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Chapter 1 The Ex-Wife He Underestimated The air conditioner at city hall was broken. In the suffocating heat of July, Andrew Grant slid the divorce agreement in front of me, a fountain pen resting on top, its tip pointed at the line for Party B's signature. "You've read the terms." His voice was low and steady, the same tone he used in meetings. "The condo is yours, the car is yours, and Lily's child support will be 6,700 dollars a month, sent straight to your account. If that isn't enough, we can talk." I stared at the pen. A Montblanc—the one I'd given him for his birthday last year. He'd probably forgotten that. "I don't want the condo," I said. Andrew looked up at me, surprise finally showing on his face for the first time that day. "What?" "I don't want the condo or the car. Lily stays with me. The child support can stay exactly as written." He frowned. "Claire Bennett, do you know how much that place is worth? Central One Residence. About 8 million dollars. You don't want it?" "No." "What about the car? A Porsche Cayenne. It cost 400,000 dollars. You don't want that either?" "No." I picked up the pen, flipped to the last page, and signed my name. The handwriting was neat and careful, just like when I signed our marriage license three years ago. Andrew stared at my hand in silence for a few seconds. "Have you really thought this through? You're walking away with nothing. Don't regret it later." I set the pen down and looked up at him. This man, in a perfectly cut suit with a gleaming tie clip, was thirty-four, Brightwell Group's youngest vice president, earning 1 million dollars a year plus stock dividends - the standard everyone else aimed for. He was my daughter's father - and, starting today, my ex-husband. "I won't regret it." I stood up and gently pushed my chair back into place. "You and Lily—" I cut him off. "My life and my child are mine. Whether things go well or badly from here on out has nothing to do with you anymore." A soft little "Mommy" came from outside the door. Lily was in Maya's arms, pressed against the hallway glass, wearing the floral dress I'd ironed last night and a strawberry hair clip. She had no idea what was happening today; all she knew was that Mom had said they'd go out to run an errand and then get ice cream afterward. I pushed the door open and walked out. Maya came up to me, her eyes red. "You signed it?" I nodded, and she bit her lip before taking my bag with her free hand. I took Lily from Maya's arms. My little girl wrapped her arms around my neck and asked softly, "Mommy, ice cream?" "Yeah. We're going right now." I carried my daughter toward the exit. The hallway wasn't long. A dozen steps and we were out. No footsteps came after me, and I didn't look back either. The sunlight was brutal. The second we stepped out of city hall, it stabbed at my eyes. Lily buried her face in my neck and mumbled, "Too sunny." Maya jogged to the curb to bring the car around, the passenger door already open. I bent down, settled Lily into her car seat, and buckled her in. Then I got into the passenger seat and shut the door. It was cool inside the car. Maya glanced at me, her lips moving like she wanted to say more, but in the end she only asked. "Go?" "Go," I said. Chapter 2 The car merged into traffic. Lily sat in the back playing with the plush rabbit Maya had brought, babbling away as she made up her own little story. Maya turned the music down and looked over at me. "Claire, you really didn't take a single thing?" Maya asked. I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes. "No." "That was an 8 million-dollar condo," Maya said, her voice jumping up half an octave. "And with a guy like him, you're still helping him save money?" "I'm not helping him save money." "Then what is it?" "What I owed him, I paid back. From now on, we don't owe each other a thing." Maya bit her lower lip and after a long pause finally said, "Then our company..." "Business as usual." I opened my eyes. "We have a topic meeting at three this afternoon, and dinner with Horizon Capital at six. Nothing gets pushed." Maya froze for a second. "You got divorced today. You're not taking even one day off?" "Why would I?" I pulled out my phone and unlocked it. WhatsApp was quiet. I opened my chat with Andrew and hit block. Then I changed my social feed settings to last-three-days-only and wiped everything else clean. "Claire," Maya said, watching me through the rearview mirror. "Yeah?" "You're way harder than I thought." I said nothing. Hard? I'd just finally figured things out. When I married Andrew three years ago, everyone said I'd hit the jackpot. I had married a finance golden boy making over 300 thousand dollars a year, lived in a luxury condo at Central One Residence, drove a high-end car, and