Victoria: "Julian! What are you doing home so early? You were supposed to be in the city until eight!"
Julian: "Look at her, Victoria! Look at what you just did to my four-year-old daughter!"
Victoria: "Don't yell at me in my own house! The girl was throwing a tantrum and refused to sit still for her tutor!"
Julian: "So you poured a bucket of melting ice water over her head in the middle of the living room?!"
Victoria: "It was a sensory correction technique! My mother used it on me when I was child, and it taught me discipline!"
Julian: "That isn't discipline! That is physical abuse!"
Julian pulled his warm jacket tighter around Lily, holding her damp head against his chest as her body continued to shudder from the shock. The scratch on her cheek was bleeding slightly, staining the collar of his expensive white shirt red.
Lily: "Daddy... she hurt me... she said you didn't love me anymore..."
Julian: "Shhh, baby girl. Daddy loves you more than life itself. Nobody is ever going to hurt you again."
Victoria: "Stop coddling her, Julian! You spoil that child because you feel guilty about Sarah's death! It's pathetic!"
Julian: "Do not bring my late wife's name out of your filthy mouth!"
Victoria: "I am your wife now! I run this household, and I decide how your daughter is raised!"
Julian: "You are a monster who stepped into this family thinking you could torture a motherless child while I was at work!"
Victoria: "I am trying to make her respectable! Look at her, sitting there sniveling like a lower-class street kid!"
Julian: "She is four years old! She's a baby!"
Julian stood up carefully, cradling Lily on his left hip while using his right hand to pull out his phone from his pocket.
Victoria: "Who are you calling? Put that phone away!"
Julian: "I'm calling Dr. Vance to get an emergency pediatric team here, and then I'm calling the police."
Victoria: "The police?! Are you insane?! You would call the authorities on your own wife over a little cold water?!"
Julian: "You scratched her face and subjected an infant to hypothermic trauma! You're lucky I don't throw you into a frozen lake myself!"
Victoria: "Julian, think about the press! Think about the Sterling family foundation! If the media hears about domestic disputes in Palm Beach, our stock prices will plummet!"
Julian: "I don't give a damn about stock prices! My daughter's life is worth more than every share in my company!"
Victoria: "You can't prove I did anything wrong! It's your word against mine! I'll tell the judge she tripped and fell into the cooler during a garden party!"
Julian: "You really think you're smart, don't you, Victoria?"
Victoria: "I know how the law works, darling. Without witnesses or direct video proof, no prosecutor in Florida will take this case."
Julian let out a cold, bitter laugh that rang through the grand marble hallway. He tapped his phone screen, unlocking the house's integrated security app.
Julian: "Did you really think I didn't notice you moving the living room cameras yesterday?"
Victoria's smug expression wavered slightly, her sharp posture stiffening as she glared at him.
Victoria: "What are you talking about?"
Julian: "You pointed the main foyer camera toward the garden doors, thinking it would create a blind spot around the seating area. But you forgot about the nanny cams hidden inside the chandelier light fixtures."