Chapter 182:


    Belle came running over, her heels sinking into the grass. “Let go of my son!”


    Isolde stepped in front of her. “Teach your son not to hit people, and perhaps people won’t need to restrain him.”


    “He’s a child!” Belle shrieked.


    Grayson appeared, wiping his hands on a dish towel. “What is going on now?”


    Kaiden wrenched free and ran to Belle, burying his face in her skirt. “Mommy, I want to go home. I hate them!”


    Grayson looked at Kaiden clinging to Belle. He didn’t correct him. He didn’t say, She’s not Mommy.


    Instead, a particr look settled over his face — soft, protective, possessive. It was the look of a man watching his wife and child.


    The cold, hard certainty that had been forming in Isolde’s gut solidifiedpletely. She had known the truth for weeks and had wielded it as a weapon. But seeing itid bare here, on thewn of what had once been her home, was something different entirely. This was no longer a secret affair. It was a public deration of a parallel family — one that had been running alongside hers for five years.


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    “You’re not even hiding it anymore,” she whispered — not in discovery, but in bitter confirmation of his sheer audacity. “You’re parading him in front of everyone.”


    The moon was high over the estate. The party had wound down.


    Isolde put Effie to bed in the guest room of the main house, then found she couldn’t sleep. She stepped out onto the balcony for air.


    Down the hall, she saw the door to the master suite swing open. Grayson walked in, pressing his thumb to a biometric scanner on the wall until the heavy oak door clicked open. A momentter, Belle walked in behind him, holding Kaiden’s hand. The door clicked shut.


    No separate rooms. No pretense.


    Isolde went back inside and began to pack. She couldn’t stay under this roof another moment.


    A knock at the door.


    She frowned and opened it, expecting Harper.


    It was Kaiden. He was wearing dinosaur pajamas and holding a rubber duck. He looked annoyed.


    “Hey,” he said. “I need a bath.”


    Isolde blinked. “Excuse me?”


    “Belle Mommy and Daddy are busy,” Kaiden said, rolling his eyes. “They locked the bedroom door. Belle said you work for Daddy now, so you have to do what I say. She said you’d wash me.”


    The world tilted on its axis.


    Work for Daddy. Busy.


    Isolde looked at this child — this innocent, spoiled, weaponized child.


    “I am not your nanny,” Isolde said, her voice trembling with suppressed rage.


    “Daddy said you do everything,” Kaiden whined. “You’re the wife. Wives do the cleaning. I want bubbles. Lots of them.”


    Isolde stared at him. This was what Grayson had taught him — that Isolde was a utility. An appliance.


    Something inside her snapped. Not a break, but a release. Thest tether holding her to propriety gave way.


    “You want a bath?” Isolde said. “Fine. Let’s go ask your father.”


    She took Kaiden’s arm. Not gently.


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