gotten the dream gig of being a stay-at-home wife who was "taken care of." And Andrew? He left early and came home late. If he got back early, he'd sit on the couch staring at his phone. I'd tell him Lily had called him Daddy or that I'd been reading about content operations, and he'd only say, "Just take care of the kid." Later, even an "Mm" was too much for him. Later, it became this: "Claire Bennett, I don't think we have anything in common." He said it at the dinner table, by the bed, on the phone, his tone getting colder each time, as if I were a failing asset and he was calculating where to cut his losses. Last month, he finally laid it all out. "Let's get divorced. You can have the condo and the car. Think of it as compensation." He said it so calmly that I knew he'd probably rehearsed it in his head a hundred times. His math was simple. Leave me one condo and one car, and in everyone else's eyes he'd be generous and classy to the end. A stay-at-home mom with no job and no income like me was supposed to panic, cry, and beg for one more chance. Too bad. I disappointed him. I didn't cry, didn't make a scene, and didn't ask why. I only said four words: "Okay. I agree." By the time I got back, it was already noon. No, not back home—back to the two-bedroom apartment I rented. The moment the divorce was set last month, I started getting ready. Lily's clothes, toys, picture books, my personal things, my work files—I moved every single thing that mattered. Little by little, every trace of Lily and me was erased from Central One Residence, until it became what it had always been: expensive, cold, and not really mine. Maya helped settle Lily in, then ran to the kitchen to warm her some milk. "Claire, this two-bedroom place is tiny." "It's just temporary. Once the Series A money comes through, we'll move." "Series A... what's Horizon's attitude right now?" "We'll know after dinner tonight." I sat down on the couch and opened my laptop. "Show me Monday's topic plan." Maya handed Lily the milk, came back, and passed me the tablet. "The first draft of the 'Her Battlefield' Season 3 Pitch came in from the writers last night. Also, the rough cut for the 'Moms Back to Work' documentary special is done." "Let's watch the rough cut first." Maya hit play. The footage was clean and the pacing was solid. It followed three real stay-at-home moms as they talked about the struggles of leaving the workforce and starting over. One shot stood out: a woman at her kitchen table late at night, her child's bottle still unwashed, a proposal deck glowing on her laptop as she rubbed her eyes and kept typing. I stared at it without speaking. Maya understood my silence. "That scene feels a little too much like you, doesn't it?" "Whether it's like me isn't the point." I pulled my eyes away from the screen. "The point is whether the people watching can see themselves in it." "They can," Maya said, flopping down beside me. "The comments section is already blowing up. Everyone's asking when episode two is coming, and a ton of people said they cried." She showed me the numbers on her phone: seven million views, one hundred twenty thousand shares, more than thirty thousand comments, and eighty thousand new followers for Sunspire Media. "When can episode two go live?" "The producer said next Wednesday." "Move it up to Monday. While the heat's still there." "Got it." Maya stood up, took two steps, then looked back. "Claire." "Yeah." "You do realize he's probably standing in that empty apartment right now, seeing you left absolutely nothing behind, and totally losing his mind, right?" I didn't answer. Not because I cared what kind of reaction Andrew had. I was just thinking that the opening hook on Monday's batch of edited videos still wasn't sharp enough and needed work. "Let's go. Office." I closed the laptop. "You're seriously not resting?" Maya's eyes went wide. "What's there to rest from?" I looked down at Lily, fast asleep, tucked the little blanket around her, and quietly asked the nanny to keep an eye on her. When I stepped out, the sun was still blazing, but inside, I felt as still as deep water. From now on, the label "Andrew Grant's wife" was dead. Claire Bennett belonged only to me. Chapter 3 Six-thirty that evening, at a private restaurant on the west side of town, Michael Reed, investment director at Horizon Capital, sat across from me. He was in his early forties, with a buzz cut, and he spoke straight. "Sunspire Media has been around for two and a half years. We have 5.6 million followers in the relationship short-drama niche. Last year's revenue was 6 million dollars, with a little over 1 million in net profit." Michael set the file down and looked at me. "Ms. Bennett, those numbers are strong, but they don't get me excited. So tell me, what's your moat?" "Our content