Like my answer mattered more than the contract, more than the money, more than the biology.
Do you want a child or just an heir?
I’d asked it without thinking, and the way his entire face had shifted—jaw tightening, eyes going dark and deep andvulnerablefor just a second before he’d answered.
Both. And I need somebody brave enough to know the difference.
I was still feeling the weight of those words in my chest.
The way his voice had gone rough. The way he’d looked at me like he was choosing me for reasons that had nothing to do with my medical history or my bloodline or the fact that I was desperate enough to sign.
He’d looked at me like I wasreal.
And I hadn’t felt real in a long time.
I reached the bus stop and immediately regretted every step I’d taken in these borrowed sandals. My feet were screaming. I sat on the bench—metal, hot from the sun, probably hadn’t been cleaned since Katrina—and tried to catch my breath.
Tried to stop thinking about the way Amai Landry’s presence had filled that entire office.
Calculated. Ruthless. Powerful in a way that didn’t need to announce itself because everyone already knew.
But underneath all that control, I’d seen something else.
Something hungry.
Something that recognized the same hunger in me.
I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t hear the car pull up until it was right in front of me.
A silver Nissan Altima.
Mysilver Nissan Altima.
The one Phillip had kept in the divorce because his name was on the title, and I’d been too tired to fight about it.
My stomach dropped.
The driver’s side window rolled down, and there he was—Phillip Dimitry, my ex-husband, looking exactly the same as he had two months ago when he’d handed me the divorce papers and told me he had already moved on.
“Well, well, well,” Phillip said, grinning like he’d just won the lottery. “Truth Renois. What you doin’ all the way out here in the Garden District, baby? You get lost?”
I didn’t answer.
Couldn’t answer.
Because the passenger window was rolling down now, and I could seeher—Destiny Encino, 22 years old, makeup counter at Macy’s, the woman Phillip had been fucking for six months before he’d finally served me papers.
She was wearing my sunglasses.
The ones I’d left in the car.
“Oh, my God,” Destiny said, leaning out the window with a smile that was all teeth and cruelty. “Phillip, is that yourex-wife? The one you said was—what did you call her? Oh yeah.Broke and bitter.”
My hands curled into fists.
“What you doin’ out here, Truth?” Phillip asked again, still grinning. “You cleanin’ houses now? That where you was? In one of these big-ass mansions scrubbing toilets?”
“Fuck you, Phillip,” I said quietly.
