“Why?”
Graham frowned.
“Because I’m giving you a choice.”
“No. Why aren’t you asking Mia and Lucy to stay too?”
“They’re younger.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
His expression tightened.
Audrey leaned forward.
“You cheated on Mom, Dad. Now you’re asking me to split up with my sisters because you don’t want all of us moving.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“It literally is.”
“Audrey—”
She interrupted him.
“If staying with you is such a privilege, why do I have to abandon my sisters to earn it?”
Graham went silent.
Then Audrey said something I will remember forever.
“I don’t need a bigger bedroom. I need my family to stop making me choose sides.”
I walked into the room.
Graham saw me.
For once, he had nothing to say.
“Your documents are by the door,” I told him.
He left five minutes later.
Audrey waited until his car disappeared before looking at me.
“Are we still going?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
That night, she helped her sisters label moving boxes.
I thought the worst was behind us.
I had no idea that across town, inside Vivian Mercer’s estate, another problem was already waiting to explode.
Serena moved into Vivian’s guesthouse less than two months after Graham and I separated.
She understood Vivian immediately.
Vivian cared about bloodlines, appearances, and legacy.
So Serena gave her exactly what she wanted.
Theo became “the Mercer grandson.”
Vivian had three granddaughters, but somehow the arrival of one little boy transformed her understanding of inheritance.
She bought him monogrammed clothes.
Commissioned his portrait.
Opened an education account.
She even began talking about eventually transferring part of the family estate directly to him.
Serena encouraged every second of it.
She brought Vivian tea.
Remembered her medication.
Accompanied her to medical appointments.
Praised Graham endlessly.
Within months, Vivian treated Serena with more warmth than she had shown me in seventeen years.
Only one person in the house seemed unconvinced.
Mrs. Rosa Alvarez.
Rosa had worked for the Mercer family for twenty-three years.
Officially, she was the housekeeper.
In reality, she knew where every document was kept, which family members lied about drinking, which marriages were unhappy, and exactly how Vivian liked her coffee.
Rosa rarely interfered.
Until one rainy afternoon when a stranger appeared at the side entrance.
His name was Evan Barrett.
Rosa found him beneath the awning wearing work boots and a mechanic’s jacket.