DNA." "Be specific." "Other companies doing relationship short dramas rely on formulas and traffic. Billionaire boss falls for regular girl, rich family feuds, car crash amnesia. Plug the template in and mass-produce it. The numbers rise fast, and they die just as fast." Michael nodded. "Sunspire doesn't do that," I said. "We do real emotion. Our stories come from interviews, research, and user submissions. Every script is polished for two to three months, and all our writers have backgrounds in media or social science. Our audience is clear too: women between twenty-five and forty who want stories they can actually see themselves in." "So that's why your completion rate and rewatch rate are high." "Exactly. Our completion rate is 78 percent. The industry average is 41. Our rewatch rate is 22 percent. The industry average is 6." Michael flipped two more pages in the deck. "I watched your recent 'Moms Back to Work' series." "And?" "My wife watched it three times, cried three times, then told me she wanted to go get certified for something." I smiled. "That's Sunspire's moat. Our content changes real people." Michael closed the deck and leaned back in his chair. "What's your valuation?" "About 33 million dollars. I'm offering 15 percent." One of his brows lifted. "Ms. Bennett, you've got guts." "It's not about guts. I know exactly what my work is worth." Michael watched me for five seconds, then smiled. "All right. I'll take it back to my team. You'll have an answer next week." When I walked out of the restaurant, Maya was waiting at the door. "How'd it go?" "There's an eighty percent chance it'll happen." "Seriously?" Maya nearly bounced off the ground as she grabbed my arm. "Claire, you got divorced and pitched investors on the same day. What kind of insane day is that?" I opened the car door and got in. "What's insane about it? One thing has nothing to do with the other." My phone rang as I got into the car. An unknown number. I answered and heard a thin, sharp woman's voice I knew all too well—Helen Grant, Andrew's mother. "Mom—" I said by reflex, then corrected myself. "Mrs. Grant. Do you need something?" She went silent for a second. "You moved out?" "I did." "You took everything?" "Everything that belonged to me, yes." "Then the condo..." "I said I don't want it. The agreement couldn't be clearer." Another second of silence. "What exactly are you playing at?" Helen's tone sharpened. "Do you think what you got wasn't enough? Are you trying to make trouble? Let me tell you, Andrew has already been more than generous..." "Mrs. Grant." I cut her off. "I'm not playing at anything. I said no, so I mean no. There's no hidden message and no scheme. You don't need to guess." "You..." "If it's about Lily, Andrew can contact my work phone directly. As for anything else, there's no need. Goodbye." I hung up. Maya looked at me in the rearview mirror. "The old lady?" "Yeah." "Still the same as ever?" "People don't change that easily." I switched my phone to silent. "Drive." Chapter 4 Let's rewind two and a half years. How did I end up here? There wasn't any big dramatic twist, and there wasn't some overnight awakening. There was only a very ordinary afternoon. That day, Lily was down for her nap, and I was out on the balcony hanging laundry. My phone sat on top of the washing machine when a WhatsApp notification popped up. It was from Andrew—but it wasn't meant for me. He'd sent a screenshot from his department group chat, probably without noticing I was still on the list. Someone had asked him: [How's your wife lately? Still home with the kid?] He replied: [Don't even ask. She goes in circles between the stove and diapers all day. Talking to her is more exhausting than sitting through a pointless meeting.] A coworker replied with a laughing sticker. Another said: [So basically you're keeping a nanny at home. The kind you don't even have to pay.] Andrew sent back a helpless sticker. He didn't deny it. I was still crouched there on the balcony, one of his blue-and-white striped shirts clenched in my hand, the collar stain I'd scrubbed for ten minutes finally clean. An unpaid nanny. I hung the shirt up and clipped it in place. Then I went back into the study and opened my laptop. I typed one line into the search bar: "Starting a short-form video content business from scratch." That afternoon, I spent four straight hours reading industry reports, startup case studies, and operations courses. When Lily woke, I heated her food. That night Andrew came home, said dinner was too salty, and kept staring at his phone. Everything looked normal. But something had already cracked. Not my love for him. The illusion of being taken care of. I spent a week taking stock of what I still had left. Education: a bachelor's degree in journalism from a media university. Work experience: