Abby Mariana Saughelli

The night my daughter Lily stopped breathing, my husband was in a penthouse suite with his secretary. I know this because when I called him—screaming, begging, my hands still shaking from performing CPR on our three-year-old—his secretary answered. "Damien's in the shower," she said, her voice lazy and satisfied. "Can I take a message?" My daughter was dying. And she was asking if she could take a message. Lily had been born with a congenital heart defect. She'd had two surgeries before her second birthday. Every day with her was borrowed time, and I treasured every single second. But Damien Sterling, my husband—CEO of Sterling Industries, heir to a billion-dollar empire—treated our daughter like an inconvenience. No. Worse. He treated her like she didn't exist. He never visited her in the hospital. Never held her hand after surgery. Never once read her a bedtime story. The only time he acknowledged Lily was when he accused me of "using a sick child to trap him." Trap him. As if I wanted to be trapped in this nightmare of a marriage. Our union was an arrangement—my family's pharmaceutical company, Voss Pharmaceuticals, merged with Sterling Industries, and I was the collateral. A contract bride. Damien made it clear on our wedding night that he would never love me. "Don't touch me," he'd said, still in his tuxedo, pouring himself a drink. "This marriage is business. You are business. Nothing more." I accepted it. I accepted all of it. Because I was twenty-two and stupid and believed that if I was patient enough, kind enough, good enough, he would eventually see me. He never did. But when Lily came along—an accident he blamed me for—I thought maybe she would soften him. Maybe holding his own child would crack through that wall of ice. Instead, he looked at our newborn daughter and said, "Get a DNA test. I want proof she's mine." She was. Of course she was. He was the only man I'd ever been with. But even after the test confirmed it, he never bonded with her. He never tried. And now she was gone. I sat in the hospital hallway, Lily's tiny body already growing cold in the room behind me, and I stared at my phone. Damien hadn't called back. Three hours later, he still hadn't called back. By dawn, I had signed every document the hospital required. Alone. I arranged the funeral. Alone. I picked out a white casket small enough to carry in my arms. Alone. When I finally returned to the Sterling mansion, I found Damien in the kitchen, drinking coffee and reading the Financial Times as if it were any other morning. He glanced up. "You look terrible." I stared at him. "Lily died last night." He set down his mug. Blinked. "What?" "Your daughter. She's dead." The silence that followed should have broken something in him. It should have shattered the world. Instead, he frowned—confused, almost annoyed—as if I'd told him about a stock that underperformed. "Why didn't you call me?" he asked. I laughed. It was the kind of laugh that comes out when your soul has finally cracked in half. "I did, Damien. Your secretary answered. She said you were in the shower." His jaw tightened. Not with grief. With embarrassment. And that was the moment I knew—with absolute, bone-deep certainty—that I was done. I walked past him, went upstairs, and began packing my bags. He followed me, leaning against the doorframe. "What are you doing?" "Leaving." "Don't be dramatic, Vivienne." I zipped my suitcase shut and turned to face him. "Our daughter is dead. You were sleeping with your secretary. And you're calling me dramatic?" For the first time in our marriage, Damien Sterling had nothing to say. But I did. "I want a divorce. And I want back everything you stole from me." His eyes narrowed. Because he knew exactly what I meant.