Chapter 2

Victoria stood at the door and looked at the scene in front of her.

Claire was wearing a perfectly tailored cream-colored suit. She stood beside Stephen, leaning over slightly as she pointed at the documents on the desk, every angle of her profile just right. Stephen lounged against the back of his chair, suit jacket tossed aside, shirt sleeves rolled up to his forearms, a pen spinning lazily between his fingers.

How would the Victoria from her last life have reacted to this?

She would have cried. She would have rushed in and demanded whether he was sleeping with Claire. She would have torn the papers to shreds in a hysterical fit, pointed at Claire and called her a homewrecker, then ended up being dragged out by security. Even when signing the divorce papers, her hands would have shaken so badly she couldn't steady her signature.

But in this life, she wasn't crying anymore.

"Mr. Foster." Victoria pushed the door open and walked in, her voice so calm it surprised even her.

Stephen lifted his eyes to look at her, his gaze lingering on her face for a second. He was probably wondering why this woman wasn't crying or making a scene today.

Claire spoke first. "Vicky, this is the final version of the divorce agreement. Take a look and see if there's anything you'd like changed." She handed over the document in a gentle tone, like she was soothing a child throwing a tantrum.

Victoria didn't take it.

Instead, she pulled out a document from her own bag and set it down on the redwood desk in front of Stephen. Not hard, not soft, just enough to make a sharp smack.

"Use mine."

Stephen's brow twitched. Claire lowered her head for one look, and her face changed instantly.

"Vicky, the asset list on this..." Claire's voice tightened. "Things the Foster family gave you don't have to be returned under the law."

"I'm not talking about what the Foster family gave me." Victoria looked at her and spoke slowly, without the slightest rush. "I'm talking about what belongs to me. I paid about 160,000 dollars for the interior furnishings in Foster Villa. Of the three properties under Stephen's name, half of the mortgage payments made after marriage belong to me. And the dividends Foster Group paid out during the marriage are marital assets under the law."

The study fell silent for a moment.

Stephen set down his pen and finally looked at her properly. His eyes were deep, like a lake in winter, impossible to read. In her last life, Victoria had always been scared when he looked at her like that. She'd always felt like the next thing out of his mouth would cut her to pieces.

Now she wasn't scared anymore.

"Which lawyer did you hire?" Stephen asked.

"Does it matter?"

"You never understood this kind of stuff before."

"People change, Mr. Foster." Victoria nudged the file farther toward him. "Sign it. You want to marry your secretary. I want what's mine. We both get what we want, and nobody wastes anyone else's time."

Claire's face turned white.

Stephen stared at Victoria for a full five seconds, then picked up his pen, flipped to the last page, and signed his name.

Victoria looked at that signature. In her last life, seeing it had made her cry so hard she couldn't breathe. In this life, all she felt was relief.

Like a boulder she'd carried on her back for way too long had finally been lifted.