three years as a TV producer after graduation, plus two provincial documentary awards. Then pregnancy, quitting, and a three-year gap. Three years is a long blank space in any career. But my mind had never stopped working. Whenever I had a little time between caring for Lily, I read about content marketing, user psychology, short-form video operations, and brand strategy. Andrew had seen me reading and once said, "What's the point of all that? It's not making any money." I didn't argue, but that knowledge kept settling in my head, bit by bit, taking root. So when I finally needed it, it was there. I spent three days writing a business plan. Then I made one phone call—to my college roommate, Monica Lane, an operations director at an MCN company who'd always wanted to strike out on her own but lacked a content partner. I spoke for two minutes. She answered with one line: "I've been waiting for this, Claire Bennett." One week later, Sunspire Media was officially registered. I handled content strategy. Monica handled operations and distribution. Our startup money came from the cash I'd quietly saved over the years and a loan from my mom - about 130,000 dollars in all. Not much, but enough. The first six months of starting the business were the hardest. I took care of the kid by day and made content by night. Lily went to sleep at ten, and I sat down at the computer at ten-thirty, sometimes working until three in the morning. Andrew had no idea. He left every day at seven-thirty and sometimes didn't get home until nine at night. He thought my entire day was just cooking, childcare, and cleaning. He never saw the laptop glow, the work chats, or my calls from park benches. I made sure he didn't know. Not because I was afraid he'd stop me, but because some instinct told me he wouldn't support me—he'd laugh. In his eyes, I was already labeled a stay-at-home mom with no income, someone who needed him to support her. The first breakout hit came faster than I expected. It was a short drama adapted from my own life: five minutes of a stay-at-home mom getting her child to sleep, then sitting alone in a dark living room and breaking down in tears. On the first day it went live, it passed a million views. The comments section was flooded with moms saying, "This is my everyday life," "Finally, someone sees us," and "Thank you. I'm not alone." I sat at the kitchen table reading those comments until two in the morning. I wasn't looking at the numbers. I was thinking that there really were this many women in the world just like me—ignored, underestimated, trapped inside four walls, their labor left without a price tag. From that day on, I knew Sunspire was headed in the right direction. What I wanted to build wasn't just a business. I wanted to tell the stories of the people no one saw, so they could be heard, seen, and respected. Six months later, Sunspire's network of accounts passed one million followers. A year later, three million. The brand deals Monica handled finally started paying off, and I hired five full-time writers, two editors, and one data analyst. Maya was the first employee I ever hired. She was twenty-three, fresh out of media school, hair in a messy bun, and moving like the world was on fast-forward. At her interview, she said our content reminded her of her mother, who had raised her alone after divorce. I hired her on the spot. For the past two and a half years, I'd been living a double life. By day, I was the stay-at-home mom Andrew thought had nothing in common with him. By night, I was the founder of Sunspire Media. Honestly, I'd been waiting a long time for him to ask for divorce. Chapter 5 The night Andrew brought up divorce, we were at the dinner table. Lily had already finished eating and was in the living room watching cartoons. He put down his chopsticks, looked at me, and said, "Claire, I've thought about this for a long time. We should get divorced." My hand paused for one second over the dish, then I kept eating. "Okay." He clearly hadn't expected me to answer that fast. "You don't want to ask why?" "No need. I already know." "Know what?" "You think we don't have anything in common. You think I don't fit your life anymore. You think you need a partner who can talk industry trends with you over dinner, not a stay-at-home mom whose big update is 'Lily learned a new nursery rhyme today.'" I dabbed my lips with a napkin. "Am I wrong?" Andrew fell silent for a few seconds. "You're taking it too far." "I'm only repeating what you've been saying to me for the past year." He opened his mouth, then closed it again. I stood up and started clearing the dishes. "Just let me know how you want to handle the divorce paperwork. As for the property, I don't want any of it." "Any of it?" "Yeah. Clean break." He frowned. "Claire, are you just angry right