Chapter 12 - THE DIVORCE WAR
Eleanor responded to my divorce petition exactly the way Rebecca predicted.
She declared war.
Not publicly at first.
Through Dominic.
She called him twenty-eight times in one day.
He answered once.
I know because he told me.
“What did she say?”
We sat across from each other in Rebecca’s office discussing a temporary parenting agreement.
Dominic looked tired.
“She said you manipulated me.”
I almost laughed.
“Anything else?”
“She said you were using the baby as leverage.”
“She hasn’t been born.”
“I pointed that out.”
I looked at him.
“And?”
“My mother said that proved how calculating you are.”
Despite myself, I laughed.
Dominic did too.
For one second we were the old us.
Then we remembered.
The laughter faded.
He looked down at the agreement.
“You want supervised contact when my mother is present.”
“Yes.”
“She won’t be present.”
“I want it in writing.”
“You’ll have it.”
“No arguments?”
“None.”
The Dominic I had married would have said, “Can we not make this worse?”
This Dominic said, “Whatever makes you feel safe.”
Again, too late.
Still meaningful.
Chloe entered a cooperation agreement with prosecutors.
She admitted staging the theft.
She admitted accepting money connected to Daniel.
She surrendered every message she had.
In exchange, prosecutors considered her cooperation when deciding charges.
Nathan filed for annulment.
The wedding lasted one evening.
The consequences would last years.
Amanda cooperated too.
Unlike Chloe, she did not pretend she had been innocent.
“I did something horrible,” she told investigators.
That sentence made me respect her more than Chloe’s hundred excuses.
Eleanor refused responsibility for everything.
She blamed Richard.
Chloe.
Daniel.
Dominic.
Me.
At one point she even blamed Nathan for “creating unreasonable wedding pressure.”
Nobody blamed the only person she refused to blame.
Herself.
Then came the media leak.
A tabloid published excerpts from the guardianship draft.
Not as evidence against Eleanor.
As a question about me.
IS SECRET BILLIONAIRE HEIRESS MENTALLY UNSTABLE?
My mother’s final illness was described.
My “secret fortune.”
My “hidden marriage identity.”
My pregnancy.
The article suggested the family dispute might involve concerns about my capacity.
My father threw the paper across his office.
“I’m buying this publication.”
I stared at him.
“No.”
“I’m serious.”
“That would make us look insane.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
He paced.
“They published your mother’s medical history.”
“They published lies around fragments of truth.”
“Exactly.”
I stood.
“So we answer with truth.”
Rebecca recommended restraint.
One statement.
No interviews.
No television.
No emotional battle.
I agreed.
Then the article published something that changed my mind.
A photograph of my house.
The address blurred poorly.
I stared at it.
The nursery window was visible.
That was enough.
“This stops.”
My father nodded.
“How?”
I looked at Rebecca.
“Defamation suit.”
She smiled.
“Against?”
“Publication. Source. Anyone who knowingly distributed sealed medical material.”
“That will trigger discovery.”
“Good.”
The source turned out to be Eleanor’s longtime publicist.
The publicist turned over communications within forty-eight hours.
Eleanor had approved the leak from her attorney’s office.
Dominic learned before I could tell him.
He drove to his mother’s temporary residence.
I only knew because he called me afterward.
“I need to tell you what happened before you hear it from someone else.”
“What happened?”
“I confronted her.”
My pulse increased.
“Did you threaten her?”
“No.”
“Did she threaten you?”
“Yes.”
Of course.
“What did she say?”
“That if I keep supporting you, she’ll remove me from the family trust.”
I waited.
“And?”
“I told her to keep it.”
I said nothing.
Dominic laughed softly.
“You don’t believe me.”
“I believe you.”
That surprised him.
“I just wish you had realized years ago that money wasn’t worth being controlled.”
“So do I.”
Then his voice grew quieter.
“She said something else.”
“What?”
“She said I will come crawling back when the baby is born because you’ll never let me be a father.”
I closed my eyes.
“And what did you say?”
“That she doesn’t know you.”
That mattered.
More than I wanted it to.
Two weeks passed.
My pregnancy reached thirty-five weeks.
