Seven Years of Love Seven Minutes of Truth

Chapter 101

Chapter 10

Those long days at New York Presbyterian gavethe one thing | desperately needed: clarity.

Funny how a brush with death puts everything in perspective. All those things that seemed earth shattering

before? Now they felt like paper cuts compared to the simple gift of breathing

Before the crash, | was that typical Upper East Side wife oversensitive, anxious, perpetually seeking validation.

When faced with betrayal, I'd been paralyzed by pain and doubt, too terrified to even acknowledge what was

staringin the face. Classic Emma Pierce, always overthinking, never acting

But nearly dying? That has a way of rearranging your priorities.

| understood something fundamental now: nothing - absolutely nothing-matters more than living authentically.

Not your Architectural Digest worthy penthouse, not your carefully curated image, not even the man you thought

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would love you forever.

Living.

Really living.

Not just existing in sgilded cage on Park Avenue.

It means accepting that life can pull the rug out from under your Louboutins at any moment. It means facing

betrayal and deception - even your darkest hours - and slowly, painfully finding the strength to rebuild yourself

into something stronger.

The divorce agreement wasn’t semotional decision. While Nathan was playing house in Greenwich, | had

Sullivan & Cromwell draft an ironclad document. Mom's initial angel investment in Pierce & Associates - that

crucial 30% stake she insisted on - turned out to be my salvation. She always had a killer instinct for

investments, and Nathan's undeniable business genius turned her initial $2 million into a fortune that would

keep me

comfortable for several lifetimes.

The rest of it? The Fifth Avenue penthouse, the Harry Winston collection, the vault of Hermes Birkins, the

Hamptons estate - Nathan could keep it all. Even the Cartier Love bracelet he'd locked on my wrist on our

wedding day. Let Claire deal with his performative romance now.

Life's too precious to waste it dealing with toxic people and their manufactured . I'd watched enough

Upper East Side marriages dissolve into bitter court battles and Page Six headlines. That wouldn't be my story.

Instead of returning to our penthouse, | had my Uber taketo Mom's brownstone on 73rd Street. I'd already

had her old team from Manhattan Maintenance prep the place after meeting with the lawyers. Walking in felt like

stepping back in t- before Nathan, before the facade, when | was just Emma.

That night, wrapped in Mom's old Frette sheets, | whispered into the darkness:

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“You've got this, Emma. You survived. You're whole on your own. And that’s enough.”

06:48

Seven Years of Love, Seven Minutes &

60.2%

Chapter 10

For the first tsince walking into that Greenwich house, | felt peace. Mom had always said that true strength

isn’t about never falling it’s about how you rise. Looking around her room, filled with memories of the strongest

woman I'd ever known, | finally understood what the meant

This wasn’t an ending. This was my beginning