For the first time, everything around me disappeared. The hospital lights. Garrett’s pleading. My father’s controlled fury. The unknown number burning in my phone.
All I saw was Ethan’s small hand in mine.
His voice, thin and tired.
“Is Daddy coming?”
I had lied to my dying child.
I had said yes.
My stomach folded in on itself, and a sound left me that did not sound human.
My father caught me before I hit the floor.
“Claire,” he whispered, and for the first time in my life, William Sterling sounded afraid.
Garrett stepped forward. “Let me help her.”
My father turned on him so fast the air seemed to crack.
“You help her by disappearing.”
Garrett’s mouth opened. “He was my son too.”
I lifted my head.
“No,” I said.
The word was quiet, but it stopped everyone.
Garrett stared at me.
I stood, shaking, broken, empty—and somehow more certain than I had ever been.
“Ethan was your son when he needed bedtime stories. He was your son when he had nightmares. He was your son when he begged me to call you because he wanted to be brave for Daddy.” My voice trembled, then hardened. “But tonight, when he needed you most, you were someone else’s man.”
Garrett looked like I had slapped him.
Good.
Then my father’s security chief returned, phone pressed to his ear. His expression had changed.
“Sir,” he said quietly, “the suite was not booked under Garrett’s name.”
My father narrowed his eyes. “Whose?”
The man glanced at me.
Then at Garrett.
“Melissa Hale.”
Garrett frowned. “Hale?”
My blood chilled.