now?" "No." I set the bowl in the sink and turned on the faucet. "I just don't want any ties left later. You paid the down payment on the condo, and the car is in your name. I don't want that kind of advantage." "Then where are you and Lily going to live? How are you going to support her?" He asked it like it was the most reasonable thing in the world. In his eyes, a woman with no income who refused his handout had only one option left: starve. I turned off the faucet and faced him. "That's not something you need to worry about." "I'm not worried. I'm afraid you'll—" "Afraid of what? Afraid I'll be a mess and drag you down?" I smiled a little. "Relax. Once I sign the papers, go live your elite life. I won't cling to you, and I won't come crawling back." That night, I packed up the last box of my personal belongings. Andrew sat in the living room watching TV and never came to help. He probably thought I was just packing up some old clothes and daily stuff. He had no idea my old suitcase held the trophies I'd won at the TV station. Sunspire Media. Founder and Chief Content Officer: Claire Bennett. That was my other identity—the one he'd never known existed. On the third day after the divorce, I went to the office like always. Sunspire rented a loft in a creative park on the east side of town. When I pushed the door open, Maya was already at her desk. "Claire, Mr. Reed's assistant called," Maya said. "Mr. Reed wants another meeting this week and plans to bring people from the Investment Committee." "Set it for Thursday." "You got it. Also..." Maya leaned in and lowered her voice. "About that condo, he really didn't ask why you refused it?" "No." "God, that's dumb." Maya shook her head. "If it were my ex, he'd definitely be suspicious. Who turns down a place that big for free? No normal person would believe that." "He doesn't think it's strange." I opened my laptop and logged into the backend. "He just thinks I'm either acting out or stupid." "The stupid one is him." "Enough. Give me today's schedule." At ten o'clock, we had the topic meeting. Six writers sat around the conference table while I flipped through the proposals everyone had turned in. "Jenny, don't bring me this 'Billionaire Boyfriend' series again." Jenny scratched her head. "But that lane performs well..." "It performs well because too many people are making it, and too many people are making it because it doesn't require a brain. We don't make content that doesn't require a brain." "Then I'll think of something else..." "No need to start from scratch. What are you actually good at?" "I... used to interview women working in factories." "Then do that. 'Women on the Line.' A five-episode documentary-style short drama. Go find real cases." Jenny's eyes lit up. "Ms. Bennett, really?" "Really. Keep the budget under 30,000 dollars and bring me the proposal in two weeks." After the meeting, Monica came over from the office next door. "I called Horizon too," she said. "Michael is really interested in our completion-rate data, but he has doubts about the profit model. He thinks we rely too much on brand partnerships." "That's why I'm planning to focus on our paid-content strategy at the committee meeting." "Paid short dramas?" "Yeah. Our audience is sticky enough. We can test the waters. Start with one series and see how it goes." Monica thought it over, then nodded. "All right. You set the direction, and I'll talk to the distribution side about a partnership." "There's one more thing." I looked at her. "I want to make a real interview show." "About what?" "The kind of work no one sees. Stay-at-home moms, family caregivers, women doing frontline labor. Nobody talks about this group, but it's huge." Monica was quiet for two seconds. "This has something to do with your own experience, doesn't it?" "It does. But it isn't only for me." "Budget?" "We'll start with a pilot and keep it under 50,000 dollars." "Works for me." I looked out the window. Sunlight washed the whole creative park in gold, and laughter drifted up from the street below. Three years ago, I used to look out from Central One Residence and see the skyline. Now I looked down at the road beneath me. Both views were good. The difference was that everything in this little office had been earned by me. Chapter 6 The first weekend after the divorce brought Andrew and Lily's first video call. The agreement gave the non-custodial parent one video call a week and two in-person visits a month. At seven that evening, Lily sat on a little stool facing the tablet, stuffed rabbit in her arms. "Lily, Daddy misses you. What did you play today?" "The slide. Mommy took me to the big new slide in our neighborhood. It was super high!" "Really? Were you brave?" "Yep. I went down all by myself. I didn't cry!" "That's my girl." Lily went on and on about