Eloise

The papers lay open on the kitchen counter, white against the marble, silent but deafening.

Each line, each coldly written clause, was a knife carving through years of my life as though they were nothing more than a bad investment.

Lucian wanted everything. The company I built from scratch. The house he never lived in but claimed for the sake of appearance. Even the rights to certain designs — my designs — because they’d been created “during the course of marriage.”

The man didn’t just want to ruin me. He wanted to erase me.

I didn’t cry. Not yet. I couldn’t. The tears sat somewhere deep, locked behind everything else I’d already buried. Instead, I reached for my phone with shaking hands and called the only person I trusted to help me fight without pity — Nora. My lawyer. My last wall. When I had called Ava earlier, she advised me to seek solace in my lawyer.

She picked up on the first ring. “Eloise?”

Her voice was tight, careful. The kind people use when they already know the bad news.

“I got the papers,” I said, voice cracking in the middle. “He’s trying to take everything.”

“Of course he is,” she said, like it was obvious. “Lucian never learned how to lose gracefully. But you knew this was coming. You have to be ready for it.”

“I thought I was,” I whispered. “I thought I could handle this. But seeing it—”

“Hey,” Nora’s tone softened. “You’re not alone. We’ll counter every claim. You’ll get your shares back, your rights, your name. You just have to hold steady.”

Hold steady.

If only it were that easy. How do I fight a fight I can possibly lose in?

.

When the call ended, the silence wrapped me like smoke. I sank onto the floor, my back against the cabinets, I finally let the tears come — ugly, hot, and unstoppable.

All the betrayal, the humiliation, the years of pretending.

All the nights I’d believed Lucian loved me, when really, I’d just been another acquisition.

I cried until my throat burned and my body trembled from exhaustion. And when the sobs finally ebbed, something inside me shifted, quiet, but seismic.

It wasn’t just grief anymore. It was anger.

Because he thought I would stay broken. He thought I’d crumble and vanish, that I’d play the part of the discarded wife quietly, graciously.

He didn’t know me at all.

.

That night, I didn’t sleep. Instead, I went to Max’s room. My son was fast asleep, sprawled across his tiny bed with his stuffed bear tucked under one arm. His hair stuck up in every direction, and he was drooling onto his pillow, utterly unbothered by the chaos outside our walls.

I stood there for a long time, watching his chest rise and fall.

This — he — was why I couldn’t give up. Why I couldn’t just sign away everything and disappear.

He deserved to see his mother stand up for herself.

To see that being broken wasn’t the same as being defeated.

I brushed a kiss against his forehead and whispered, “Mommy’s going to fix everything, baby. I promise.”

For the first time since the broadcast, my voice didn’t shake.

.

By dawn, I was sitting at my desk, still in my robe, hair unbrushed, but my mind sharp as glass. I drafted an email to my PR team — short, precise, and final.

“We go public tomorrow. I’ll make a statement on the divorce and my next steps. Schedule a press conference. I want control of the narrative before he does.”

I hit send. No hesitation.

Then another message to Nora:

“Find everything he’s hiding. I just don’t want anything he has to do with Jennifer. I don’t care how deep we have to dig — I want it all.”

I stood and faced the mirror on the far wall. My reflection looked like hell, eyes swollen, face pale, lips chapped, but beneath that, there was strength.

Eloise—the woman who once built an empire from an empty apartment and a sketchbook—was still in there. Buried maybe, but not gone.

.

By afternoon, I was in the boardroom. My PR director, Harper, sat across from me, typing notes as I spoke.

“No tears,” I said firmly. “No apologies. I’m not the victim here.”

Harper nodded. “You want to come out strong, clear. We’ll emphasize your leadership, your independence—”

“And the truth,” I cut in. “We emphasize that. He cheated. He lied. And he underestimated me.”

Harper hesitated. “That’ll stir the press.”

“Good,” I said. “That’s what he deserved.”

But beneath it all was fear, fear that my voice won’t be heard, fear that Lucian will end up taking everything because I don’t hold that much power, Lucian had acess to all our joint accounts and I might end up fighting for nothing.

.

That evening, after everyone left, I stayed in the conference room alone, staring at the city skyline. Tonight was the gala night, a night for interpreneurs to gather: Fashion stylists, jewelers, the whole city will be there. Lights blinked against the dark like tiny promises. The weight in my chest wasn’t gone, but it was changing shape — less grief, more resolve.

Lucian had wanted to humiliate me publicly. Now, I would rebuild publicly.

I slipped my wedding ring from my bag, placed it on the glass table, and left it there.

Tonight, they would see a new headline at the gala night — not Lucian and Jennifer’s engagement, but Eloise returns stronger.