Claire gave the nurse a small nod. “It’s all right, Rebecca.”
Rebecca did not look convinced. “I’ll be right outside.”
“No,” Grant said abruptly. “Stay.”
Sienna turned on him. “What?”
Grant swallowed. His eyes still had not left the baby. “Stay,” he repeated, quieter. “There should be a witness.”
Claire almost smiled.
Grant Kingsley had never wanted witnesses when he was cruel. Only when he was afraid.
Sienna took another step closer to the bed. Her makeup had begun to crack near the corners of her eyes, but her voice still carried the practiced arrogance of a woman who had mistaken proximity to power for ownership of it.
“You invent a baby on my wedding day,” Sienna said, pointing toward the bundle in Claire’s arms, “and you expect him to run here like some guilty little boy? How desperate are you?”
The newborn made a soft sound in her sleep.
Claire’s hand tightened protectively.
“Lower your voice,” Claire said.
Sienna laughed. “Or what? You’ll sue me again? Cry to another judge? Leak another sob story about how the cold billionaire’s wife got abandoned?”
Grant flinched at that word—billionaire. He had spent his entire adult life carrying it like a crown. Today it hung around his neck like a stone.
Claire looked at Sienna’s dress, at the diamonds, at the perfect hair beginning to unravel beneath the veil.
“You look beautiful,” Claire said.
The insult was not in the words. It was in the calm.
Sienna’s face hardened. “Don’t.”
“Really. You do. It must be satisfying to finally wear white in public after spending so long sneaking through hotel service elevators.”
Sienna’s mouth opened.
Grant snapped, “Enough.”
Claire turned her eyes to him. “Yes. Enough would have been six months ago.”
Grant came closer. Slowly. As if the baby might explode.
“Is she mine?” he asked.
Claire reached to the bedside drawer and withdrew a thick blue folder. She placed it on the blanket near her knees.
“Noninvasive prenatal paternity test,” she said. “Chain of custody documented. Independent lab. My attorney has the original. So does the court.”
Grant stared at the folder.
“Pick it up,” Claire said.
He did not.
Sienna did.
She snatched the folder with a trembling hand, flipped it open, and scanned the first page. Her lips moved silently as she read. When she reached the second page, the blood drained from her face so quickly that even her lipstick looked too loud.
“No,” she whispered.
Grant took the folder from her.
His eyes moved down the paper.
Name of alleged father: Grant Alexander Kingsley.
Probability of paternity: 99.9998%.
He stared at the estimated date of conception.
Then he understood.
Claire saw the memory hit him.
The last week of their marriage. The storm. The fight. Grant coming home drunk from a private dinner with investors, standing in the doorway of their bedroom at two in the morning, stripped of every performance he wore for the world. He had cried that night. Actually cried. Said his father was pressuring him. Said the company was bleeding cash. Said everyone wanted him to be a machine. Said Sienna meant nothing. Said Claire was the only person who had ever known him before he became a headline.
He had crawled into her bed as if regret were love.
By sunrise, he was gone.
By noon, Sienna’s perfume was on his collar again.
“You knew,” Grant said.
“I found out two weeks after the divorce was finalized.”
His voice rose. “And you said nothing?”
“You were busy telling the world I couldn’t have children.”
The words landed harder than shouting would have.
