“I warned you repeatedly that I didn’t trust the numbers on that man,” she murmured softly one evening. “But I also know that sometimes a daughter has to break her own world apart to learn exactly how to rebuild it from the bedrock.”

I didn’t argue with her. She was entirely right.

I had desperately wanted an ordinary, unpretentious life. I wanted someone to look at me without immediately calculating the net worth of Brooks Global behind my eyes.

That was why I had intentionally let Dominic believe a minimized version of my history—that my father was a regional independent businessman, that my family was comfortable but entirely detached from the elite tiers of capital.

What I had failed to factor into my equation was that Dominic didn’t even love that ordinary version of me. He merely tolerated my presence while I served his daily routines.

He humiliated me whenever he needed an ego boost. And the exact moment I was at my most vulnerable—cut open from a C-section and holding his five-day-old son—he treated me worse than an expendable contract worker.