My Ex Husband Lost Me To His Rival

CHAPTER 18:What Freedom Feels like

OLIVIA POV

I sat in the car and looked at the building.

Small firm. Third floor. Nothing connecting it to the Sterling world. I had spent two weeks finding it — checking names, reading case histories, making sure there was no thread between this office and anything Blake could pull.

Five minutes I sat there.

Then I went in.

The lawyer was a woman in her forties. She opened the folder I had sent ahead and started reading before I even sat down properly.

"The custody addendum," she said without looking up. "This language here instability or abandonment. For this to trigger against you they need documented evidence of either." She looked up. "Do they have that?"

"No."

"You're certain?"

"I've been documenting my involvement with my son since he was born. School pickups. Medical appointments. Every overnight. Every decision." I put my folder on her desk. " years of it."

She opened it.

Went through it slowly. Page by page. The only sound in the room was paper turning.

"This is thorough," she said finally.

"I know."

"Most people come in here with nothing. Maybe a text message or two." She looked at me over her glasses. "You came in with a case."

"I've had time to prepare."

She closed the folder and sat back. "Your legal position is stronger than you think. The addendum has conditions. You haven't met the threshold for either trigger." She tapped the desk once. "The contract expiration is your cleanest exit. Walk away on the date. Don't give them anything between now and then."

"And custody?"

"Primary custody comes down to documented involvement. Who was present. Who managed the child's life day to day. Who made the decisions." She tapped my folder. "This answers that question. Clearly."

"What if they challenge it?"

"Then we show up with this." She pushed the folder back toward me. "And they lose."

I picked it up.

Stood.

"One more thing," I said. "If the biological heir clause were ever challenged — if paternity became a factor,how would that affect the inheritance transfer?"

She looked at me for a moment. "That's a different conversation."

"I know. I'm asking anyway."

She was quiet for a second. "If biological paternity were formally disputed and disproved it would depend entirely on how the original directive was written. Some are airtight regardless of biology. Others aren't." She paused. "Do you have reason to believe paternity is in question?"

"I have reason to believe someone already knows the answer to that question and has been sitting on it for six years."

“I feel it will be used against me,but I don't know the next plans.”

She looked at me for a long moment.

"Come back when you're ready to have that conversation," she said.

I walked out into the afternoon with the folder under my arm and the ground feeling more solid under my feet than it had in years.

Ivan was already at the table when I got to the restaurant.

She stood up before I reached her and pulled me into a hug. Held on a second longer than she needed to.

"You look different," she said when she let go.

I sat down. "Different how?"

"Less like you're holding something." She looked at me. "Less tight."

"Maybe I am."

We ordered food. The place was small and quiet and nobody here knew my face.No one who would report back to anyone. Just two women at a corner table and food getting cold between them.

Ivan was more animated than usual. Laughing quicker. Leaning forward more.

"Tell me about Luciano," she said. She was cutting her food but her eyes were on me.

"What about him?"

"Is he good to you? Like actually good. Not just — present."

"He listens," I said. "When I talk he actually listens. He doesn't fill the silence with his own opinion. He just waits."

"That's rare."

"I know."

"Do you trust him?"

I looked at her. "Why are you asking me that?"

"Because I care about what happens to you." She set her fork down. "Because you've lived in a house where nobody saw you properly and I want to know if this person actually sees you or if he's just using the moment."

"He sees me," I said. "I think he has for a while."

Ivan nodded. Something moved across her face. Quick. I couldn't name it.

"Good," she said. "That's good."

She picked up her fork again and smiled and the moment passed. But it sat somewhere in the back of my mind. That expression. That particular nod.

I filed it away.

She raised her glass before dessert came.

"To what comes next," she said.

I looked at the words.

What comes next.

Since I signed the contract I hadn't said those words seriously. Not about myself. Not with any real belief that a next life existed that was actually mine.

"What comes next," I said quietly.

Just to hear how it sounded in my own mouth.

Ivan's eyes were bright across the table. Shining in a way that went just slightly past what the moment needed. I noticed it. One small flash of something underneath the celebration that didn't quite belong there.

Then she was laughing and refilling my glass and the look was gone.

I let it go.

But I didn't forget it.

The gates of Crest Estate were lit up when I pulled in.

I sat outside with the engine running and looked at the building. All those windows. All that cold geometry. The place I had managed and maintained and held together without anyone noticing the holding.

I tried to imagine not coming back.

It came easier than I expected.

I drove through and went inside.

Nathaniel was asleep.

Curled on his side. One hand tucked under his cheek. His drawing book open on the desk like he'd fallen asleep mid-page. I pulled his blanket up and stood there a moment looking at his face.

Then I went to the bedroom.

Blake wasn't home. The room was dark and quiet.

I sat at the window.

The city spread out below. Lights going on and off. People moving through their lives without any awareness of mine.

I didn't open the notebook.

There was nothing left to document. The folder was done. The lawyer's words were still sitting clean in my head. The contract date was circled on a calendar only I could see.

I just sat.

My phone buzzed on the windowsill.

Unknown number.

I watched it ring.

I answered.

"Ms. Bennett." A woman's voice. Low. Steady. Professional. "My name isn't important right now. What's important is that I know about the Connecticut facility." A pause. "And I know who has been paying for it."

I didn't move.

"If you want the truth about your mother," she said, "I suggest you meet me tomorrow morning."

The line went quiet.

I sat up in the dark with the phone still against my ear and the city still glittering below and the silence of the room pressing in from every side.

My mother.

Connecticut.

I sat there for a long time after the call ended.

"Just sat there".