preschool—who grabbed her crayons, who shared cookies with her. Andrew listened the whole time. I stayed in the kitchen cutting fruit, listening to their voices from the living room but not going over. The call was almost over when Lily suddenly asked, "Daddy, how come you never come see me?" The screen went quiet for a few seconds. "Daddy's been busy with work lately. I'll come see you next month, okay?" "Okay. Then can you bring me that dinosaur? A big one!" "Okay. I definitely will." After the video call ended, Lily ran over to me for apple slices. I handed her the plate I'd already cut. My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a message from Andrew, sent to my work phone since I'd already blocked him on WhatsApp. Andrew's message read: [Lily looks great. Thanks for taking care of her.] I slipped the phone back into my pocket and didn't answer. It wasn't me trying to be cold. There was just nothing worth replying to. [Thanks for taking care of her?] She was my daughter. Wasn't taking care of her the most natural thing in the world? That was the most basic problem between him and me: he measured everything—what you did, how much it was worth, whether it was a good deal or not. He got to decide when this marriage had started losing value and when it was time to cut his losses and cash out. The one thing he never expected was that the stock he dumped might have been worth far more than he imagined—and that I'd never need him to know it. Thursday afternoon, at the Horizon Capital Investment Committee meeting, three people sat across from me: Michael Reed and two partners. The conference room was huge, the table long, and I sat alone on my side with nothing but a printed business plan. One of Michael's partners, a woman in her forties named Ms. Ford, was the first to speak after reviewing the numbers. "Ms. Bennett, your numbers really are beautiful. But I have one concern. Your content depends too much on the founder's personal voice." Good question. "Ms. Ford is absolutely right. That's exactly what I've been working to solve over the past year." I opened the third section of the plan. "Sunspire's content production has already completed the shift from founder-driven to system-driven. We've built a standardized topic-screening system, a script-polishing process, and a closed-loop user feedback cycle. Out of our six writers, three can already produce content independently that meets Sunspire's standards." "In other words, even if I stepped out tomorrow, the company could still maintain stable output for at least six months. Within that time, the team could fully train a new head of content direction." Ms. Ford nodded. The other partner, an older man named Mr. Lucas, spoke next. "Ms. Bennett, what I care about is the ceiling. Relationship short dramas are hot right now, but the copycat problem is serious. How do you make sure you're still alive three years from now?" "Two paths. First, paid short dramas. We're testing that next quarter, and our goal is to create the industry's first real benchmark case that delivers both critical buzz and strong paid conversion. Second, IP extensions—books, podcasts, and offline events. Our users aren't just traffic. They're a community, and their loyalty and willingness to pay are ten times stronger than anything bought through ad spend." Mr. Lucas flipped through the data and thought for a while. Michael looked at his two partners, then spoke again. "Ms. Bennett, one last question. I think it's the most important one." "Go ahead." "Why did you start a business?" That didn't sound like a due diligence question. It sounded more like he was trying to see what kind of person I was. I thought about it for two seconds. "Because I spent three years as a stay-at-home mom, and I know what it feels like to not be seen." The room went still for a beat. "It's like this: you put in sixteen hours of work every day, but in everyone else's eyes, you've done nothing. Your husband thinks you don't make money. Your mother-in-law thinks you're freeloading. Even you start wondering whether you still have any value at all." "I didn't start this business just to make money. I started because there are tens of millions of women like me in this world. No one sees their labor, and no one hears their voices. I want to speak for them." "And I can prove their stories have real market value." Michael said nothing. Ms. Ford took off her glasses and wiped them. Mr. Lucas closed the file. The next morning, Michael's assistant called. "Ms. Bennett, our Investment Committee approved it. Valuation is 33 million dollars. We're investing 5 million dollars for 15 percent. Funding procedures start next week." I hung up, sat in my office, looked out the window, and took one deep breath. Then I opened my computer and went right back to revising the