Chapter 170

Chapter 170
Lily's POV

The door to the small parlor clicked shut behind me with a sound like a lock turning. My hands were still shaking—had been shaking since I'd walked out, since I'd said the word divorce and watched Ryan's face crumble like I'd physically struck him.

The hallway stretched ahead, long and cold and lined with portraits of Carters who had never needed to choose between safety and freedom because they'd always had both.

I pressed my palm flat against the wall, steadying myself. My legs felt uncertain, as if the ground beneath the Persian runner might give way. Behind me, through the heavy oak, I could hear nothing—no voices, no movement. Just silence, which somehow felt worse than shouting would have.

You did it, I told myself. You finally drew a line.

But my chest was so tight I could barely breathe, and my throat felt raw from holding back tears I refused to let fall in front of Eleanor. In front of them.

I made it to the stairs before my knees buckled slightly. I caught the banister, gripping the polished wood until my knuckles went white. The house was too quiet. Too still. Like it was holding its breath, waiting to see what I'd do next.

What am I doing?

The question crashed through me with the force of a physical blow. I'd just asked my husband for a divorce. I'd walked out of that room—out of his grandmother's cold, calculated world—with nothing but the clothes on my back and a desperate, half-formed plan that hinged on a legal concept I barely understood.

Custody. Breastfeeding. The law favors mothers.

I clung to those words like a mantra as I climbed the stairs, one hand on the banister, the other pressed protectively over my stomach even though William was upstairs, safe in his crib. My body still remembered being pregnant, still moved as if I were carrying him. Maybe I always would.

The East Wing suite felt like a different country. Warmer. Softer. The door was ajar—I'd left it that way, some part of me unable to fully close myself off even when I'd needed space to think. Now I pushed it open and stepped inside, and the first thing I saw was the crib.

William was asleep. Of course he was. Oblivious to the fact that his mother had just blown up his entire world.

I crossed the room on unsteady legs and sank down onto the floor beside the crib, my back against the carved wooden frame. My breath came out in short, shallow gasps. I pressed my face into my knees and finally—finally—let myself cry.

Not the loud, wailing kind of crying. The kind where you can't make sound because your throat is closed and your chest is heaving and you're drowning in it. My shoulders shook. I bit down on my fist to muffle the noise because I couldn't wake him, I couldn't, he needed to sleep and I needed him to be okay and I needed—

I needed to stop.

I forced myself to breathe. In through my nose, shaky and wet. Out through my mouth. Again. Again.

When I could finally lift my head, my face was damp and my eyes burned. I wiped at them with the back of my hand, smearing tears across my cheek like a child.

Get it together, Lily.

But how was I supposed to get it together when everything was falling apart?

I thought about the parlor. About Eleanor's cold, unreadable face when I'd told her I wanted a divorce. About Ryan's expression—shock, then horror, then something that looked almost like grief. He'd opened his mouth to argue, to beg, maybe to promise things he couldn't deliver. But I hadn't stayed to hear it.

Because if I'd stayed, I would have wavered. And I couldn't afford to waver. Not now.

Think, Lily. Think.

I pulled my knees up—harder now, with my body still recovering from childbirth, everything looser and achier than it used to be—and tried to force my brain into some kind of order.

Okay. I'd said I wanted a divorce. That was... real. That had happened. Which meant Ryan would have to respond, and Eleanor would have to respond, and there would be lawyers and paperwork and—God, I didn't even know how divorce worked. I'd never thought I'd need to know.

But before any of that, there was the immediate problem: Where was I going to go?

The question sat in my chest like a stone. I looked around the suite—the pale walls, the tasteful furniture, the window that overlooked the mountains. This place had never felt like home, but it had been safe. Or at least I'd thought it was, until Ryan had told me about the threats, the bribed staff, the enemies who wanted to hurt me just because of who I'd married.

If I'm not his wife, I'm not a target.

That was the logic. That was what I'd said in the parlor, and it had felt true when I'd said it. But now, sitting here in the quiet with my son breathing softly two feet away, I wasn't sure of anything anymore.

"I don't know where we're going, baby," I whispered, my voice cracking. "I don't know what I'm doing."

William made a small sound in his sleep—not quite a cry, just a murmur. I reached up and rested my hand on the edge of the crib, my fingers curling around the rail.

But I know one thing.

I took a breath, steadying myself.

You're mine. And they can't take you from me.

That was the line. That was the one thing I would not let them cross. Eleanor could have her empire, her legacy, her cold calculations about what was best for the Carter family. Ryan could have his fear and his guilt and his desperate need to protect me by locking me away.

But William—my son, my baby—he was mine. I had carried him. I had brought him into this world. I was feeding him with my own body, and no amount of money or power or tradition was going to change that.

The law would see it. It had to.

I thought back to that prenatal class I'd taken, the one where a lawyer had come to talk about parental rights. I'd barely been paying attention—Ryan had been there, his hand on my knee, and I'd been so sure that we were going to be fine, that we'd raise this baby together, that I'd never need to know about custody battles or legal precedents.

But I remembered one thing. The lawyer had said: "In cases involving infants, especially breastfeeding infants, courts generally favor the mother."

Generally.

I latched onto that word. Generally wasn't a guarantee, but it was something. It was a foothold. A reason to believe that even if Ryan fought me—even if Eleanor threw the full weight of the Carter legal team at me—I wouldn't lose my son.

He's still nursing. He needs me. They have to see that.