counter, ripped down one side.
“She destroyed it,” Derek snapped. “Ten thousand dollars, Claire. Your daughter needs to learn consequences.”
My daughter.
Not our daughter.
Those words told me everything.
Vanessa folded her arms. “Children get jealous. She probably saw me here and threw a tantrum.”
Sophie looked at me desperately.
I walked past Derek without answering, knelt, and took Sophie’s trembling hand.
“Come upstairs.”
“Claire, I’m talking to you.”
“I heard you.”
That seemed to unsettle him more than screaming would have.
Inside Sophie’s bedroom, I locked the door
