Owen answered, “She’s already training herself. She keeps asking if she should quit her job after we’re married so she can focus on the kids. I’m letting her think it’s her idea.”
Grant whistled. “Man, you’re set.”
They laughed—like my life was a game they’d already won.
I backed away from the phone as if it could burn me. Every sweet memory of Owen helping Sophie with homework, cooking pancakes with Liam, rubbing my shoulders after work—everything twisted into a new shape. Not love. Strategy.
Then Patricia said the sentence that snapped the last thread of denial.
“Just make sure the wedding happens,” she warned. “Once she’s your wife, we can deal with her attitude. If she’s stubborn, we’ll remind her she has nowhere else to go.”
My heart pounded so loud I thought they might hear it through the call.
Owen’s voice came back, confident. “She won’t leave. Not with kids. She needs me.”
I looked toward the hallway where my children slept, and something inside me went cold and clear.
They didn’t need him.
