Marcus said nothing.
Evelyn sat rigidly on the sofa. “I want a paternity test.”
“You’ll have one,” Marcus said.
“And if the baby is not yours?”
He turned. “Then it is not my problem.”
His mother’s mouth tightened. “A child is not a misplaced invoice.”
Roxanne scoffed. “Mother, please. Penelope lied to everyone.”
“Yes,” Evelyn said. “And we were eager to believe her because she promised us what we wanted.”
That quiet sentence unsettled the room.
Marcus looked at his mother. “You’re defending her?”
“No. I am looking at us.”
Roxanne stopped pacing. “Us?”
Evelyn’s gaze moved between her children. “We treated Julianne shamefully.”
Marcus gave a short laugh. “This is not about Julianne.”
“Isn’t it?” Evelyn asked. “This morning, you signed away a marriage and dismissed your children as if they were clutter in a room you wanted redecorated.”
“They’re not gone forever.”
“Where are they?”
Marcus opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Roxanne folded her arms. “She’ll come back when the money runs out.”
Marcus thought of the Mercedes waiting outside the building. The driver calling her Miss Julianne. The calm in her eyes when she handed over the keys.
He was no longer sure.
The next morning, Marcus went to the condo.
His key worked, but the place felt different the moment he stepped inside. Not empty. Stripped of warmth.
Julianne had taken very little. The expensive furniture remained. The abstract paintings Marcus had chosen remained. The glass dining table, the leather sofa, the ridiculous sculptural lamp Roxanne adored and Julianne quietly disliked—all untouched.
But the small things were gone.
Noah’s dinosaur magnets from the refrigerator. Sophie’s watercolor taped near the hallway mirror. Julianne’s blue mug. The little brass bowl where she kept seashells from family trips Marcus barely remembered.
Without them, the condo looked less like his achievement and more like a showroom waiting for someone to invent a life inside it.
On the kitchen island lay one envelope with his name written in Julianne’s neat hand.
Inside were copies of documents.
Not emotional letters. Not accusations.
Documents.