hand so hard my nails bit into my palm, but I felt no pain.

Once, I would have thrown the door open and demanded answers at the top of my lungs.

But not this time.

This time, I simply turned and walked away.

This divorce — I was going through with it.