Phoebe let out a slow breath.

“And your daughter is three days old.”

I looked down at Lily, wrapped in a soft pink blanket, her tiny chest rising and falling, and despite the cold rain soaking through everything I wore, a tired and ferocious little smile touched my mouth.

“Three days,” I said.

“Three days after I brought her home from the hospital, I am standing in the rain outside my own front door, because my husband changed the smart-lock code before he flew to Miami with his mother.

So yes, Phoebe.

Sell it.

Sell all of it.”

Chapter 2 — It Was Always Mine

Behind me, warm amber light spilled out through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the estate I had built, from absolutely nothing, with my own two hands and my own hard years.

Every stone of that house, every wall, every custom fixture, had come out of my work and my capital and a decade of sacrifice that happened long before Luca Vance ever walked into my life.

I had designed it.

I had paid for it.

I had paid it off.