POV Jocelyn

The coffee isn’t mine.

I know this because I brew my coffee weak enough that it basically qualifies as flavored water. This shit could strip paint. It’s sitting on the marble counter like a fucking monument to passive aggression, steam curling up from the mug in perfect little spirals that scream “I own this kitchen and everything in it.”

Including, apparently, my daughter.

Because right next to Mr. Control Freak’s industrial-strength caffeine addiction sits a manila envelope that makes my stomach drop straight through the floor.

Temporary Custody Petition: Zayden Wolfe v. Jocelyn Hartwell.

Not “Zayden and Jocelyn discuss parenting arrangements like rational adults.”

Not “Hey, maybe we should talk about this like two people who accidentally created a human together.”

Nope. Straight to legal warfare.

I pick up the document with hands that are definitely not shaking—because I refuse to give him that satisfaction, even when he’s not here to witness it—and scan the first page.

Petitioner seeks temporary custody based on the minor child’s current medical needs and the respondent’s inability to provide adequate care and housing.

“Adequate care and housing,” I read aloud to the empty kitchen, because talking to myself is apparently where we are now. “Right. Because living in a shitty apartment and working three jobs to afford her treatments obviously makes me unfit.”

The humiliation hits like a freight train made of pure embarrassment and rage. This man—who hasn’t had a real conversation with me since the night I told him Mia was his—filed legal paperwork.

Actual court documents. Like I’m some deadbeat parent who abandoned her kid at a gas station. And he didn’t even have the balls to hand it to me himself.

No phone call. No “Hey, we should discuss this.” No basic human decency.

Just legal documents placed between his pretentious coffee and a bowl of exotic fruit that probably costs more than my monthly grocery budget.

Because yes, we’re living here now. In his glass tower of emotional unavailability.

The doctors made it sound so reasonable. Mia needs round-the-clock monitoring. Specialized equipment. A medical team that doesn’t exist in my insurance network. Zayden has all of that and more.

“It’s temporary,” they said. “Just until she’s stable.”

What they didn’t mention was that moving into Zayden Wolfe’s penthouse would be like living inside a museum exhibit titled “Rich Person’s Emotional Constipation.”

The man has seventeen rooms and I’ve seen him exactly three times since we moved in. Always in passing. Always with that expression that says he’d rather gargle glass than acknowledge my existence.

Mia, on the other hand, thinks she’s living in a princess castle.

Her room looks like Disney threw up rainbows and unicorns. She has a nurse who braids her hair every morning and sneaks her extra popsicles after blood draws.

The tiger nightlight I bought her at Target now sits next to a custom lamp that probably costs more than my car. And she’s happy.

For the first time since her diagnosis, my daughter is genuinely, beautifully happy.

Which makes me want to burn this custody petition and scatter the ashes over Zayden’s perfectly organized desk.

But before I can commit any felonies, the sound of stilettos on marble cuts through my homicidal fantasy.

Vivienne fucking Ashford is click-clacking down the hallway like the harbinger of doom in designer shoes.

I bolt for Mia’s room because whatever fresh hell is about to rain down, it’s not happening around my daughter.

She’s already asleep, fever finally broken, curled up with her tiger like a tiny angel who definitely doesn’t deserve to be caught in the middle of this shitshow.

I pull her covers up and kiss her forehead, tasting the salt of my own tears that I definitely haven’t been crying.

The door creaks open behind me.

“Well,” comes that voice like ice cubes in acid, “isn’t this cozy.”

I turn around slowly, keeping my body between Vivienne and Mia’s bed. “Get out.”

“I have a key.” She holds it up like evidence. “Still do.”

“She’s sleeping.”

Vivienne glides into the room anyway, because apparently basic human decency is as foreign to her as emotional warmth. Her perfume hits me like a chemical weapon—cold, expensive, and designed to make everyone else feel inferior.

She looks around Mia’s room like she’s evaluating property damage.

“You know, this isn’t yours. This house. This man. This life.” Her smile could freeze hell. “It’s all on borrowed time.”

My hands curl into fists before I can stop them. “Then why are you still here?”

“Because unlike you, I belong in this world. You’re temporary. A placeholder. And you’re not family.”

She steps closer, her voice dropping to a whisper that somehow sounds more threatening than shouting.

“Don’t get too comfortable.”

I open my mouth to tell her exactly where she can shove her belonging and her keys and her entire fucking existence, but the air in the room shifts.

There’s a presence in the doorway.

Zayden stands there in his perfect suit with his perfect posture and his perfectly unreadable expression.

He heard everything.

Every poisonous word that just spilled out of his fiancée’s mouth about the mother of his child.

Vivienne spins around, and for half a second, she actually looks rattled. “Zay. Didn’t know you were home.”

He says nothing. Not one word. Doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t correct her. Doesn’t tell her to get the fuck out of his daughter’s room and never come back.

Just. Silence.

Vivienne tilts her head like she’s posing for a portrait, waiting for him to choose her. To validate her. To prove she’s right about me being temporary.

He stares at her until she withers. She leaves without another word, heels clicking away like a retreating army. The door closes with a soft click that sounds like a guillotine.

And still, he says nothing.

That silence burns hotter than any insult she could have thrown at me. Because it means he agrees with her. Or he doesn’t care enough to disagree. Either way, I lose.

I dress carefully the next morning. Professional. Competent.

Like a woman who definitely isn’t falling apart at the molecular level.

The lobby at Wolfe Tower is all marble and intimidation, designed to make people feel small. Mission accomplished.

I walk to the executive elevator with my chin up and my game face on, because I still have a job. I still have some shred of independence left.

My ID card hits the scanner.

Red light. I try again.

Red light. Access Denied.

The words flash on the little screen like a middle finger made of pixels.

“Ms. Hartwell?” The receptionist looks confused. “Is everything okay?”

“I work here,” I say, scanning my badge again because maybe the third time will be the charm and not the confirmation of my complete humiliation.

Red. Red. Red.

The receptionist picks up her phone. “Let me call HR.”

I step back from the scanner like it might explode. My heart is doing that thing where it tries to escape through my throat while my brain processes what just happened.

He moved me into his house. Filed custody papers. And now he’s cutting me out of my job.