Betrayed Broken Husband Becomes a Billionaire Daddy

3: Let’s Get Divorced

Stacy was still stunning at forty. Money and rest and careful living had kept her looking closer to twenty eight, and fame had only added a shine that made men everywhere fall over themselves for a chance with her.

Lucien Legion had never expected her to just confess to whatever she'd been hiding.

But he trusted the tests. Three separate labs. DNA didn't care about her name or her fans.

Stacy tilted her head at him, amused. "What's wrong with you? Since when did you turn insecure?" A small laugh escaped her. "You're underestimating yourself. And you're underestimating me."

"Maybe." Lucien Legion kept his eyes locked on hers, steady and cold. "But the more I sit here, the more sure I am that you've been sleeping with someone else this whole time."

The smile dropped off her face like it had never been there.

"What kind of nonsense is that?" Her voice sharpened, each word clipped. "A joke's only funny for so long, Lucien Legion. Don't push it, or I'm actually going to get angry."

That was all the confirmation he needed. She wasn't going to admit anything unless it was staring her in the face.

"Stacy." His patience ran out. "Then explain this."

He pulled the crumpled paternity report from his bag and slid it across the table.

She picked it up. Her eyes scanned the page, and the smile that had been frozen on her lips finally cracked and vanished completely. For one second her gaze sharpened into something Lucien Legion had never seen aimed at him before.

But there was no panic in her face. No guilt. No fear at all.

She calmly tore the paper in half, folded it, and tore it again.

"What is this supposed to be." She dropped the pieces on the table, her voice flat and cold. "Some kind of sick joke? Because it isn't funny."

Lucien Legion didn't move. He'd expected the denial. He had no patience left to argue in circles with her.

"You know how many times I ran that test?" His voice stayed low and even. "Three times. Three different labs. Every single one came back exactly the same."

He stared straight into her eyes. "Chloe is not my daughter."

His jaw tightened until it ached. "She's another man's kid."

"Lucien Legion, you—" Stacy's whole expression shifted. The warmth drained out completely, replaced by the same icy authority she used on people who dared cross her. "You went behind my back and did this?"

Lucien Legion almost laughed out loud. You cheated on me and let me raise another man's child for fifteen years, and somehow I'm the one in the wrong for finding out?

He didn't back down an inch.

"Chloe's fifteen." His voice cracked slightly at the edges. "Add the pregnancy and that's sixteen years, Stacy. Sixteen years you've been lying to me."

"Enough!" Her palm hit the table, sharp and loud. "Lucien Legion, I think all that drinking finally rotted your brain." She looked at him like he was something pathetic and small. "You're actually sitting there saying this with a straight face?"

Her tone shifted into something commanding, the voice she used on assistants and directors and anyone who worked for her. "You're coming home with me right now. And until I say otherwise, you're not going anywhere."

Something inside Lucien Legion finally snapped clean in half.

"What exactly do you think I am." His voice came out low and rough. "Some dog you can whistle for whenever it's convenient? Sit, stay, come home, good boy?"

Her eyebrows drew together, caught off guard by the venom in it.

Lucien Legion stood up slowly, his chair scraping back. "I'm not going back with you."

His hands curled into fists at his sides.

"In fact." The words stuck in his throat for a second. Sixteen years of marriage. Sixteen years of memories he used to be proud of.

He forced it out anyway. "I want a divorce."

Stacy froze completely.

"A divorce?" For the first time all day, real shock broke through her composure. "Have you lost your mind?"

The air around her turned cold in a way only years of being worshipped could produce, that natural pressure of a woman used to always getting her way.

Lucien Legion didn't flinch. He just sat back down, face gone numb and blank, like a man who had already stopped caring what happened next.

That blankness seemed to make her angrier than anything he could have shouted. Stacy grabbed her bag off the chair, spun on her heel, and stormed out, the door slamming hard enough to rattle the glasses on the table.

The private room went silent.

Lucien Legion finally let out the breath he'd been holding since he sat down.

He stared at the wall across from him for a long moment. Sixteen years. All those ordinary Tuesday nights. All those birthdays and school pickups and quiet mornings he used to think were real.

His eyes blurred without warning.

One tear slid down his cheek and he didn't bother wiping it away.

A few minutes later the door opened again.

Lucien Legion looked up.

Stacy had come back. The anger was gone from her face, smoothed over into something gentle, almost soft.

"Lucien Legion." She walked over and sat back down across from him.

"Apologize to me." Her eyes narrowed slightly, though her voice stayed calm. "Admit you said something stupid a minute ago."

Her tone turned coaxing, almost sweet. "And don't you dare bring up divorce again."

She reached across the table like she was smoothing over nothing more than a small argument between a normal husband and wife. "Promise me you'll cut back on the drinking too."

"Do that, and I'll forget this whole thing happened." A faint smile crept back onto her lips. "We'll go home together. Everything will go right back to how it was before."