Chapter 6
The custody battle lasted six months.
It was brutal.
Julian hired the most expensive family law attorney in New York—one who’d made a career out of getting deadbeat dads unsupervised visitation rights. He fought dirty.
He told the court I was an unfit mother.
He said I was emotionally unstable, that I’d used Lily as a pawn to ruin his life, that I was raising her in a “broken home” without a father figure. He said I’d brainwashed the board of his company to steal it from him, that I was a gold digger who’d never loved him, that I’d only had Lily to trap him in marriage.
He even tried to use the wedding against me.
His lawyer argued that my “public spectacle” at the church had proven I was more interested in humiliating Julian than in protecting my daughter’s privacy.
The worst part was the social media campaign.
Victoria came out of hiding to help.
She created dozens of fake Facebook and Instagram accounts, posting lies about me every single day. She said I’d had an affair while Julian and I were married, that Lily wasn’t even his. She posted old, out-of-context photos of me drinking wine at a party when I was three months pregnant, claiming I’d endangered Lily’s life. She paid trolls to flood my social media pages with hate comments, calling me a monster, a homewrecker, a bad mother.
It got so bad that I had to delete all my accounts.
I stopped reading the news. I stopped going to the grocery store in town, because strangers would come up to me and yell things. I kept Lily inside the estate grounds most days, only taking her for walks in the private gardens at the back of the property.
There were nights I cried myself to sleep.
Nights I wondered if I was strong enough to keep fighting. Nights I thought maybe I should just give Julian one weekend a month, just to make it all stop.
But then I’d look at Lily.
She was a year old now. She was walking—wobbly, but determined—chasing the cats around the house, laughing so hard she snort-laughed when Marcus made silly faces at her. She loved peanut butter sandwiches and bubble baths and dancing to the Moana soundtrack at full volume.
She was happy.
She was safe.
And I was the only thing standing between her and a man who’d rejected her the day she was born, who’d only come back when he had nothing else left.
I couldn’t give up.
Not for her.
Marcus was my rock through it all.
He missed board meetings to come to court dates with me. He stayed up until 2 a.m. going through evidence with the lawyers. He hired a full-time security detail for Lily and me, even when I said we didn’t need it. He held me when I cried, and reminded me every single day that I was doing the right thing.
Our legal team was relentless.
They presented the voicemails Julian had left me—hundreds of them, alternating between begging and screaming threats. They presented the police report from the night he’d trespassed at the estate. They presented witness statements from the nurses who’d been in the hospital room the day Julian had served me divorce papers, who testified that he’d rejected Lily within hours of her birth, that he’d never once asked to hold her or feed her or change her diaper.
They presented the original fertility records.
The ones that proved Lily had been the very last of our frozen embryos—the last possible chance I had to have another child. The ones that proved Julian had agreed to implant that last embryo, had held my hand through the procedure, had cried when we’d gotten the positive pregnancy test… then had gotten a vasectomy three months later, behind my back, because he’d already decided if the baby was a girl, he’d leave.
The turning point came in March.
We were in the middle of a particularly brutal cross-examination. Julian’s lawyer was grilling me about the wedding, yelling at me for making a “mockery of the institution of marriage” in front of my infant daughter.
I was tired.
I’d been in court for four days straight. I hadn’t slept more than three hours a night all week. I’d had to leave Lily with my mother that morning, and she’d cried when I’d walked out the door, her little arms reaching for me.
I snapped.
I stood up.
The judge banged his gavel. “Ms. Montgomery, sit down—”
“No,” I said. My voice was loud, clear, ringing through the quiet courtroom. “I have sat here for six months while this man and his mother have lied about me, about my daughter, about every single thing that happened. I am done sitting.”
I turned to Julian.
He was sitting at the defense table, wearing a cheap suit, his face tight with anger.
“You say I’m an unfit mother?” I said. “You say I used Lily as a pawn? Let me ask you something, Julian. When was the last time you changed her diaper? When was the last time you got up at 3 a.m. to feed her because she had a fever? When was the last time you took her to the doctor? When was the last time you even asked if she was okay?”
Julian opened his mouth to answer.
I didn’t let him.
“You rejected her the day she was born,” I said. My voice was shaking now, but I didn’t stop. “You handed me divorce papers while she was still sleeping on my chest, two hours after I gave birth. You told her she wasn’t good enough because she was a girl. You left us for a baby that wasn’t even yours. You didn’t call once in the first three months of her life to ask if she was breathing, if she was eating, if she’d learned to smile. You only decided you wanted to be her father when you lost your money, your company, your mistress, and your perfect little heir. You don’t want Lily. You want a do-over. You want to pretend you’re not the terrible person you are. But Lily is not a do-over. She is a little girl who deserves a father who loves her for who she is, not for what she can give him. And you will never, ever be that man.”
The courtroom was silent.
I looked at the judge.
“I have spent every single day of Lily’s life loving her, protecting her, putting her needs before my own,” I said. “He has spent every single day of her life thinking only of himself. If you give him any access to her at all, you are not giving her a father. You are giving her a stranger who will hurt her, over and over again, just like he hurt me. Please. Don’t do that to my daughter.”
I sat down.
I didn’t look at Julian.
I didn’t look at anyone.
I just stared at my hands, folded in my lap, and waited.
The judge called a recess for an hour.
When we came back, he didn’t call any more witnesses.
He just looked at Julian, then at me.
“I have been a family court judge for 22 years,” he said. “I have seen a lot of terrible things. But I have never seen a man so clearly unfit to be a parent as Julian Sterling. You rejected your daughter before she was even 24 hours old. You abandoned her for a child that was not yours. You have done nothing to prove you are capable of putting her needs before your own ego. Ms. Montgomery, on the other hand, has proven beyond any shadow of a doubt that she is a dedicated, loving, fit mother who will do anything to protect her child.”
He banged his gavel.
“Judgment for the plaintiff,” he said. “Ms. Montgomery is awarded full, permanent sole legal and physical custody of Lily Marie Montgomery. Mr. Sterling is awarded no visitation, no contact, no communication of any kind with the child. Furthermore, given the evidence presented of Mr. Sterling’s ongoing pattern of harassment and instability, I am issuing a permanent restraining order against Mr. Sterling and his mother, Victoria Sterling. They are to remain no less than 500 feet from Ms. Montgomery, the child, and the family estate at all times. Any violation will result in immediate arrest and felony charges. Court adjourned.”
It was over.
I burst into tears.
Marcus pulled me into a hug, holding me tight while I sobbed into his shoulder. The lawyers patted my back, smiling.
I didn’t care that people were watching.
I didn’t care about anything except that Lily was safe.
Forever.
Julian didn’t say a word.
He just stood up, his face blank, and walked out of the courtroom with his lawyer. Victoria was right behind him, red-faced and screaming about appeals, but no one was listening.
We walked out of the courthouse a few minutes later.
The sun was shining.
It was a beautiful spring day. The cherry blossoms along the sidewalk were in full bloom, pink and white petals falling like snow.
My mother was waiting by the car, holding Lily.
Lily saw me and squealed, reaching her little arms out.
May you like
I took her from my mother, holding her so tight I was probably squeezing her too hard. She buried her face in my neck, her little hands fisting in my hair.
“We did it, baby,” I whispered to her. “We’re free.”
