Chapter 3 - The Fortress of Glass
By 3:00 AM, the Sterling estate in Greenwich, Connecticut—a eighty-acre compound of limestone, structural glass, and manicured lawns—was under security lockdown.
Julian had refused to let Victoria enter the main house. She had been escorted by private security to the guest cottage at the far edge of the estate, while Lady Eleanor had been taken back to her townhome in Manhattan under the supervision of Arthur’s legal team.
Inside the main nursery on the second floor, the lights were kept low.
Noah lay in his massive, custom-built mahogany bed, still wearing his white undershirt from the gala. He refused to let go of Elena’s right thumb. Even in his sleep, his small hand tightened every time she made the slightest movement.
Elena sat on the floor beside the bed, her back resting against the frame, her shoes off. Her tan uniform was wrinkled, her face exhausted, but her eyes were fixed on the child's face as if she were trying to make up for six years of lost mornings in a single night.
The door creaked open softly. Julian stepped in, carrying a tray with two mugs of tea and a wool blanket.
He set the tray on the nightstand and gently draped the blanket over Elena’s shoulders.
"He hasn't slept through the night in two years," Julian said quietly, sitting on the edge of the floor beside her. "He keeps having nightmares about a woman calling to him from a window. Victoria told him it was just a ghost from his cartoons."
Elena swallowed hard, her throat working against a knot of grief. "Children know, Julian. They know the voice that spoke to them before they were born."
Julian looked down at his hands—hands that had signed corporate deeds, managed billions in assets, and yet had failed to protect the woman he loved and the child they had created.
"I searched for you, Elena," he whispered, his voice cracking in the dim light. "After... after they told me you left Montreux. I went to your apartment in Queens. It was cleared out. Your landlord said a woman matching your mother-in-law's description came with a moving van and three men."
"They told me you were married to Victoria before I ever met you," Elena said, looking at him. "They said I was just an experiment for you—a way to get an heir without Victoria having to ruin her body for her modeling contracts."
Julian felt a wave of nausea rise in his throat. "I married Victoria three years ago... two years after I thought you died. My uncle told me it was the only way to save the firm from bankruptcy after the European market crash. I was a ghost, Elena. I didn't care about anything. I just wanted someone to run the house so I could work twenty hours a day and forget."
"She didn't love him, Julian," Elena said, looking at the sleeping boy. "Tonight... when he fell on the marble, she didn't check his knees. She checked her dress to see if his shoes had left a mark on her hem."
Julian reached out, his hand hovering an inch above Elena’s shoulder, hesitated, and then gently touched her hair, tucking a loose brown lock behind her ear.
"It’s over, Elena," he swore, his voice iron-hard. "I don't know how long the legal fight will take, or how many lies they will tell in court tomorrow, but you are never leaving this house without him again."
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"They have forty lawyers, Julian," she whispered, looking into his eyes. "I have a suit from a department store and a bank account with six hundred dollars."
"You have me," Julian said. "And for the first time in six years, that actually means something."
