We'd built that business from nothing. I wasn't walking away empty-handed.

I could fall apart later—when no one was watching.

Ray said nothing.

My mother-in-law cut in. "Let's not talk about assets. After all, our son built that company himself."

Something short-circuited in my brain.

"Excuse me?" My voice climbed before I could rein it in.

What a joke. Since when had Ray built anything on his own?

I pulled out my phone and scrolled back five years.

"Five years ago, when we started the company—the first investment came from me. Fifty thousand dollars. I borrowed it."

"I personally borrowed five hundred thousand dollars. I endured over a thousand days and nights of grinding, and we finally made it last year."

"After all that suffering together, how dare you claim you built this alone?"

The evidence was overwhelming.

I had the loan documents from when I'd borrowed the money.

I had photos of us celebrating birthdays in that cramped, run-down room during the early days.

Every trace of our struggle to build this business from nothing—how could any of it be erased?

Ray drew a deep breath. "I can give you something. But not much. A hundred thousand."

A fortune worth tens of millions, and he was offering me a hundred thousand.

My vision blurred. Not from tears.

From the aftershock of loving a man I'd never truly known.

It took me a long moment to steady myself enough to speak normally. "There has to be a reason. Give me a reason for the hundred thousand."

Ray inhaled and spoke as if stating something perfectly reasonable: "She's pregnant. She's carrying my child. And you—you can't have children."

That reason nearly knocked me off my feet.

So that was it.

"But being unable to have children—is that really a reason?"

"There are so many medical options now. Having a baby isn't impossible. So why are you saying I can't?"

I laughed, mocking him.

And as I laughed, it suddenly clicked.

"You never loved me. Ruth is the one you've always wanted, isn't she? Once you had money, you went running back to your first choice to have children with her."

"But have you forgotten how she used to treat you? Do you have Stockholm syndrome?"

In my memory, Ruth Newton had tormented Ray more times than I could count.

Before we'd built ourselves up from nothing, that woman had made his life hell.

She'd forced him to eat slop meant for pigs. Made him kneel before her.