script. We'd closed the funding. Next up: expand the team, find a new office, and launch paid short dramas. There was too much to do. No time to sit around feeling sentimental. Chapter 7 Two weeks after Horizon's money hit our account, I signed for a new office in the Southside Arts District: a whole standalone building, three floors, and a rooftop terrace. The first floor held an open workspace and a screening room. The second floor was for the writers' studio and the editing suites. The third floor housed Monica's office, mine, and a children's corner. It was for Lily, and for any coworker's child who might need it. The moment Maya saw the children's corner, she yelped. "Claire, that's way too sweet." "Don't call it sweet." I crouched down to adjust the little slide. "It's a necessity. Three of our writers are moms. If their kids have a safe place to stay, the moms can actually focus." "So you're basically using company benefits to trap talent," Monica said, leaning against the doorframe. "Yep. Cheap and effective." On moving day, eighteen people showed up. Compared to the three of us in the beginning, we had grown sixfold. I stood at the entrance watching everyone carry boxes, hang artwork, and set up equipment while Maya ran over and handed me a coffee. "Claire, tons of people are already taking photos and checking in," Maya said. "They're saying our office looks better than an influencer café." "Looking good isn't the point," I said. "Making good work is." "Yeah, yeah." Maya grinned. "Claire, you're sounding more and more like a boss lady these days." "What kind of boss lady squats on the floor putting together a slide?" "The kind with a kid." I laughed. That night when I got home, Lily had already been soothed to sleep by the nanny. I showered, lay in bed, and scrolled through the day's industry news. A push notification popped up: Brightwell Group had named Andrew Grant an outstanding manager. I looked at it for two seconds and swiped away. It had nothing to do with me anymore. I kept scrolling. A second notification popped up—an industry outlet had finally published the interview I did last week: "Sunspire Media Founder Claire Bennett: A Stay-at-Home Mom's Second Act and the Secret Behind 6 Million Dollars in Annual Revenue." The writing was decent, and the facts were mostly right. The comments were lively. [A stay-at-home mom built a successful business. So inspiring.] [This company's content is actually good, not that brain-dead sugar fluff.] [Ms. Bennett is amazing. Raising a kid alone and still pulling this off.] Of course, there were bitter ones too: [A rich stay-at-home mom isn't the same as an ordinary one.] [If you started a business, then just say that. Why play the stay-at-home mom card?] I was used to it by now. If you speak in public, getting cursed out is basically part of your salary. I didn't bother with the comments section. I set my phone aside and closed my eyes. I had three meetings tomorrow. Time to sleep. Three days later, near evening, I got a call I didn't expect. Andrew Grant. On my work phone. I hesitated for two seconds, then answered. "What is it?" "Lily's preschool fall sports day is next Saturday. Her teacher sent out the parent invites. I want to be there." "The agreement says two in-person visits a month. You just saw her last week." "I know. But this is different. It's a school event. A child needs her father..." "Whether she needs her father or not, Lily can answer that herself. Hold on." I brought the phone over to Lily. "Lily, Daddy says he wants to come to your sports day. Do you want Daddy there?" Lily tilted her head and thought about it. "Yes. Can Daddy run? We have a parent-kid race!" I took the phone back. "She said yes. Just go straight to the school that day." "Okay. Thanks." He paused. "Claire..." "Anything else?" "No." Another pause. "Um... lately you..." "I'm busy. I'm hanging up." I ended the call. Maya was beside me, chewing on an apple. She looked up. "What's his deal? All that stopping and starting." "No idea. Don't care." "You think he saw that interview?" I paused for a second. The interview didn't mention my private life, but it did say Ms. Bennett had once been a stay-at-home mom. If somebody had sent it to him, or if he'd run across it himself... "So what if he did?" "So what? He'd lose his mind. Finding out his ex-wife was secretly a total powerhouse." Maya laughed so hard she nearly choked. "I really want to see that polished elite face of his fall apart..." "Maya." "Yeah?" "Are you ready for tomorrow's final script review?" "...Yeah." "Then stop eating apples and send me the files." "Yes, ma'am, Ms. Bennett." -------------------------------------------------- There are limited chapters to put here, click “learn more” to open App to continue reading (It will automatically jump to the book)