She wore hunter green cotton pajamas that weren’t exactly the pinnacle of bedtime glamour. No makeup, no jewelry. Her lips were thinned into a line of displeasure, and her brow was furrowed, making her look older. But her bare feet were peeping out from beneath the hems of her pajama pants, and she had a tuft of platinum blonde hair sticking up from behind one ear.

Jules’s stomach plummeted right down into her feet. Fuck. Oh…oh fuck.

Vivian looked up and scowled.

Jules immediately took a step back, her heart beating painfully hard. “I didn’t think you’d be up yet.”

“Surprise,” Vivian said testily. She tucked the tuft of hair back behind her ear before Jules could protest that it was adorable, which would have been unbelievably stupid.

She clutched her coffee mug tighter instead. “I’ll just go back to the kitchen.” Maybe when she got away from Vivian she would remember how to swallow, breathe, and do other things that would help her stay alive and drink the coffee.

She’d already turned to go when Vivian said, “No. Stay here. Look at this.” She held out her phone.

Jules was already extending her hand when she realized that this was Vivian’s personal phone, not the one she used for Du Jour business. People didn’t just do that. Jules hadn’t let anybody look at her own phone since Aaron, and even then it had always made her nervous.

She took a deep breath and accepted the phone with a hand that shook only a bit. She hoped Vivian would put it down to fatigue. But no, Vivian was looking out the window onto the still-dark street, not paying attention to her at all.

“Preston sent that email sometime last night when we were gone,” she said.

Jules sat down in the nearest chair, set her coffee aside, and studied the phone. It was the legal document about Robert’s agreement to give Vivian full custody of the baby and to relinquish visitation rights. Robert had had to sign and initial it about fifty million times. He hadn’t missed a single blank space. All the t’s were crossed, all the i’s were dotted, and all the dates were in good order.

“Oh,” Jules said. This seemed like a good thing, but her chest felt heavy.

“I want this done.” Vivian tapped her fingertips on the windowsill in agitation. “I want it final.”

Jules couldn’t blame Vivian—Robert clearly wanted out as soon as possible too. But people could change their minds once they were presented with the practical rather than the theoretical. Once the baby was born, it was entirely possible that he would want to share custody or at least be a part of his or her life.