Chapter 7 - WHY JULIAN LEFT ME
Julian and I finally spoke alone.
Not fully alone.
Dana nearby.
Lily sleeping.
He looked at me.
“I thought you hated me.”
“What?”
“After the last fertility cycle. You stopped touching me.”
“I was grieving.”
“I thought you blamed me.”
I laughed.
“I was told I was the problem.”
He closed his eyes.
Then:
“Fiona kept telling me you would be happier without me.”
I stared.
“She was talking to you then?”
“Through the clinic charity events.”
Of course.
Proximity before romance.
He continued.
“She said you were embarrassed by me.”
“What?”
“She said women facing infertility often resent their husbands.”
Psychological framing.
Professional language without professional legitimacy.
Then:
“She told me you had asked the clinic about donor sperm.”
I never had.
He thought I wanted another man’s genetics.
I thought he resented my body.
Both pushed apart.
Then the affair began emotionally before the divorce.
Julian admitted it.
That mattered.
Fiona manipulated.
Julian chose.
Again.
Explanation not absolution.
I said:
“You still left.”
“Yes.”
“You still humiliated me.”
“Yes.”
“You still laughed when she threw wine.”
He looked sick.
“Yes.”
That one hurt him most.
Good.
Immediate cruelty matters too.
Not everything can be blamed on conspiracy.
Then he looked at Lily.
“Can I hold her?”
I said:
“Not yet.”
He flinched.
But nodded.
That mattered.
Permission.
Not entitlement.
We arranged a paternity test.
Independent lab.
No Blake money.
No St. Anne.
Chain of custody.
The result would take days.
Those days changed everything.
Because while we waited, Gordon made his first counterattack.
He filed an emergency motion claiming Elena had stolen confidential medical records and extorted the wedding.
Absurd.
But process creates pressure.
Then a media story appeared:
May you like
BITTER EX CRASHES BILLIONAIRE WEDDING WITH MYSTERY BABY.
The war moved public.
