"Mrs. Marlowe, there's a lawyer here demanding to see you. He says it's urgent."
June's voice slices through the quarterly projections I've been staring at for an hour without absorbing a single number, and my stomach drops before my brain can catch up.
Lawyers don't make house calls with champagne and good wishes. Lawyers showing up unannounced means someone with deep pockets has decided to ruin your week.
The man who strides into Conference Room B wears a suit that costs more than my monthly rent and carries a leather briefcase that probably has its own trust fund.
He sets a manila folder on the table with the precision of someone delivering a death warrant.
"Mrs. Voss. Or should I say Mrs. Marlowe? The aliases do get confusing."
"Who are you, and what do you want?"
"Gerald Blake, representing Rowena Voss in the matter of emergency custody proceedings."
He slides a document across the polished surface.
"Mrs. Voss has filed a motion claiming you're an unfit mother, citing your unstable living situation, your deliberate concealment of the child from his father's family, and your documented history of erratic behavior following your departure from the marital home."
The words swim on the page. Unfit mother. Emergency custody.
"This is insane. I left an unhappy marriage and had a baby, that's not grounds for—"
"The courts will determine what constitutes grounds, Mrs. Marlowe. In the meantime, Mrs. Voss has requested an immediate evaluation of your fitness to—"
The conference room door slams open hard enough to rattle the windows.
Caspian stands in the doorway, chest heaving, tie crooked, looking like he sprinted across Manhattan the second he heard.
"You will withdraw this motion," he says, voice cold enough to freeze steel, "or I will personally ensure every client your firm has ever courted knows you're acting as attack dog for a woman who bullied my wife at a public dinner."
Gerald's composure cracks.
"Mr. Voss, your mother retained my services to protect the family's interests regarding—"
"I don't care what my mother told you. Elara is still my wife, that child is a Voss, and if you think I'll stand by while my mother weaponizes the legal system to terrorize them, you've fundamentally misunderstood who I am."
"Your mother made it clear she has the full support of—"
"My mother doesn't speak for this family. I do."
Caspian steps closer, and Gerald actually retreats.
"You have twenty-four hours to file a withdrawal, or I start making calls."
Gerald's face goes chalk-white. He gathers his briefcase with trembling hands and scurries out without another word.
The door clicks shut.
Silence floods the room, and I can't stop staring at this version of Caspian—fierce, protective, ready to torch the world for me.
He crosses the distance and cups my face, tilting my chin until I'm drowning in those ice-blue eyes.
"I should have done that a long time ago. Every time she made you feel small, I should have stopped her, and I didn't, and I'm sorry."
"You did today."
His jaw tightens, and the softness in his eyes hardens into something wounded.
"I still don't understand how you could possibly mistake him for me. We don't even look that similar, Elara. The hair, the way he carries himself—how could you not tell?"
And there it is.
The question that's been festering between us since I confessed.
"Are you serious right now? You want to interrogate me about how I failed to identify your secret relative at a masked ball?" The defensive edge in my voice surprises even me. "Maybe if you'd mentioned at any point in our three years together that you had a cousin who could pass for your twin in dim lighting, I would have been better prepared."
"I don't talk about Rhys because Rhys and I have a complicated history that has nothing to do with—"
"Nothing to do with me? He showed up at a party pretending to be you, Caspian. He called me by your nickname for me. That seems pretty relevant to our marriage, don't you think?"
His hands drop from my face like I've burned him.
"You're deflecting. I'm trying to understand what happened, and you're making this about my family drama instead of the fact that you slept with another man."
"You want to know what happened?"
The anger rises hot and fast, words spilling out before I can stop them.
"I was miserable, Caspian. I was so desperately, bone-deep miserable that when a man who looked like you actually touched me like he wanted me, I didn't ask questions."
His face goes pale.
"With Rhys, I felt more alive in one night than I had in two years of our marriage. Is that what you wanted to hear? That your neglected wife came alive under someone else's hands because her husband couldn't be bothered to notice she was drowning?"
The words hang between us like shrapnel.
"I know I failed you." His voice is raw, stripped of all its usual control. "I know I disappeared into work and grief and left you alone when you needed me most. But I'm here now, Elara. I'm trying. Doesn't that count for anything?"
My chest aches with something I can't name—anger and guilt and underneath it all, that stubborn thread of love that refuses to die no matter how much I starve it.
"I don't know. I want to believe you've changed, but wanting isn't the same as trusting."
"Then let me prove it." He steps closer, and his hand finds mine. "Give me time. That's all I'm asking."
I let him pull me into his arms. His chin rests on top of my head, his heartbeat steady against my cheek, and I want so badly to sink into this feeling and believe it's enough.
But my mind keeps drifting to blue-green eyes and a voice that called me little star like he was savoring every syllable.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
Rhys: Heard about the lawyer. You okay, firefly?
Firefly. That's new.
I almost smile but don't respond.
I don't delete it either.
That night, after Milo is asleep and Tessa has retreated to her room, my phone buzzes again.
Maria: Mrs. Voss, I hope I'm not overstepping. I'm worried about Mr. Caspian. He's not eating. He sits in the nursery for hours, just staring at the empty crib. The one you decorated together before... well. Before. I've never seen him like this. Thought you should know.
The nursery. The one we painted butter yellow together, laughing about whether the baby would prefer elephants or giraffes. The room I couldn't enter after the miscarriage.
He kept it. All this time.
I set the phone face-down and stare at the ceiling, caught between two men who both want pieces of me I'm not sure I have left to give.