Chapter 8
I remember lying in a dark room afterward while Julian texted me from the airport.
How are you?
I never answered.
Three months later, his lawyer called.
Not Julian.
His lawyer.
I was sitting in our apartment at the dining table when the number appeared.
“Mrs. Duval, I represent Julian regarding a confidential marital separation.”
For several seconds, I thought there had been a mistake.
“What?”
The lawyer began speaking carefully.
Respectfully.
Professionally.
As if my marriage were a transaction that had moved into its closing stage.
By the time Julian came home that evening, I had already read the proposed agreement.
He entered carrying his phone and removed his coat.
“You had your lawyer call me?”
He stopped.
“I was going to talk to you.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“After the lawyer?”
“I wanted the documents prepared so we could have a rational conversation.”
I laughed.
That word.
Rational.
Julian looked tired.
“Khloe, we haven’t been okay for a long time.”
“My miscarriage was three months ago.”
His jaw tightened.
“That’s not fair.”
“Fair?”
“You’re making this about that.”
“It is about that.”
“No, it’s about years of us being unhappy.”
I stared at him.
I had spent those years building beside him.
Defending him.
Explaining him to myself.
“Are you seeing someone?”
“No.”
The answer came too fast.
One week after the official statement announced that we had “decided to part ways amicably,” photographers caught Julian leaving a Miami hotel with a twenty-four-year-old model.
Not Dalia.
Someone before Dalia.
That detail hurt more than it should have.
Not because I cared who she was.
Because it proved how replaceable I had been.
The headlines were vicious.
JULIAN DUVAL MOVES ON.
TECH TITAN SPOTTED WITH YOUNGER BEAUTY AFTER DIFFICULT MARRIAGE.
SOURCES SAY FERTILITY STRUGGLES PUT PRESSURE ON DUVAL UNION.
One article described me as “emotionally withdrawn following repeated pregnancy losses.”
Another claimed Julian had “stood by his wife through years of heartbreak.”
He never corrected them.
Not once.
He had a publicist.
He had lawyers.
He had access to every journalist who mattered.
He could have said one sentence.
Do not blame my former wife for our divorce.
He didn’t.
I left the country the next morning.
For two years, I disappeared.
Not because Julian had won.
Because I had forgotten how to exist while everyone was watching me lose.
London gave me anonymity.
At least enough of it.
I used my maiden name professionally.