The investigations continued.
Daniel was charged with conspiracy, financial fraud, and several offenses tied to the trust scheme.
Arthur Voss was found in Montreal.
He was arrested at a hotel after using an alias tied to one of my mother’s old records.
Richard entered a plea agreement.
Eleanor’s case grew.
Then, one rainy Tuesday morning, my water broke.
Four weeks early.
I stood in my kitchen staring at the puddle on the floor.
My first thought was absurd.
I had just cleaned that.
Then the contraction hit.
I grabbed the counter.
My housekeeper, Maria, heard me.
“Vivienne?”
Another contraction.
Much stronger.
“Oh.”
Maria’s eyes widened.
“Oh!”
Within ninety seconds, my father had been called.
The hospital had been alerted.
Security protocols activated.
Then Maria asked the question I had been avoiding for weeks.
“Dominic?”
I looked at my phone.
We had discussed this.
He wanted to be present.
I had not promised.
I thought about the ballroom.
The torn dress.
His silence.
Then his cooperation.
His letter.
The boundaries he had respected without complaint.
Another contraction hit.
I gasped.
Maria held my arm.
“Call him,” I said.
Dominic answered immediately.
“Vivienne?”
“It’s time.”
Silence.
Then chaos.
“What? Now?”
“Yes.”
“You’re thirty-five weeks.”
“I’m aware.”
“I’m coming.”
“Dominic.”
He stopped.
“What?”
“Come calmly.”
A pause.
Then, somehow, he laughed.
“I’ll try.”
The hospital placed me in a private maternity suite under a different patient name.
My father arrived first.
Dominic seven minutes later.
He stopped outside the room.
He did not enter.
He waited.
A nurse came to me.
“Your husband is outside.”
“Soon-to-be ex-husband.”
She smiled awkwardly.
“Should I send him in?”
I looked at the door.
“Yes.”
Dominic entered slowly.
“Hi.”
I almost laughed.
“Hi.”
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Right.”
He sat beside the bed.
Another contraction hit.
I grabbed his hand so hard he winced.
He didn’t complain.
Hours passed.
Labor became harder.
Then the fetal monitor changed.
A nurse entered.
Then another.
My doctor looked at the screen.
“What?”
I saw his expression.
“What is it?”
“Her heart rate is dropping during contractions.”
Dominic stood.
“What does that mean?”
“We’re repositioning Vivienne.”
They moved me.
Oxygen.
IV.
More monitors.
My father waited outside.
Dominic stayed beside me.
For the first time since the wedding, fear erased everything else.
No divorce.
No money.
No Daniel.
No Eleanor.
Only our daughter.
The doctor watched the screen.
Another contraction.
Another drop.
He looked at me.
“Vivienne, if this continues, we may need to deliver by C-section.”
“Do it.”
“We’re watching another cycle.”
The door opened suddenly.
Security stood outside.
A hospital administrator entered.
Her face was pale.
“Ms. Ashford?”
“What?”
“We have an issue downstairs.”
Dominic frowned.
“What issue?”
The administrator hesitated.
“Someone attempted to access your medical file.”
My blood ran cold.
“Who?”
“We don’t know yet.”
My father appeared behind her.
His expression told me he already knew.
“Dad?”
He looked at Dominic.
Then me.
“Eleanor.”
Dominic went still.
“What did she do?”
“She used an employee credential belonging to someone in hospital administration.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
“Why?”
My father’s jaw tightened.
“She was trying to find this room.”
A contraction ripped through me.
I cried out.
Dominic moved immediately to my side.
The monitor began alarming.
The doctor looked at the screen.
“Okay.”
Everything accelerated.
“We’re going now.”
Dominic turned white.
“C-section?”
“Yes.”
The bed began moving.
I grabbed Dominic’s hand.
He looked at me.
“Come with me.”
His eyes filled.
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
I almost laughed through the fear.
“But come anyway.”
The operating-room doors opened.
As they wheeled me inside, I heard my father shouting behind us.
“Find Eleanor before she gets anywhere near this floor.”
May you like
Then the doors closed.
And for the first time in months, nothing mattered except whether my daughter would take her first breath.
