Victoria: You hit me! A billionaire CEO laid his hands on a high-society heiress!
Julian: I should have thrown you out the security gates months ago, Victoria!
Victoria: I am your legal wife under Texas law! I have every right to manage this estate and its residents!
Julian: You have zero right to touch my child, and zero right to abuse her!
Victoria scrambled backward on her elbows, her white robe soaked in cold coffee and garden dirt.
Victoria: My father owns thirty percent of the voting shares in Sterling Logistics, Julian!
Julian: Your father doesn't own a single dime in my company anymore, Victoria.
Victoria: What are you talking about?! The shareholder proxy was renewed by the board on Friday!
Julian: Your father was arrested at his country club forty minutes ago by federal marshals.
Victoria froze on the stone steps, all the color draining from her lips until she looked like chalk.
Victoria: Arrested...? That's a ridiculous lie! My father is having breakfast with the district attorney in Houston!
Julian: The district attorney signed his federal indictment at dawn, Victoria.
Victoria: You're bluffing! You're making up insane fairy tales to cover your domestic assault on your wife!
Julian: You are not my wife, Victoria. You never were.
Victoria: We had a wedding ceremony in front of five hundred high-society guests in Dallas!
Julian: A ceremony built on forged foreign documents and criminal fraud.
Julian reached inside his tailored suit coat, pulling out a thick manila legal folder stamped with a crimson seal.
He threw the heavy envelope down onto the stone steps right in front of her trembling knees.
Julian: Open it, Victoria. Read page four aloud so Isabella can hear what kind of predator entered our home.
Victoria's manicured hands shook so hard the paper rustled loudly against the stone.
Victoria: 'State of Texas, Probate Division... Certified Annulment Decree'...
Julian: Keep reading, Victoria. Read the red stamp across the center of the certificate.
Victoria: 'Marriage declared void ab initio... Due to active legal marriage of Victoria Vance to Mark Lawson in Nassau'...
Julian: You committed felony bigamy to get your hands on my late wife's family trust fund.
Victoria: Mark signed the foreign separation papers! He swore to me that the Bahamian registry was dissolved!
Julian: Mark kept the unsealed marriage license in his private corporate safe to blackmail your father for four million dollars.
Victoria: That greedy, lying little accountant! He promised me on his life the record was burned!
Julian: Mark surrendered the original marriage certificate to the FBI this morning in exchange for full immunity.
Isabella walked up the steps with small, hesitant hops, burying her tear-streaked face into Julian's trousers.
Isabella: Daddy... My wrists sting so bad. Can we wash the dirt off?
Julian knelt down instantly, wrapping his arm around his daughter's waist with gentle, protective warmth.
Julian: You're safe now, sweetheart. She's leaving this estate forever!
Isabella: Thank you, Daddy!
Victoria: Julian, please! Think about our social reputation! Think about what the country club will say!
Julian: The country club will be reading your mugshot on the front page of tomorrow morning's paper, Victoria.
Victoria: I am still entitled to the twenty-million-dollar prenuptial settlement! You signed the guarantee!
Julian: A prenuptial agreement based on an illegal, bigamous marriage is completely null under federal statute.
Victoria: You planned this whole trap! You knew about Mark weeks ago and let me stay here anyway!
Julian: I needed to find out why your father was embezzling millions from our employee pension reserve, Victoria.
Victoria's hands dropped into the spilled coffee, her eyes darting frantically toward the front driveway.
From beyond the high wrought-iron security gates, the piercing wail of police sirens began to echo down the long tree-lined avenue.