I just gave birth to our triplets when my husband walked in with his Birkin-toting mistress and threw divorce papers at me — he had no idea my parents were about to destroy everything he thought he owned.

The battle for the boys was over. Now came the battle for everything else.

Vale Enterprises collapsed within a week of the court hearing. With all accounts frozen and the merger dead, there was no way to make payroll or pay vendors. The employees sued for back wages. The vendors sued for unpaid bills. The board of directors—what was left of them—voted to remove Adrian as CEO.

He tried to fight it. He called every contact he had. He begged. He pleaded. He threatened.

But no one would take his calls. No one wanted to be associated with the man who had cheated on William Hale's daughter. In this city, that was professional suicide.

Celeste was gone. She had left the day after the court hearing, taking only her clothes and her Birkin bags. She had tried to take the car too, but the keys had stopped working—my father's people had remotely disabled it. She'd had to call an Uber.

I heard through the grapevine that she'd tried to get back with her rich ex-boyfriend. He'd laughed in her face.

Adrian moved into a small, cheap apartment on the wrong side of town. The kind of place he would have walked past five years ago and sworn he'd never live in.

He showed up for his first supervised visitation at the hotel a week after the hearing.

The security team checked him twice before they let him up. He was thinner. His clothes were cheap. He carried a small bag with a few toys and some baby clothes he'd bought at a discount store.

I met him at the door. The boys were in the living room, being watched by the nanny and the court-appointed supervisor.

"Evelyn," he said. His voice was hoarse. "Can we talk? Please. Just for a minute."

I crossed my arms. "Five minutes. Then you go in and see the boys."

We stepped out into the hallway. The security guards stayed back, but they were watching.

Adrian ran a hand through his hair. "I messed up. I know I messed up. But Evelyn... those are my sons. I can't do this supervised thing forever. It's humiliating."

I looked at him. Really looked at him. The man who had once been the center of my universe now seemed small. Pathetic.

"Humiliating?" I said quietly. "You want to talk about humiliating? Try being cut open from hip to hip to deliver three babies, only to have your husband walk in with his girlfriend and call you ugly. Try coming home to find your locks changed and another woman wearing your bathrobe. Try explaining to your newborn sons why their father didn't even look at them when they were two hours old."

His face fell. "I know. I know I was wrong. I was stupid. I was arrogant. Celeste—she made me feel powerful. She made me feel like I was somebody. And with you... I always felt like I wasn't enough. Like I was just the guy who married the rich girl without knowing it."

The words hung in the air.

"That's why you did it?" I asked. "Because you felt inadequate?"

"I don't know!" He ran both hands through his hair. "I don't know what I was thinking. I wasn't thinking. I just... I had spent my whole life being the poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks. And then I married you, and suddenly I had access to all this money and power, but I couldn't use any of it because you didn't want your parents involved. And then Celeste came along, and she acted like I was the king of the world, and I—"

He stopped. Swallowed hard.

"I loved you," he said softly. "Once. A long time ago. I really did."

The words should have hurt. They should have meant something.

But they didn't.

They were just words. Too late. Too little.

"I loved you too," I said. "More than anything. But love isn't enough, Adrian. Not when you treat people like they're disposable. Not when you hurt the people who trust you the most."

I nodded toward the door. "Your five minutes are up. Go see your sons."

He went in. I watched through the one-way mirror Marcus had arranged to have installed.

Adrian sat on the floor with the boys. He held Alexander first, then Julian, then Teddy. He talked to them in soft, gentle voices. He kissed their foreheads. He changed a diaper without being asked.

For a moment, I saw the father I had hoped he would be.

But then I remembered the hospital room. The smirk. The papers. The words.

And I knew.

He could be a good father. Maybe. Someday. If he worked at it.

But he would never be my husband again. That part of our lives was over.

The visitation ended after two hours. Adrian left quietly. He didn't beg. He didn't argue. He just looked at me with those sad, defeated eyes and walked out.

My father came out of the study where he'd been working.

"How did it go?" he asked.

"Okay," I said. "He was... gentle with them."

My father nodded. "Good. The boys deserve a father who loves them. Even if he's an idiot."

He put a hand on my shoulder.

"But don't you dare feel sorry for him, baby girl. He made his choices. Every single one of them. And now he has to live with them."

I looked at my sons, sleeping peacefully in their bassinets.

"I don't feel sorry for him," I said. "I just... I feel sorry for the man I thought he was."

My father squeezed my shoulder.

"That's the hardest part," he said. "Grieving the future you thought you'd have. But listen to me. The future you're going to have? It's going to be so much better than anything you ever imagined with him."

I smiled. For the first time in a long time, it was a real smile.