Chapter 3

Oak Manor's study smelled of cigars and aged leather. Arthur Sterling sat in a high-backed chair by the fireplace, like a weathered mountain that still refused to fall.

"Grandfather." My voice sounded small in the spacious room.

He lifted his eyes. Gray-blue, sharp as a hawk's. He assessed me head to toe, then let his gaze land on my lower belly—flat now, nothing left but an invisible hollowness.

He asked nothing.

"Seven years ago, I handed the docks to you outright as your twentieth birthday gift," he said slowly, voice low and steady. "You said you wanted to give them to a ‘kind and clean' young man."

He looked at my pallor again. "And now they've become that so-called ‘Sterling princess's' dowry."

"I trusted the wrong person," I said quietly.

Grandfather fell silent for a moment, then took a slow sip of liquor. "If you've never misjudged, how would you ever judge correctly?"

"But," he set the glass down, "what Sterling gives away in error—Sterling takes back."

"I will." I watched the fire flicker. "I want everything he has."

He held my gaze for a few seconds, then nodded. He said no more. That silence itself was consent.

When I left the study, I found Naomi in the adjacent war room. Data streamed across a massive screen—subsidiaries under Crescent Entertainment, a company within the family's holding group. It was the company Natalie had signed with.

"So this is her so-called ‘Sterling backing'?" I asked.

Naomi nodded.

"Because you helped Mitchell coordinate portions of this information years ago, the person in charge misunderstood and gave Morrow contracts and endorsements far beyond her commercial value." Naomi pulled up several internal approval documents. "And Mitchell clearly drew the wrong conclusion."

Absurd. I tugged at the corner of my mouth.

"Prepare the materials and evidence I sent you." With what I knew of Abraham, it wasn't hard to predict his next move—an engagement.

"They need a show. A show big enough to restore confidence."

I shut the screen off. "And it's time we delivered the gift."

*

The next afternoon at three, the Peninsula Hotel's ballroom glittered with perfume and silk, camera flashes bright as midday. Abraham had an arm around Natalie's waist, standing beneath an arch drenched in flowers, smiling for the lenses.

"…My union with Natalie is the destination of love, and also a shared commitment between two like-minded families to the future of our事业…" Abraham's voice boomed through the microphone.

At that moment, a side door opened.

I walked in alone, wearing a sharply tailored black suit. At first no one noticed—until I cut through the crowd and headed straight for the stage. Whispers spread like ripples.

"Who's that?"

"She looks kind of familiar… God, is she the obsessed follower Mitchell mentioned?"

"What is she doing here? Looking to humiliate herself?"

"Where's security? How did they let someone like that in?"

Abraham saw me. His speech snapped off. The smile on his face froze, then turned rapidly into shock and anger. Natalie lifted a brow, a contemptuous smile unhidden, like she was watching a stray cat wander into a gala.

Abraham flicked a look toward the side of the stage. His two bodyguards immediately strode toward me. But before they could touch me, three men in black suits—lean, capable, unfamiliar—slid in silently, cutting between us. They didn't move fast, but their posture carried an unquestionable pressure.

Abraham frowned. He clearly didn't know them.

In that brief standoff and under countless eyes, I walked to the front of the stage.

"Congratulations on your engagement, Abraham." My voice carried calmly through the room. "On a day this important, I came specifically to deliver a gift."

The moment the words left my mouth, a blizzard of paper suddenly drifted down from the second-floor balcony. It fluttered and spun—like snow falling out of nowhere.

People caught sheets and looked down.

The gasps exploded.

Photos—so many photos. Abraham and Natalie kissing on a private yacht. Natalie slipping in and out of our apartment building late at night—wearing my silk robe. And countless hotel-corridor security stills of the two of them holding each other as they entered a room.

And on top of it all: a photocopy of my marriage certificate with Abraham, and—a confirmed intrauterine early pregnancy report.

"Oh my God…" A female reporter clapped a hand over her mouth, pointing at Natalie. "Then she… she's the mistress?!"

"Look at the dates! Mitchell's been married seven years! This actress only latched onto him last year!"

"So this engagement today… is a mistress's promotion party?"

"Then the one who came in—she's the real Mrs. Mitchell?!"

Gasps and disgusted murmurs surged like a wave. Reporters' cameras went wild, snapping the falling evidence, then the two pale faces onstage, then me.

Abraham stomped hard onto an explicit photo of himself and Natalie in bed, his face turning the color of liver as he bellowed at me: "Genevieve! Are you out of your mind?! Smearing me with this forged trash! Just because you can't have me, you're going to use this disgusting method to slander my wife and child?!"

Natalie snapped into motion too, shrieking into the microphone: "Security! Throw this crazy woman out! And if you won't—when the Sterling people arrive, you won't even be able to leave!"

The word "Sterling" made the room's noise dip—just for a beat—as every gaze swung to her again, wary and newly excited.

"Sterling? That old-school underground syndicate?"

"…How does she know Sterling people?"

"Don't tell me she's—"

The looks around them clearly bolstered Natalie's confidence, polishing her face with borrowed glory. The expression steadied the already-panicking Abraham, too. He lifted his chin and sneered at me.

"Gen, don't say I didn't warn you—if you're going to run, do it now. Otherwise, in a minute you'll—"

Right then—

"Creeeak—"

The ballroom's two heavy gilded doors began to open, slowly.

A figure appeared in the doorway.

In that instant, the uproar was like someone hit mute.

"Th-that is… Arthur Sterling!"