Seven Years of Love Seven Minutes of Truth

Chapter 10

Those long days at New York Presbyterian gave me the one thing I 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, I 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 staring me in the face. Classic Emma Pierce, always overthinking, never acting

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

I 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 would love you forever.

Living.

Really living.

just existing in some gilded cage

moment. It means facing betrayal and deception – even

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

for several

it? The Fifth Avenue penthouse, the Harry Winston collection, the vault of Hermès 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

with toxic people and their manufactured drama. I’d watched enough Upper East Side

Street. I’d already had her old team from Manhattan Maintenance prep the place

night, wrapped in Mom’s old Frette sheets,

got this, Emma. You survived. You’re whole

06:48

Years of Love,