Chapter 235:

🍙 🍙 🍙 🍙 🍙

That night, I sat at my desk and reviewed the final custody petition my lawyer, Arthur Vance, would be filing on Monday morning. The document was straightforward, precise, and unassailable. I made notes in the margins, flagged a few clauses for clarification, and closed the file with a clear sense of readiness.

This wasn’t a fight I was entering. It was a resolution I was completing. I had spent months waiting for the right moment, for Blake to show some sign of change, for something to shift. But nothing had shifted. And all that waiting had only cost me time I could have spent building my daughter’s future.

I stood at the window and looked out over the Manhattan skyline. The city hummed below, steady and indifferent. I let the quiet night air fill my lungs, and for the first time in months, I felt completely still. The decision was made. The path was clear.

Tomorrow, I would file the petition. Tomorrow, I would finally stop waiting.

Blake POV

I set my phone down on the dark mahogany desk in my private study at the Carlisle estate, a knot of deep, unfamiliar frustration tightening in my chest. I had called Corinne’s personal line four times in a row, and every call had gone unanswered.

I stared at the silent screen, unable to make sense of my own impulse. Seeing Corinne beside Cyrus Shepherd at the Catskills resort earlier today, poised and smiling, wrapped in a quiet air of genuine harmony, had shaken my focus in a way I hadn’t anticipated.

Ever since Alistair Kensington had publicly crowned Corinne his “star pupil” and a top-tier data strategist at the Four Seasons, the gap between my old assumptions and the current reality had widened into an unbridgeable divide.

I had settled Dayna and her family into the new Catskills estate, sitting through their excited praise and the media interviews, yet I felt a profound, hollow emptiness that no corporate transaction could fill.

𝖣𝗶𝘀c𝗼𝘷er n𝗲𝘸 𝗌𝘁o𝗋𝗂𝖾𝗌 𝘰𝗻 𝘨𝗮𝗅ոо𝘃𝗲𝘭𝘴.𝖼𝗈𝗺

Suddenly, small footsteps pattered across the hardwood floor, and Lily ran into the study, her little hands tugging at my trousers. “Daddy! Did you call Mommy? Why isn’t Mommy coming to see me tonight?”

My daughter’s tearful complaint sharpened the ache in my head. I knelt and gently lifted her into my arms. “Mommy is busy with her firm’s projects, Lily.”

Lily pouted, her small face turning red. “Busy! Everyone’s always busy! You promised to take me skiing today, but you went to media dinners with Aunt Dayna instead! You don’t play with me anymore!”

Her innocent words landed like a sharp rebuke. I held her close, smoothing her hair. “Daddy loves you more than anything, sweet girl.”

“Then make Mommy come back!” Lily sobbed against my shoulder. “I miss Mommy!”

I had no answer. I simply held her, feeling the weight of her small body against my chest, and for the first time, I understood that no amount of money or corporate maneuvering could replace the simple presence of her mother.

My gaze drifted past Lily to the window, where she had left a crayon drawing on the sill: a crude portrait of three figures holding hands, labeled Mama, Daddy, and Lily. It was smudged in places, and I realized she had been working on it for days.

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