I Married My Ex's Billionaire Father-Chapter 277: Old Wounds

Lyse stood in front of her mirror, smoothing a hand down the crisp emerald blouse she’d chosen. It brought out the warmth in her skin and the subtle flecks of green in her eyes details Brandon always complimented her on whenever he wanted something.

She forced herself not to dwell on that thought.

Today was supposed to be... productive. Neutral. Strictly business.

Brandon had pitched a collaboration between her fashion line and an influencer he managed, something high-visibility, mutually beneficial, and honestly much needed for her brand’s current momentum. She hadn’t forgiven him, not really, but she also wasn’t in a place where she could afford to turn away smart opportunities.

Levi had told her once to be careful about mixing business and emotional wounds.

She ignored the way the memory squeezed her chest.

Lyse clipped on her earrings, grabbed her purse, and checked her phone one last time before heading out.

A new message glowed across the screen.

Her breath stalled.

Lottie.

She froze.

For a moment she didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t blink. She simply stared at the notification as if it might dissolve if she looked long enough.

But it didn’t.

Her thumb hovered.

And then, finally, reluctantly she opened it.

The message was short. Shaky. Rambling.

But the words hit her with the force of a physical blow.

Lyse, please...

They arrested me.

Fraud. Murder.

Please come. I need to speak with you. I have something to tell you.

Please, baby. I know you hate me but...

Come. Please.

Lyse felt the oxygen leave her lungs.

She stood in the quiet room, surrounded by her own reflection poised, composed, every line of her outfit perfect yet she felt like she was collapsing inward.

"Fraud."

"Murder."

The words looked foreign on the screen and yet... not surprising.

Not after everything she’d learned in the past months.

Her childhood was a patchwork of Lottie’s cruelty, slaps disguised as discipline, insults framed as concern, manipulation wrapped in the language of motherhood. And yet, beneath all of it, Lyse had clung to the idea that Lottie must have loved her a little. Somehow. Somewhere.

Because the alternative was too painful to face.

Her fingers trembled as she set the phone down on her vanity.

Lottie. Arrested.

For a moment, Lyse tried to swallow the strange, aching mixture of feelings curling through her chest shock, resentment, guilt... and an old instinct she hated herself for still having.

She needs me.

No.

No, that wasn’t true.

She didn’t need Lyse. She needed to save herself.

She always had.

Lyse sank onto the edge of her bed, elbows on her knees, her heartbeat thundering in her ears.

Why now?

Why reach out like this?

Why use baby, a word she hadn’t heard from Lottie since she was eight years old?

The phone buzzed again.

She jumped.

Another message.

Lyse please... they won’t let me call anyone else.

You’re all I have left.

Please come. I’m scared.

Lyse shut her eyes tightly.

Damn it.

Damn it, damn it, damn it.

She knew Brandon would be on his way soon. He hated being kept waiting, loved being the one in control of every schedule. The collaboration meeting was important for her. Her brand needed the exposure. Her team had already been working on mockups and proposals.

She should go.

And yet—

Visions of Lottie sitting in a cold white interrogation room flickered through her mind, pale, frantic, desperate.

Images of a woman who raised her... badly, terribly but raised her all the same.

Memories pressed against her skull like a storm:

Watching Lottie brush Brooke’s hair lovingly.

Seeing her send Brooke to sleep with kisses and sweet stories that lulled her to sleep.

All the things she had yearned for from her mother but never got.

Her throat tightened.

This wasn’t supposed to hurt anymore.

But it did. Deeply.

Her phone rang this time, loud, vibrating hard against her vanity.

Lyse flinched.

Brandon’s name flashed across the screen.

She stared at it, suddenly nauseous.

She wasn’t ready to talk to him. Or to go out pretending that her life wasn’t cracking open in a dozen directions. She wasn’t sure she could smile through a business pitch and pretend everything was fine when it wasn’t.

The phone continued to ring.

Lyse pressed her palms to her face, breathing through the suffocating panic.

Another message from Lottie arrived under Brandon’s missed call.

Come before they transfer me.

Please. I can’t tell anyone but you.

It’s about your mother.

Lyse’s heart stopped.

Her real mother.

Maeve.

The name felt like a wound and a whisper all at once.

For months she had been circling this touching it, flinching away, edging closer without meaning to. Bella and Ken had both tried to tell her things she wasn’t ready to hear.

But Lottie?

Why would Lottie have anything to tell her about Maeve now?

Unless...

Unless she knew something.

Unless she had been the missing puzzle piece all along.

Unless she was finally being forced into honesty by the one thing she couldn’t manipulate:

Consequences.

Lyse stood up slowly, hands trembling, knees unsteady.

Her carefully planned morning dissolved into dust.

The collaboration.

The pitch.

Brandon.

None of it mattered compared to this.

But going to see Lottie meant opening wounds she wasn’t sure she could survive.

It meant letting the woman who ruined her childhood speak into her present. It meant giving Lottie power she no longer deserved. It meant walking straight back into a past she had barely escaped.

Her phone buzzed again, another missed call from Brandon.

Lyse inhaled sharply and silenced the device.

She needed a moment. She needed clarity. She needed air.

She moved to the window, resting her hand against the cool glass.

Cars drifted by. People rushed to work. The city moved with its usual heartbeat, unaware that hers had just stuttered into chaos.

Finally, she whispered into the empty room:

"I don’t owe her anything."

But her voice wavered. She did not even sound believeable.

Because she knew, deep down that wasn’t entirely true.

She owed the truth to herself.

She owed her pain acknowledgment.

She owed her mother, whoever Maeve had truly been, one last chance at answers.

And if those answers were locked behind the bars Lottie now found herself behind...

Then Lyse would have to face her.

Even if it broke her. Even if she had to relieve old wounds.