Chapter 11

Victoria put her car keys away and walked over to greet Leon's parents. "Hi, Samuel. Hi, Eleanor." "Oh, shut up." Eleanor Thompson sneered. Though she wore an elegant dress, it did nothing to soften her sharpness. Victoria wasn't offended. She'd always know that Eleanor and Samuel Quigley didn't like her. Throughout her years of marriage, she'd barely interacted with them, partly because Leon didn't want her to suffer their cold treatment, and partly because he didn't have a great relationship with them either. As a result, they hardly spent time together apart from Thanksgiving dinners. "Where's Leon?" Samuel asked, and his expression was stern. Perhaps it was out of defiance, or perhaps she'd just given up caring, but Victoria replied with just three words: "I don't know." "I heard you two are getting divorced?" Samuel looked up and gave off an almost suffocating pressure. Victoria instinctively glanced upstairs. As if reading her mind, Samuel said, "Edwin isn't home. I had someone take him out to play. He won't be back for another hour." Just after he spoke, Victoria received a text on her phone. It was from Edwin. "Why bother wasting words with her?" Eleanor impatiently snapped and looked at Victoria with utter contempt. "Let me get straight to the point. We're here for one reason—to settle who gets custody of Edwin after the divorce." Victoria's fingers curled slightly. Susie had been right. "Leon," Victoria said and tried to avoid unnecessary trouble. Leon probably hadn't told them, given his strained relationship with his parents. If she said she'd gotten custody of Edwin, they would surely make a fuss. They might not let her pick him up from school, or worse, forbid them from meeting at all. "Then explain this." Samuel produced a set of divorce papers. Victoria took it and scanned its contents. It was identical to the one they'd submitted. How had the two gotten their hands on the divorce papers? Samuel firmly declared, "I don't know what you did to get Leon to give you custody of Edwin, but now you're going to give it back. He's a son of the Quigley family, and there's no way he's leaving with an outsider like you." "If a mother's an outsider, what about you two?" Victoria countered. "Don't test my patience, Victoria. Don't push your luck." Samuel's expression turned grave as his impatience surfaced. Yet Victoria couldn't stand their arrogance. "I'm Edwin's mother, and I have every right to raise him." "You don't have a job, so how are you going to do that?" Eleanor's words struck a nerve, and her contempt was evident. "I didn't have a job because I was managing our home. No one considered that a job or paid me for it. Now that I'll be working, I'll have an income," Victoria calmly retorted. Though she'd been well-protected, that didn't mean she couldn't tell what the right thing to do was. "And what does that even matter?" Eleanor scoffed. Victoria met her gaze as she continued, "What you earn won't even be enough to buy Edwin a single outfit." "The child's custody will go to us," Samuel finally said after a long silence. His tone carried a weight of finality as he said, "Name your price." Watching them, Victoria became even more certain that Edwin should never grow up in such an environment. After a moment of silence, she threw the problem back at them, knowing they couldn't afford the price she was about to name. "Give me all of Leon's shares in Quigley Corporation." "Dream on!" Eleanor instantly exploded and was convinced she was after their wealth. Victoria calmly said, "You were the ones who came up with such an absurd idea." Eleanor's chest heaved in anger, while Samuel's expression darkened dangerously.