Chapter 6 - Brielle Appeared Before Our Marriage Officially Ended
I met Brielle Foster at a company charity event.
She worked as director of strategic communications for an outside agency Mercer Industrial hired during a major rebranding.
Smart.
Fast.
Good at her job.
She was not some stranger who arrived wearing:
villain makeup.
For a while, I liked her.
Then Preston began traveling more.
Late meetings.
Hotel stays.
Phone face-down at dinner.
Old pattern.
Nothing original.
When I confronted him, he denied an affair.
Then admitted:
“an emotional connection.”
Then:
one kiss.
Then:
sex.
Truth released in installments.
By the time I knew everything, the affair had lasted approximately:
five months.
I asked him to leave.
He did.
Three weeks later, he moved into an apartment.
Two months later, Brielle was visibly part of his life.
I filed for divorce.
Then she became pregnant.
Preston called me himself.
I was standing in the grocery store.
“Brielle is expecting.”
My first reaction was not:
anger.
It was:
calculation.
Custody.
Girls.
What would they hear?
Then Preston said:
“It’s a boy.”
He sounded like someone had just told him:
he had won.
I closed my eyes.
“Do not tell Sophie and Emma like that.”
“Like what?”
“As though this baby fixes something they failed to be.”
He became defensive.
“You make everything ugly.”
“No.”
“I’m asking you not to.”
He hung up.
A week later, Sophie came home from his apartment.
“Dad says the Mercer name is safe now.”
She was seven.
I sat down.
“Did he say what that means?”
“He said baby brother will carry it.”
“What about you?”
She shrugged.
“Girls get married.”
There.
Not one dramatic event.
Instruction.
I called Preston.
We had the worst argument of our divorce.
And still I did not seek:
an immediate custody change.
May you like
That would matter later.
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