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The sob tears out of me before I can stop it. It’s an ugly, broken sound, and once it starts, I can’t stop. I haven’t cried like this since I was nine years old and sitting on the stairs of our building, waiting for a father who never came back. I cry for the version of Sebastian I believed in on the beach. I cry for the little girl on those stairs. I cry because I’m terrified, and because underneath the terror, I already love this baby so much it hurts.

When it’s over, I’m still on the floor, my face swollen, my dress finally starting to dry.

I make myself breathe. In for four. Out for four. The way I taught him on the sand.

Here is what I know.

I make good money, when I have a job. I raised two children before I was old enough to drive. I know how to fill a fridge, how to sign a permission slip, how to hold a fevered kid all night and still show up to work at eight.

I can do this alone, if I have to.

And whatever Sebastian King decides, whatever he becomes, this child will never, for one single day of their life, feel unwanted.

I get up off the floor. I wash my face. I wrap the three tests in a hand towel and tuck them into the inside pocket of my work bag, where they’ll be with me every minute, whether I’m ready or not.

My phone lights up on the counter. Sebastian. For the seventh time tonight.

I watch it ring until it stops.

I don’t tell him. I don’t tell anyone.

Not yet.

32

SEBASTIAN

Iwatch the grinding gears of New York from the executive floor, a distant symphony of progress. But today, I can almost hear the shutters of a hundred cameras clicking in unison, just waiting for my demise.

They are waiting for a King to fall.

I turn away from the window and glance at the stock ticker on my wall. The numbers are red, and they are plummeting. We are in free fall, and I am the pilot of a plane with no engines.

The doctored report glows on the monitor. The cursor blinks at the end of the executive summary, a steady, rhythmic pulse that mirrors the headache pounding at my temples.

Jenkins and Vance.

I repeat the names in my head, trying to turn them into something theoretical. If I can just see them as names on a page and nothing else, I can do this. I have to do this. Isabella called it unjust, but she doesn’t understand the scale of it. She sees two people, whereas I see employees, pension funds, and a global infrastructure that would shatter if the King name were dragged through the mud of a criminal conspiracy.

I go to speed-dial the head of our litigation department, but I can’t quite force my finger to push the button. They won’t fight if the DOJ action against them is enough that I can’t make it go away. And if Isabella tries to release any information, it will make her look like a co-conspirator. She’ll have zero credibility.

I have enough power and money to manipulate this however I want.

You’re no better than your father.

Isabella’s words—her voice—ring through my head. That warm, melodic tone that’s been bringing me peace now feels like a serrated blade.

I’m justifying ruining people’s lives so I can continue to survive, so our name can endure, remain untarnished. Instead of punishing my father, I’m punishing people who did nothing wrong.

I think about the portraits of my father and grandfather on the wall in Dad’s office, the great patriarchs of the King name, one of whom died entirely alone, save for medical staff, and the other who has driven everyone away.

They built this empire by breaking people.

Same as what I’m about to do.

I pick up my mobile phone. I’ve called Isabella twelve times in the last three hours. I know she won’t pick up. She probably has my number blocked by now.

I try again.