One Drunk Night With My Ex's Rival

Sophia's POV

The lawyer's voice filters through the air like it's traveling underwater. Everything feels distant, muted.

"Please sign here, Ms. Reed."

My fingers hover over the signature line, trembling just enough that I notice. Stacks of documents sprawl across the polished conference table. The nineteenth version of our property settlement agreement. Nineteenth. The pen stays suspended above the paper, refusing to drop.

Seven years. Seven fucking years boiled down to this pile of paper and a list of assets I should've claimed years ago. The eighty-million-dollar villa. Company shares. Investment portfolios. It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Seven years of my life traded for cold numbers on legal documents.

The memory hits without warning. Three years ago, standing under crystal chandeliers in that custom wedding gown. Michael promising we'd find time to register at city hall. But three years passed, and his time always belonged somewhere else. To the company. To business dinners. To those young, pretty faces that kept rotating through his life. No marriage certificate. Just a performance.

Four years dating, watching him climb from bankruptcy to wealth. Three years in a marriage that existed only in name. The first affair. The second. The third. Then Emma. They revised this agreement nineteen times because he kept finding excuses to delay. Not this time.

I pick up the pen. The signature flows across the page. Sophia Reed. Smooth and unhesitating.

The lawyer blinks. "Ms. Reed, you... you signed it?"

I slide the documents back across the table. "It's what he wanted. Now he's free to marry his Emma."

The door crashes open before the lawyer can respond. I don't need to look up. Those footsteps are burned into my memory. Rushed, heavy, laced with that anxiety he thinks he hides so well.

Michael bursts into the room, tie loosened, hair disheveled, panic bleeding through his carefully maintained facade. I watch him the way you'd watch a stranger on the street. With detached curiosity and nothing more.

"Wait, Sophia, you actually signed it?" His voice cracks slightly.

I meet his eyes, keeping my voice level. Calm. "Isn't this what you wanted? I sign, you get your freedom. Go marry your Emma."

He moves toward the table, reaching for the agreement. The lawyer hands it over. Michael flips through the pages frantically, his face draining of color with each one. His hands shake.

"You didn't ask for anything extra? The villa, the company shares, the investments... you just took what I offered?"

I stand, gathering my bag with deliberate movements. "You offered it, why wouldn't I take it? I went from nothing to everything with you. This is what I earned."

He opens his mouth to speak, but the door swings open again.

Emma glides in wearing white. Of course it's white. Her arm linked through Michael's like she's claiming territory. The smile on her face doesn't quite hide the triumph underneath. She looks like a cat that's cornered a mouse.

She makes a point of walking directly to me, one hand drifting to her stomach in that practiced gesture meant to draw attention. Her eyes glitter with challenge.

"Sophia... thank you for letting us be together." Her voice drips with false sweetness. "I know this is hard for you, but Michael and I, we're really in love."

She pauses for effect, palm pressing against her belly. "And the baby needs both parents."

I watch her performance with complete detachment. Three months ago, this might have destroyed me. I might have cried, screamed, broken down. But now, with my own secret growing inside me, her little show means nothing. This pregnancy, this child. They're my ticket out of this shitshow of a marriage.

I don't say anything. Just pick up my bag and head for the door.

"Michael, remember to transfer the funds quickly. And the property deed, get it done soon."

I don't spare Emma a single glance as I walk past.

"Sophia!" Michael's voice follows me.

My hand closes around the door handle. I don't turn around. "Good luck with your new family, Michael."

The door clicks shut behind me. It sounds like an ending.

The beach house sits quiet in the fading light, waves crashing in the distance. I stand at the floor-to-ceiling windows, watching the ocean darken from blue to grey. I bought this place three months ago, tucked away in a coastal town where Michael would never think to look. My hand rests on my stomach. Still flat, still hiding its secret.

I kick off my heels and pour myself water, sinking into the couch. The sky outside bleeds from gold to purple as evening settles in.

Three months ago. That night. The worst moment of my life, and somehow, the moment everything changed.

I close my eyes, and I'm back there.

The art gallery opening. I'd waited two hours in that carefully chosen evening gown, checking my phone every five minutes. Then his text arrived.

Last-minute important meeting. Go by yourself.

My birthday. He forgot my fucking birthday.

I went anyway. Stood on that terrace in my designer dress, nursing champagne and feeling hollow. Then the drones appeared. A swarm of lights forming letters against the night sky. "Emma, I Love You."

My birthday gift became his public declaration to another woman. In front of everyone who mattered in LA's elite circles, he chose her.

I left. Walked until I found a jazz bar, dark and anonymous. Ordered drink after drink until the edges blurred.

The rest of the night dissolved into fragments. Waking up in an unfamiliar bed. Sunlight streaming through expensive curtains.

My eyes snap open. The beach house materializes around me again, solid and real. My phone rings, jarring in the silence. Unknown number.

I stare at the screen, finger hovering over the decline button. Something makes me answer instead.

"Hello?" Cautious.

That voice. Low, magnetic, unmistakable. My heart stutters.

"Sophia Reed. Three months. You made me search really fucking hard."

My fingers tighten around the phone. My breath catches. That night flashes through my mind. Fragmented, hazy, undeniable.

I hang up. My hand is shaking.

I knew this day would come eventually. The consequences always catch up.

I close my eyes, hand pressed against my stomach where new life grows in secret.

My grip on the phone turns white-knuckled.

I just didn't think it would be now.