Chapter 4: The Marriage They Had Planned
I opened the envelope while Rowan watched.
Inside were photographs, bank records, and printed messages.
The first photograph showed Rowan and Selina leaving the office of a private estate attorney six weeks before our wedding.
“What is this?” I asked.
Rowan reached for it.
“A photograph without context.”
Dad moved between us.
“Sit down.”
“You don’t command me in my own home.”
Dad glanced at Leo.
“Then lower your voice in your son’s home.”
Rowan’s mouth tightened.
I lifted the first printed message.
“‘Once Gideon accepts the marriage, Phoebe will bring him back around.’ Did you write this?”
“No.”
“It came from your number.”
“Numbers can be copied.”
I read the reply beneath it.
Selina had written, “Be patient.
A grandchild will soften him.”
My fingers began to shake.
“Was Leo part of your plan?”
Rowan stepped toward me.
“Don’t twist this into something ugly.”
“You married me four months after learning who my father was.”
“I married you because I loved you.”
“Then why did you tell Selina I was your way into the Sterling estate?”
His eyes moved toward the door.
Dad placed Leo gently in the bassinet.
“Phoebe deserves an answer.”
“You had me investigated?” Rowan demanded.
“I investigated you after money began leaving my daughter’s account.”
“That money came from you.”
“It was Phoebe’s.”
“She would have shared it eventually.”
I pushed the papers toward him.
“Sharing is not the same as signing my name.”
Rowan knocked the pages aside.
They scattered across the carpet.
“You want the truth?” he said.
“Your father never respected you until you produced an heir.”
Dad’s face changed.
“Don’t speak for him,” I said.
“Why not?
He disappeared for two years.”
“You told me he wanted nothing to do with us.”
“And he didn’t come, did he?”
Dad pulled a second bundle from the envelope.
“I wrote to Phoebe fourteen times.”
I stared at him.
“No, you didn’t.”
He handed me copies of letters.
Each one had been returned unopened.
Across every envelope, someone had written: REFUSED BY RECIPIENT.
“That isn’t my handwriting.”
Rowan looked at the floor.
I held up an envelope.
“You told me Dad returned my wedding invitation.”
“He did.”
Dad removed a cream card from his coat.
It was still sealed inside its original envelope.
“This was found in Rowan’s desk at the office he rented under Bennett Family Consulting.”
Rowan lunged for it.
Dad caught his wrist.
“Don’t.”
“Get out of my house.”
I stood and held the invitation against my chest.
“No.
You get out.”
Rowan stared at me.
“You’re throwing out your husband three days after giving birth?”
“You left your wife during labor and stayed away for three days.”
“My mother needed me.”
“Your mother needed sixty guests to applaud her.
I needed one person to drive me to the hospital.”
His voice dropped.
“If you force me out, I’ll make sure you regret it.”
Dad stepped closer.
“Was that a threat?”
“It was a promise to protect my rights.”
“Your rights to what?” I asked.
“My money or my son?”
The doorbell rang.
Rowan smiled for the first time.
“That,” he said, “will be my mother’s attorney.”
I opened the door.
Selina stood beside a gray-haired man holding a leather case.
May you like
She looked past me toward Leo’s bassinet.
“We’re here,” she said, “to collect what belongs to the Bennett family.”
