Among All The Stars I Found You Chapter 17
He was silent for a long time.
At last, he said quietly, “I’m sorry.”
I had waited seven years to hear those words.
But when I finally did, I wasn’t as heartbroken as I’d imagined I would be.
I sent all the screenshots from the alumni group and the airport photo to my lawyer.
Then I went into our bedroom and opened the bottom drawer of my nightstand.
The note Juliette had left all those years ago was still inside.
The paper was yellowed with age.
But every word was still perfectly clear.
Preston stood behind me. When he saw the line about sending Leo to a child placement agency, his breathing grew heavy.
“Why did you keep this?”
“At first, I was afraid she’d come back and accuse me of stealing her child.”
I slipped the note into a document envelope.
“I just never thought that day would actually come.”
The next morning, Juliette appeared outside the Rhodes Group building.
A crowd of reporters trailed behind her.
When she saw Preston and me getting out of the car together, her eyes immediately reddened.
“Selena, why did it have to come to this between us?”
I almost laughed.
She was the one who posted the photo.
And now she was acting like I had forced her into this confrontation.
The reporters swarmed us.
“Miss Pierce, did you really impersonate Juliette and trick Mr. Rhodes into marrying you?”
“Whose child is Leo, exactly?”
“Are the two of you getting a divorce?”
Preston stepped in front of me.
I tugged lightly on his sleeve.
“I’ll speak for myself.”
I pulled our marriage certificate out of the envelope.
“I did not impersonate Juliette to marry anyone.”
“Seven years ago, the man who registered our marriage was named Preston Rhodes. And the man standing beside me now is also named Preston Rhodes.”
The tears on Juliette’s face froze.
She probably hadn’t expected me to produce the certificate on the spot.
“But you knew everyone thought he was Patrick.”
“That’s the Rhodes family’s business.”
I looked straight at her.
“When you were dating Patrick, you called him Preston. That doesn’t mean the real Preston belongs to you.”
The crowd fell quiet.
Juliette bit her lip.
“What about Leo?”
At last, she played what she thought was her trump card.
“I gave birth to Leo.”
“What right does someone with no blood relation to him have to call herself his mother?”
My palms were sweating.
The words still stung.
But I didn’t back down.
I took out the old note and held it up for her to see.
“After you told me to send him to a child placement agency, I was the one who raised him.”
“If you really want to talk about rights, we can do it in court.”
Juliette stared at the note, and her face went white.Â