Chapter 1: The Cold Delivery
Chapter 1: The Cold Delivery
The thick stack of divorce papers slapped sharply against my cheek before sliding heavily across the thin, starchy hospital blanket covering our newborn daughter. The stinging sensation on my skin was nothing compared to the ice in my chest. Just two hours after I had endured a grueling labor and whispered the name Grace to her, my husband looked down at her tiny, fragile face and labeled her worthless.
“I need a son,” Dominic Vance sneered, his voice colder than the sterile, fluorescent-lit room around us. He meticulously straightened the French cuffs of his custom-tailored Tom Ford shirt, refusing to even make eye contact with the infant. “Not another burden dressed in pink. I run an empire now. Empires require kings.”
My body still trembled violently from the exhaustion of childbirth, my skin pale and clammy against the hospital gown. Grace slept peacefully against my chest, her tiny chest rising and falling, completely unaware that her own father had just violently rejected her existence.
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Standing behind him like a dark, elegant shadow, his mother, Olivia, lifted her chin. Her neck was draped in pearls I had bought her for her sixtieth birthday. Her eyes gleamed with quiet, venomous satisfaction.
“Our family needs a grandson, darling,” she stated, her tone dripping with aristocratic malice. “A true Vance. Luckily, another woman has already given Dominic what you never could.”
