Weeks. While I’d been tracking ovulation and crying over negative tests, my husband had been drafting paperwork to end our marriage.
I pulled out the second item. A check.
$700,000.00
The Mitchell family crest was embossed in pale blue at the top. Eleanor’s signature sat at the bottom in looping script.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered.
“It’s quite simple, Caroline.” Eleanor clasped her hands on the desk like I was a maid who’d broken a vase.
“You will sign the divorce papers. You will cash that check. Then you will leave Texas.”
“Today, preferably. Tomorrow at the latest.”
My ears rang. “You’re paying me to leave?”
“I’m compensating you for the time you’ve spent attached to this family. Consider it a severance package.”
“I’m Derek’s wife.”
“Were,” she said sharply. “Were Derek’s wife. Past tense.”
“Be realistic, Caroline. This marriage is over. My son will be a father in weeks.”
“Those boys need a stable home. A family free of awkward complications.”
“Awkward complications,” I repeated. “You mean his actual wife.”
Eleanor sighed like she was being very patient with someone very stupid. “You were married to him for six years.”
“You tried unsuccessfully to give him children. You failed. He moved on.”
“The situation is tragic, yes, but it is also perfectly clear.”
The Truth About My Body
“I didn’t fail,” my voice broke. “We had medical issues—”
“You are thirty-four years old,” Eleanor said, her voice sharp as broken glass. “The doctors have told you three times now that your chances of conceiving are less than five percent.”
“That you’ve had diminished ovarian reserve since your twenties. That the likelihood of a successful pregnancy is negligible.”
The words hit me like slaps across the face.
“You read my medical reports?”
“Of course I did. I needed to know what we were dealing with.” She waved off my outrage like it was nothing.
“The point is, you are barren, Caroline. And this family needs heirs.”
Barren. She said it calmly, clinically, like a statistic.
And something inside my chest splintered into a thousand pieces.
“You have twenty-four hours,” Eleanor continued, as if she were confirming a catering order. “You will leave Texas, leave my son, leave this house.”
“You will not contact Derek again. You will not speak to the press or our friends about private matters.”
“And if I don’t?” The words came out hoarse.
Her lips curled in a small, satisfied smile. “You don’t have the leverage you think you do, dear.”
“You have no children, no career of your own, no claim to the business. You’re a housewife with a history degree and an expensive wardrobe.”
“What exactly do you imagine you’ll win if you fight this?”
I didn’t answer. Because the awful part was that she was right.
On paper, I didn’t look like much of a threat.
Eleanor reached into the drawer and slid a silver pen across the desk. “Take the money. Sign the papers.”
“Be grateful.”
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