My husband earns $25,000 a month but gives it all to his mother: "I can have 100 wives, but only one mother." That night, I served 4 bowls of ramen.

Julian laughed.

It was short, sharp, and ugly.

"You bought this penthouse?" He looked at Eleanor and laughed again.

"Did you hear that, Mom?

The woman who can't even pay for her own groceries is claiming she owns a five-million-dollar property."

Eleanor had recovered.

She straightened her spine and folded her arms.

"You're desperate.

That's what this is.

A desperate, pregnant woman making up stories to avoid being thrown out."

I didn't raise my voice.

I walked to the kitchen drawer, pulled out a manila envelope, and set it flat on the table between the ramen bowls.

"Open it," I said.

Neither of them moved.

"Open it, Julian."

He snatched it up.

I watched his eyes scan the first page.

Then stop.

Then go back to the top and scan it again.

The color left his face so fast it was almost frightening.

"This…

this is in your name." His voice had dropped to almost nothing.

"The whole property.

How—"

"Because I paid for it," I said quietly.

"Every cent.

Before I ever married you."

Eleanor stepped forward and grabbed the document from his hands.

Her eyes flew across the page.

Her lips pressed into a thin, trembling line.

Then my phone buzzed on the counter.

I turned it over.

It was a message from someone Julian believed I had never met.

DAD LAUGHED at me in front of the entire chapel and told me to walk down...

DAD LAUGHED at me in front of the entire chapel and told me to walk down the aisle by myself because I was marrying a nobody.

My parents threw me out on Christmas morning.

"Your mother isn't sick, Maya.

I read it.

And for the first time that night, I almost smiled.

Chapter 2: The Envelope on the Table